Video Transcript: Lament 2 - The Divine Declarations

We're looking at the lamentation is one of those small books in the Bible that is rarely read  and carries with it a great impact theologically. The book of Lamentations is five short laments or poems of sorrow and destruction that we find attached to the end of the prophecy of  Jeremiah. The reason for that is because Jeremiah is usually considered to be the author of  the laments. That's not necessarily the case. But it certainly makes a lot of sense, because  Jeremiah lives at the times that the laments talk about the destruction of Jerusalem and the  temple. And the voice that comes through in the laments is very similar to the voice of  Jeremiah and the prophecies that he brings to us. Again, there are five laments the first four  of those are acrostic, meaning that the various units of the poems themselves begin with  successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, sort of like the complete story from A to Z. In the  Hebrew language, 22 letters, that means that the 22 sections and in this case with laments,  one and two, that there are three couplets, three double lines of Hebrew poetry. The first  among those three starts with Alef and then the next set of three couplets or six lines, begins  with a letter, Bet, etc, all the way through and that's why you have the structure that you do  and the number of verses that you see in the translations you're using. Lament number one  was the voice of the woman, Jerusalem as she was experiencing the pain of her loss. She  knows that this has happened because of her own sinfulness, but she still feels it deeply. Like  a mother feels the loss of children, the loss of a spouse, the loss of friends, the loss of one's  home and one's community, everything is gone. She acknowledges that it happens from  Yahweh her spouse, because of her own sinfulness. But she does plead that Yahweh will follow through on other elements of the covenant promises and curses to that include such things as judgment on the nations including Babylon that has brought this Now very interestingly, in  the second lament, the voice changes because it's no longer the voice of the woman, but now much more the voice of YAHWAH or at least a representative talking for YAHWAH to the  woman about or about the woman indicating why it is this is all taken place. Notice these  words. how the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger he has  hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth. He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. Without the pity of the Lord without pity the Lord has swallowed up all  the dwellings of Jacob in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah.  He has brought down her kingdom and its princes down to the ground and dishonor. In fierce  anger. He has cut off every horn of Israel. He has withdrawn his right hand and the approach  of the enemy he is burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. Like an enemy. He has strung his bow his right hand is ready like a foe he has slain all who were  pleasing to the eye he has poured out His wrath, like fire on the tent of the daughter of Zion.  The Lord is like an enemy he has swallowed up Israel he has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds is multiplied, mourning and lamentation for daughter, Judah. He  has laid waste that his dwellings like a garden, he has destroyed his palace of meeting, the  Lord has made Zion forget her appointed festivals. In her sadness. In his fierce anger, he has  spurned both king and priest, the Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary, he has given the walls of his palaces into the hands of the enemy, they have raised a shout in  the house of the Lord as on the day of the appointed festival, references there, to Jerusalem  being the possession of Yahweh and the home that where yet God meets with the Israelites,  certainly, but with the nations of the earth. And notice that last line where they raise a shout  in the place where the festivals took place, one of the things that the Israelites Israelites were  supposed to do is come to Jerusalem and to shout, Yahweh is king. They were to shout God's  name in God's sanctuary in God's temple / in God's palace in God's place of residence. Now  the nations have all raised their shout in that very, very place. So you have the ongoing  statements about the destruction of the city. What has happened and how the people have  been have been destroyed or have lost their place all of the difficulties that the city itself has  undergone. It's a terrible and sorrowful thing, but the end of it comes now, in the last parts of  the lament that arise, cry out in the night as the watches of the night, begin, pour out your  heart like water in the presence of the Lord, lift up your hands to him, for the lives of your  children who are faint from hunger at every street corner. Look, Lord, and consider whom you  have Whom have you ever treated like this before? Should women eat their offspring and  children, the children they have cared for? Can you imagine that happening, but that 

happened during the last days of Jerusalem, when food was so scarce that people were  actually cannibalizing their own children, should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary  of the Lord, young and old together in the dust of the lie together in the dust of the streets,  even young men and young women have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day  of your anger, you have slaughtered them without pity, as you summoned to a feast day. So  you summoned against me tears on every side, in the day of the Lord's anger, no one  escaped or survived, those I cared for and reared my enemy has destroyed. So you see in  lament two more of the perspective of heaven, not so much the voice of the woman herself,  the personification of Jerusalem, or Judah. But now the voice that stands with God and over all things, looking down and saying, Yes, I see what's going on. But you realize there was good  reason for it, the voice and perspective of heaven, are announced through the second lament. And the key theme is that Yahweh has actively accosted Jerusalem to tear it down. Though it's been, of course, through the actions of the Babylonians, the armies that have surrounded city  and torn down the walls and the temple. But this has happened, because God's people have  forgotten who they are, and who's there. And that's a very important thing. Israel had a  unique relationship with the Creator. That relationship was not something that was because  Israel was so powerful or great in and of herself. But because God had chosen to create a  community that would bear witness to God's ways for the world, and that other nations would  come by and appreciate seeing it saying, we want that to Israel was a very missional part of  the overall divine plan with Planet Earth. And when Israel failed to do that, well, when Israel  did that, it looked like the times of Solomon. But when Israel failed to do that, Israel was also  under the curses of the covenant that said, if you fail in these things, you will run before your  enemies and you will have famine in the land and diseases and pestilence will come, all of  these things have happened, because the Israelites failed to participate fully or continually in  the things that God had intended for them. The reason for Yahweh, was judgment is the  woman's own sinfulness. So Yahweh is justified in these actions that have resulted in torture  and pain and loneliness, and helplessness for her. These things are all part of the larger  picture of the curses of the Sinai covenant coming to pass, the Sinai covenant had six parts to it. It had a preamble in which Yahweh had declared his right of ownership or relationship with  Israel, it had a historical prologue in which the leaving of Egypt and the great deliverance  from Egypt was announced. This is how it all has happened. I am the Lord your God who  brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And then it had the  stipulations. This is how you will operate. And this is how I will operate with you. We're in  partnership together. Then it had the list of witnesses. In this case, it was the elders of the  people who looked on and had the curses and blessings. What would happen if Israel did the  right thing, what would happen if Israel did the wrong thing, and then it had the document  clauses or the confirmation clauses. So all of that is there together. And part of the Covenant  itself is the curses and the blessings. The blessings have been so much a part of Israel's  history. Now, in this moment, the curses have kicked in, because Israel failed to follow  through on its unique relationship with Yahweh and lost its voice as a witness for Yahweh to  the world and lost its own place as a uniquely blessed entity. Nevertheless, coming through  both Romans one and two, is this ongoing, understanding that somehow, God is still in  control. God is going to resolve these things. God is going to make the right things happen.  They may not happen right now, but it will happen very soon. We'll take a look next time at  lament number three.