Notes on lamentations - Chambers, Oswald

The lamentations are not the expression of the grief of a disappointed man, the peculiar element in Jeremiahs sorrow is that he is identifying himself with an unrepentant people (cf. Daniel 9:420). We suffer on account of our own wrong or the wrong of others, but that is not vicarious suffering. Jeremiahs grief personifies vicariously the grief of the whole nation. Am i prepared to be a scapegoat for the sins of others for which they are still unrepentant?

Lamentations 1

elegy in degradation how doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! . . . She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. (lamentations 1:12)

The city herself is introduced weeping, and giving expression to her sorrow over the evil determined against her on account of her sins. How doth the city sit solitary. Being alone is not solitariness; solitariness is loneliness that has in it an element of moral dis-esteem: Jerusalem hath grievously sinned therefore she is become as an unclean thing: all that honoured her despise her (lamentations 1:8). Cains solitariness is typical of this loneliness; so is the loneliness of the prodigal son in the far country who starved on what the pigs throve on. Man was not created to be alone. Jesus Christ was rarely alone; the times when he was alone are distinctly stated. Solitariness to be beneficial must never be sought and must never be on account of sin. If i choose solitariness, i go back into active life with annoyance and a contempt for other people, proving that my seeking solitariness was selfish. He hath spread a net for my feet . . . (lamentations 1:13). There is no choice after the choice is made, we are at the mercy of gods inexorable justice once the choice is made which leads into the net. Our destiny is not determined for us, but it is determined by us. Mans free will is part of gods sovereign will. We have freedom to take which course we choose, but not freedom to determine the end of that choice. God makes clear what he desires, we must choose, and the result of the choice is not the inevitableness of law, but the inevitableness of god. Verse 18 gives the reason for all that is happening the lord is righteous; for i have rebelled against his command- ment. God will never change his character to please anyones pleading or petulance if they have deliberately spurned his counsel. There are irreparable losses in human life, and no amount of whining will alter it. The garden of Eden was closed, not to naughty children, but to sinners, and is never again opened to sinners. The way of the tree of life is guarded, preventing man getting back as a sinner; he only gets back, and thank god he does get back, in and through the redemption. What is prophesied with regard to Jerusalem is the attitude of the spirit of god to the human race. The attitude of those, not indwelt by the spirit of god is that mans capabilities are a promise of what he is going to be: the holy ghost sees man as a ruin of what he once was. He does not delight in his natural virtues. We are being told what a splendid race of human beings we are! We are a race of rebels, and the rebellion has got to be destroyed. When the holy ghost is having his way with a man the first thing he does is to corrupt confidence in virtues which belong to a ruin. Nothing is more highly esteemed among men than pride in my virtues, i. E. , self-realisation, but Jesus christ said that that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of god. If this was realised we would understand the extrava- gant language of scripture about sin.

Lamentations 2

Elegy in destruction how hath the lord covered the daughter of zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel. . . . (lamentations 2:1 rv )

The prophets of god have always one burden when they deal with the judgements of god, and that is that they come not from the east, nor from the west, but are directly stamped as from the lord. The tendency to-day is to put the consequences of sin as natural consequences: the consequences of sin have a righteous god behind them. We have taken the bible idea out of punishment and say, oh well, it is the inevitable result; the bible says the inevitable result is brought about by a personal God.

The lord is become as an enemy . . . (lamentations 2:5 RV ). Deliverance comes through destruction, and for a while the soul does not know whether god is a friend or an enemy. God has one purpose in destruc- tion, and that is the deliverance of his own. Gods own is not you, but his own in you. All that is saved is the work of god in a man, nothing else. Destruction means the obliteration of every characteristic of the life that is not rooted in godliness, it never means the annihilation of the life. The judgements of god are a consuming fire whereby he destroys in order to deliver; the time to be alarmed in life is when all things are undisturbed. The knowledge that god is a consuming fire is the greatest comfort to the saint,

It is his love at work on those characteristics that are not true to godliness. The saint who is near to god knows no burning, but the farther away from god the sinner gets, the more the fire of god burns him. In verses 19 the wrath of god is emphasised. Gods love is wrath towards wrong; he is never tender to that which hates goodness. All through the bible reveals that when once communion with god is severed the basis of life is chaos and wrath. The chaotic elements may not show themselves at once, but they will presently. All that this book says about corruption in connection with the flesh is as certain as god is on his throne if the life is not rightly related to god. When we speak of the wrath of god we must not picture him as an angry sultan on the throne of heaven, bringing a lash about people when they do what he does not want. There is no element of personal vindictiveness in god. It is rather that gods constitution of things is such that when a man becomes severed from god his life tumbles into tur- moil and confusion, into agony and distress, it is hell at once, and he will never get out of it unless he turns to god; immediately he turns, chaos is turned into cosmos, wrath into love, distress into peace. Know- ing therefore the terror of the lord we persuade men to keep in touch with him. The world pays no attention to those who tell them how god convicted of sin and how he delivered them; the warnings of god are of no use to sinners until they are convicted of sin and the warnings become applicable to them. The elders of the daughter of zi on sit upon the ground, they keep silence (lamentations 2:10 rv ). When gods destructions are abroad there is no power to move, only to sit; no power to speak, only to keep silence. It is not a time for social intercourse of any kind, but for the deepest dejection. Mine eyes do fail with tears . . . For the destruction of the daughter of my people. No prophet stands so close to Jesus Christ as Jeremiah, he is the one who realises human conditions more keenly than any other and identifies himself with them. Verses 1119 are thus lamentation over the impotence of human consolation. Thy prophets . . . Have not discovered thine iniquity (lamentations 2:14). The prophet with a mes- sage based on human morality excuses sin instead of detecting it God knows you cant help this sort of thing that is a lie. Under the circumstances you will be excused. Jeremiah was indignant with those prophets who gave a wrong application to gods message: sin is sin; but you don’t need to imagine that that is the reason for what god is doing; jeremiah held to it that it was the reason. . . . The day of the l ord s anger (lamentations 2:22). When gods limit is reached, he destroys into salvation; he destroys the unsaveable and liberates the saveable. Judgement days are an overflowing mercy because they separate between right and wrong. To be experimental in me the salvation of Jesus Christ is always a judgement, and it brings the understanding of gods justice even in his severest judgements. If we compare our attitude with the rev- elations made in gods book we find how despicably shallow we are. Our attitude is not one of sympathy of god, not a sensitive understanding of his point of view, only an amazing sensitiveness over our own calamities and those of other people, consequently we act on the principle of giving a pill to cure an earth- quake. When god is squeezing the life of a man or of a nation in order to save the remnant, what is the use of my coming and kicking at the fingers of god and saying, i shant allow you to do this? If our human sympathy with the one who is suffering under the hand of god is justified, then god is cruel. Some of us are so set on our own honour that we have no time for gods honour. Is this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? (lamentations 2:15 rv ). Jeremiah is referring to the desolation which, by gods own decree, has fallen on everything god made to be holy; he sees gods judgement on his own choicest things Jerusalem ruined, the temple destroyed. See, o l ord , and behold, to whom thou hast done this! (lamentations 2:20 rv). And Jeremiahs whole heart was in Jerusalem! God did not spare his people. His judgement on them was as unconquerably certain as it was on babylon, and as it is on us. No amount of pleading will ever alter the judgements of god.

Lamentations 3

Elegy in desolation surely against me he turneth his hand again and again all the day. . . . (lamentations 3:3 RV )

Obedience to god will mean that some time or other you enter into desolation; if you dont obey, you wont for a time. Jeremiah is speaking in vicarious terms of the sorrow and anguish of the people under gods chastisement; he is not cutting a cross-section through his own personal grief, not writing his own spiritual autobiography. Jeremiah is a vicarious sufferer, that is, he does not find his place in other people, he lets other people find their place in him. Our attitude too often isoh, that has nothing to do with me, i have enough to bear. We will be of no use in gods service until that spirit is removed. God so loves the world that he hates the wrong in it. Do i so love men and women that i hate the wrong in them? Most of us love other people for what they are to us instead of for what god wants them to be. The distress worked in a mans heart by the holy ghost is never on his own account, but always on gods account.

Desperate tides of the whole great worlds anguish forced thro the channels of a single heart.

F. W. H. Myers

Have i ever shared for a moment gods concern over people, or am i putting myself in a bandage before god and saying, i cant stand any more? Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? (lamentations 3:39). The judgements of god leave scars, and the scars remain until i humbly and joyfully recognise that the judgements are deserved and that god is justified in them. The last delusion god delivers us from is the idea that we don’t deserve what we get. Once we see ourselves under the canopy of gods overflowing mercy we are dissolved in wonder, love and praise. That is the meaning of repentance, which is the greatest gift god ever gives a man. As long as my heart has never been broken by conviction of sin, i don’t understand the psalmist when he says, the sacrifices of god are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, o god, thou wilt not despise (psalm 51:17). When you get there god is the only reality; but you only get there through heartbreak and sorrow. Holiness is based on repentance, and the holy man is the most humble man you can meet. My realisation of god can be measured by my humility. Jeremiahs reliance on the justice of god breaks into a prayer in which is manifested his confidence that god will send help i called upon thy name, o lord, out of the lowest dungeon. Thou heardest my voice; hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry (lamentations 3:5556 RV ).

Lamentations 4

Elegy in dispersion when they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, they shall no more sojourn here. (lamentations 4:15 rv ) how is the gold become dim! How is the most pure gold changed! (lamentations 4:1 RV).

It is the holiest things that are desolated. God ordained the temple, Jerusalem was his holy city, and yet he allows them to be ruined. Flesh and blood, mans body, is meant to be the temple of the holy ghost gods gold, but sin renders it disreputable. The depth of possible sin is measured by the height of possible holiness. When men come under conviction of sin by the holy spirit their beauty is consumed away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment. The misery which conviction brings enables a man to realise what god created him for, viz. , to glorify god and enjoy him for ever. For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment (lamentations 4:6 RV ). The destruction of Sodom was a sudden calamity; the destruction of Jerusalem was a terribly long, heartrending deprecia- tion of everything of value in gods sight. It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her (lamentations 4:13 RV). Beware of iniquity, which means conjuring yourself out of the straight; finding out reasons why you did not do what you know you should have done. The term iniquity is used only of the people of god. To shed just blood refers to more than actual murder. The bible never deals with proportionate sin; according to the bible an impure thought is as bad as adultery; a covetous thought is as bad as a theft. It takes a long education in the things of god before we believe that is true. Never trust innocence when it is contradicted by the word of god. The tiniest bit of sin is an indication of the vast corruption that is in the human heart. (for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed . . . Mark 7:2123). That is why we must keep in the light all the time. Never allow horror at crime to blind you to the fact that it is human nature like your own that committed it. A saint is never horror-stricken because although he knows that what our lord says about the human heart is true, he knows also of a saviour who can save to the uttermost. Thine iniquity hath an end (lamentations 4:22 rv mg). My guilt is ended when i repent, when i stop admitting and begin confessing. Am i blaming any of my forebears for my present condition? Then my punishment will go on till i blame them no more. Am i blaming the circumstances in which i live? Then my punishment will go on till i stop blaming my circumstances. As long as i have any remnant of an idea that i can be cleared in any other way than by god through the redemption, my punishment will go on. The instant i stop blaming everything but myself, and acquit god of injustice to me, my recognition of him begins.

Lamentations 5

Elegy in devotion remember, o lord , what is come upon us: behold, and see our reproach. (lamentations 5:1 RV )

What had Jeremiah done to deserve in the tiniest degree all that has come upon him? Nothing but obey god in every detail, and because of his obedience he was in the midst of the distress. The one man who has kept unspottedly right with god is in all the desolation, realising it more keenly than any of those who deserved it. A snare spirituality is to refuse to bear about in the body the dying of Jesus, and prefer the gay hilarity which is only possible for long in the new heaven and new earth. We are here for one purpose: to fill up . . . That which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ (rv) spoilt for this age, alive to nothing but Jesus Christs point of view. In this order of things it is a maimed life, and few of us will have it; we prefer a

Fullorbed life of infinite satisfaction which makes us absolutely crass to what is happening in Jerusalem. We can never be marked by the angel as those who sigh and cry for the sorrows of Jerusalem. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities (lamentations 5:7). These words are not to be understood as intimating that the speakers conceived themselves innocentwoe unto us!

For we have sinned (lamentations 5:16 RV). The sins of the fathers are not visited on innocent children, but on children who continue the sins of their fathers (see exodus 20:5). Distinction must be made between punishment and suffering, they are not synonymous terms. A bad mans relation to his children is in gods hand: the childs relation to the badness of his father is in his own hand. Because we see children suffering physically for the sins of their parents, we say they are being punished; they are not, there is no element of punishment in their suffering; there are divine compensations we know nothing about. The whole subject of heredity and what is transmitted by heredity, if taken out of its bible setting, can be made the greatest slander against god, as well as the great- est exoneration of the bitterness of a mans spirit. The crown is fallen from our head. . . . For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim (lamentations 5:1617). These words convey the poignancy of penitence.

Nothing will make a mans heart cave in and his eyes stop seeing, saving sin. Sorrow wont do it, misfortune wont do it, hardship wont do it; on the contrary these things, if there is no sin, make a mans heart strong. The fallen crown is the figurative expression for the honourable position of the people of god which they have now lost. Sin may make a man more desirable in the eyes of the world the sin which is admired of many (Hebrews 12:1 rv mg), but what makes a man ugly physically, morally and spiritually is the discovery of sin by his own heart, and all attempts to justify himself spring from the depth of conviction of private sin. The gathering in of gods salvation around a man means that he is checked at first by the merest zephyr touch, there is nothing so gentle as the check of the holy spirit; if he obeys, emancipation is at once, if he does not obey, the zephyr touch will turn into a destructive blow from which there is no escape.

There is never any shattering blow of god on the life that pays attention to the checks of the spirit, but every time there is a spurning of the still small voice, the hardening of the life away from god goes on until destruction comes and shatters it. When i realise that there is something between god and me, it is at the peril of my soul i don’t stop everything and get it put right. Immediately a thing makes itself conscious to me, it has no business there. To sum up the lamentations would be to say that the words of this vicarious sufferer direct the grieving human heart, in its deep sorrow, to the only true comfort.