WWUTT 2609 Introduction to Lamentations

The book of Lamentations is a lament over a fallen city, a city that was turned over to her enemies because of her sin. But even in the midst of this sorrow, there is hope when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Old Testament, we have finished the book of Jeremiah, and we are going on now to the book of Lamentations, which many people believe has the same author as Jeremiah, although the author of this book is anonymous.

It's never said that Jeremiah wrote it. It could be another anonymous author. There could be several authors that contributed to it. I'll go over some of the theories with you here in just a moment. But regardless of who wrote it, what can be said about Lamentations, this is a brilliant piece of Hebrew poetry.

Now that's a little difficult to appreciate when we're reading it in English. It's kind of like you'd have to learn Hebrew, and then you can see just how majestic it is. But if there's any English translation that I think has preserved this the best, it is the Legacy Standard Bible.

And so that is the translation that I'm gonna be reading from. Each one of these stanzas or phrases, as you might call them, begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So I'll also be mentioning which letter that is when we start another verse or phrase.

Now, as the name of the book would suggest, Lamentations is a lament. It is a mourning, a weeping over the city of Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Babylonians when God gave it into their hands. As a punishment against the people, for they worshiped false gods and turned away from the Lord, their God, who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and given them a promised land.

But in the midst of the book of Lamentations, though this is a mourning, sorrowful book, not a lot of high points in this book. There are a few. One very famous one in particular in chapter three. But though this is a very sad book, it looks forward to deliverance that is to come and the promise that God will preserve his people.

That is certainly within this book as well. For us, we know that it points to Christ. And Jesus is the one who lifts us out of our sorrow, most especially who forgives us of our sin and restores us to reconciliation with God and promises us even a life everlasting with him in his glorious place, his Mount Zion.

So we'll be looking toward those things as well as we read through Lamentations together. Let me begin before doing a more in-depth overview.

Of the book.

Let me read through the first 11 verses of chapter one. This is Lamentations 1 .1. Hear the word of the Lord. Aleph, how lonely sits the city that was great with people. She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations.

She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer that she weeps bitterly in the night and her tears are on her cheeks. She has none to comfort her among all her lovers. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her.

They have become her enemies. Gimel, Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and because of great slavery. She sits among the nations, but she has found no rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of distress.

Dalet, the roads of Zion are in mourning because no one comes to the appointed times. All her gates are desolate. Her priests are sighing. Her virgins are grieving and she herself is bitter. Hey, her adversaries have become her masters.

Her enemies are complacent for Yahweh has caused her grief because of the greatness of her transgressions. Her infants have gone away as captives before the adversary. Vav, so all her majesty has gone out from the daughter of Zion.

Her princes have become like deer that have found no pasture. So they have fled without strength before the pursuer. Zion, in the days of her affliction and homelessness, Jerusalem remembers all her precious things that were from the days of old.

When her people fell into the hand of the adversary and no one helped her, the adversary saw her. They laughed at her ruin. Het, Jerusalem sinned greatly. Therefore she has become an impure thing. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness.

Even she herself sighs and turns away. Tet, her uncleanness was in her skirts. She did not remember her future. Therefore she has gone down astonishingly. She has no comforter. See, oh Yahweh, my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself.

Yod, the adversary has stretched out his hand over all her desirable things, for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, the ones whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

Kaph, all her people are sighing, seeking bread. They have given their desirable things for food to restore their souls. See, oh Yahweh, and look, for I am despised. And we'll stop there for now. We won't do any exposition today because this is just gonna be an overview of the book of Lamentations.

But as we keep going in chapter one, the first 11 verses that I've read through here, this is a lament over Jerusalem, and verses 12 to 22, the remainder of the chapter, is a cry out to God to deliver.

Now, as I mentioned, Lamentations is a sorrowful book. That's right there in the very name that it is a lament. It comes from a Hebrew word that means how, almost as if saying, how did this happen? Now, the one writing, or those writing, as it may be, I'll tell you about the author here in just a moment.

The one writing knows how this has happened, and we heard that in chapter one with the statement that was made that the enemy has come against Jerusalem because of her transgressions. It's because she sinned against God, that God brought the enemy against her and has made her a desolation like this.

But the how question may be less about how did this occur and more how are we to keep going? How are we going to come out of this? How is God going to show himself faithful to his people in the midst of this situation?

Now, even though this is a sad and sorrowful book, just like Ecclesiastes, you don't really go to Ecclesiastes to be lifted up. You wouldn't go to Lamentations to receive a happy word today either. But there is a very famous verse in Lamentations that is often quoted and is even the title of one of our most famous hymns, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

And that's in Lamentations 3, 22 to 24. The loving kindness of Yahweh indeed never ceases for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Yahweh is my portion says my soul.

Therefore I wait for him. And so even though we're gonna go through a lot of sad parts, mostly sad parts of Lamentations, that part is right in the middle. It's like the entire book revolves around it.

So keep that in mind, that the loving kindnesses of Yahweh never cease and his mercies are new every morning, as we like to quote from that verse. A great thing to remember as we go through Lamentations together.

Now, this may be a book that you think about as lifting you up in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of trial, and it certainly can be that. There are verses that can apply to that particular circumstance, certainly that you can relate to in the midst of a very difficult trial, but this would especially be applicable in the sense that you have sinned and you are suffering the consequences of your sin.

And you need to look to Yahweh who delivers through Jesus Christ, the son of God. So what is it that Jerusalem is facing here? It's facing the consequences because of its sin, because it turned away from God and went after false gods and idols and went after the way of the pagans.

And so God has turned them over to the hands of their enemies. And so when you feel lament in your soul over the sin that you've committed, when you are convicted over your sin, when you hate that you keep going back to the same sins over and over again, this is where Lamentations can really be the most relatable because it is lamenting over your sin and even the consequences of that sin so that you would look to Christ who delivers, so that it draws you to God, not that you would wallow in misery to your destruction, you can't let that happen, but that your grief leads to repentance and brings you to the foot of the cross where we receive forgiveness for our sins and even life everlasting that is promised by faith in Jesus.

Now, as I mentioned, Jeremiah is traditionally thought of as the author of this book, since he is called the weeping prophet, that was kind of his MO, right? He was a lamenting prophet. And it's also said in 2 Chronicles, I can't remember the reference and I didn't write it down, but in 2 Chronicles, it said that Jeremiah offered up a lament for Josiah who was king and for Jerusalem.

And it's because of that, because of that statement that's made in 2 Chronicles, that's why there are many who attribute Jeremiah to being the author of Lamentations, because he offered up a lament to God after Jerusalem fell.

But there is no author that's actually mentioned in Lamentations. So it isn't said that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, maybe Baruch his scribe wrote it, or maybe it was another anonymous author, we don't really know.

It could be that there were several contributors to this, just like you would have more than one author in the Psalms, although we attribute the Psalms to David, there are other authors of the Psalms.

Moses wrote a Psalm, Solomon wrote a Psalm, the sons of Korah wrote Psalms. So you have other authors in there, same with Proverbs. We attribute Proverbs with being Solomon's, but there are other authors of Proverbs, other kings even that contributed to the Proverbs.

So with Lamentations, it may be the same. And this is such a lament that the author does not draw attention to himself, but really wants to put the focus upon the sin that has brought this about and the need for Yahweh to deliver.

So the attention is to be drawn upon Yahweh. As I said, it is a brilliant piece of Hebrew literature. So it could be several Hebrews that had contributed to this to bring us the work that we have now that we understand to be the book of Lamentations.

But regardless, it is led by the Holy Spirit to write these things down the way that we have them. It is the word of God. And even God has drawn his people to see him in the midst of our sin and misery that we may look upon the Savior and live.

So the theme of the book obviously is deep sorrow, devastation over the fall of Judah and Jerusalem, especially that we heard singled out in chapter one. It vividly describes pretty horrific things, including famine, violence, mockery by enemies, the ruins of a once glorious city.

We also heard as we read here in Lamentations chapter one, some very descriptive verbiage regarding Jerusalem being a whore, having had many lovers and all her lovers won't comfort her. They have in fact turned against her and who she once thought were her friends have now become her enemies.

The tone is very emotional, very despairing. But of course, as I mentioned, we have glimmers of hope and appeals to God for his mercy and his restoration. The literary style is a poetry. It's a poem for the first four chapters.

And then chapter five is a prayer without the same poetic structure. It doesn't follow the same structure that chapters one through four had, but you'll still look at it and see, well, it still appears to be laid out like a Psalm.

So it is poetic, just not in the same sort of acrostic style that the first four chapters had. Now, as far as an outline goes, this is one of those books where the chapter markers itself are actually well applied because each chapter is kind of an outline point.

So you have five chapters in Lamentations that's five points to the outline of this book. In chapter one, we have the desolate city. It personifies Jerusalem as a lonely widow and a slave, a forgotten whore, as I mentioned, describing her suffering, talking about her former glory that has turned to ruin.

And it ends with a plea to God to see her affliction. And we'll come back to chapter one and do some exposition in chapter one next week. In chapter two, we read about God's judgment. His fierce anger was the cause of Jerusalem's destruction, not just because of the Babylonians.

We had read that at the end of the book of Jeremiah as well. The reason why this was coming upon Jerusalem was because of their sin, because God caused this against them, not merely because Babylon was a powerful enemy.

Jerusalem had seen powerful enemies come against her before. The Assyrians had tried to destroy her and couldn't do it. The angel of the Lord struck down over 180 ,000 of them in the middle of the night, but he allowed the Babylonians to take Jerusalem because Jerusalem had not turned from her sin.

There are details about the starvation of children in chapter two, the burning of the temple, and God calls the people to look upon the devastation in Jerusalem so that they will mourn, so they will see the consequence of their sins.

Chapter three, we have hope amidst despair. And this is where we have that famous verse, great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him, as said in chapter three, verse 24.

And it ends with a prayer for deliverance and vengeance upon the enemies who have done this. Chapter three shifts to a first-person voice. And this is one of the reasons why some scholars think there could have been multiple authors to Lamentations because the voice changes in chapter three, although that could still be part of the poetic style of a single author as well.

So then onto chapter four, we read of the horrors of the siege. We have some glimmers of hope in chapter three, but we go back into beholding how horrific this was when it came upon Jerusalem. The fall of leaders, the pursuit by enemies, punishment for Zion's sins, that exceed even the wrath that came upon Sodom.

That's talked about in chapter four. And then finally, as I mentioned in chapter five, it is a prayer for restoration, a lament and a plea to God. And ends finally with a cry to God to restore God's people and renew their days as of old.

So again, we have the lament over the city in chapter one, God's judgment in chapter two. There's hope amidst despair in chapter three, and then considering the horrors of the judgment once again in chapter four.

And then finally, a prayer for restoration in chapter five. Once again, the main theme is that even in utter desolation, God is sovereign and he is faithful. And in the midst of our affliction, we must turn to God to be saved.

So I hope that you will join me again in future weeks as we continue our study in the book of Lamentations, that we may see and behold the Savior all the more and what he has delivered us from by his mighty hand.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read thus far in Lamentations, and I pray that you will be with us as we go through this story. Help us to see Christ, even as we read of great lament and sorrow over sin, so that we may look to the Savior, be forgiven our sins, reconciled to God and live.

Thank you for your word to us and the hope that it brings us every day. Your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. It is in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com, and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.