GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 1:3-4
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3 Judah has gone into exile– even from affliction and harsh labor.
She dwells among the nations; she finds no resting place.
All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
All of our understanding of this verse must hinge on the meaning of “from” in the first line (min in Hebrew). Some take this as “after,” but was Judah exiled only after her affliction and harsh labor? Some take it as “because,” which would be a most unusual and irregular use of “from.” But was Judah exiled because of her affliction and her harsh labor? Wasn’t Judah exiled and brought to grief “because of her many sins” (Lamentations 1:5)? As my dear wife would have said, I have “grumpies on my forehead” on account of this (concerned or confused wrinkles have formed). Others even go so far as to ignore the “from” altogether. Now, sometimes in poetry we can do this, except that here the “from” is emphasized be being attached both to “affliction” and to “harsh labor.” To drop one of them on account of good English is one thing. To drop them both is another matter altogether. There must be a way to include this “from” idea, the idea of separation from affliction and harsh labor, that still fits the thought of Judah going into exile. I have proposed in this translation to make the saying into a hyperbole, a sort of superlative of exile: Judah has gone into exile even from affliction; even from harsh labor. That is to say, they have suffered those things, and even beyond them, so that they long for the days when their suffering only meant affliction for them, pain, hard labor. But their cross to bear in Babylon is far, far worse.
The separation from God’s temple and from true worship, from union with God, is the harshest cross to bear. When Jesus was separated on his cross from the Father’s love and compassion he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?” (Matthew 27:46).
The word for going into exile here (the gimel word in the gimel verse of the acrostic) is galah. It appears in English in an unusual place. A Jew who was far from home was known to his countrymen as a galut, an “exiled one.” It would seem that in American English in the days of the Old West, when two such travelers met who recognized one another, they would call each other a “galoot,” and this was mistaken by non-Jews as a typical half-endearment, half-insult, just the way we hear it used in old Westerns (or Bugs Bunny cartoons). The galoots of Babylon found no rest, no security, no release from their distress.
4 The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed feasts.
All her gateways are desolate, her priests groan,
her maidens grieve, and she is in bitter anguish.
Now our prophet turns and looks back at the city itself. How often the prophets and the psalms depict the trip up to Jerusalem, up to Mount Zion, the Mountain of God and the City of God! “Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion!” (Psalm 9:11). “Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage… they go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84:5,7). “Gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 18:7). The regular trips of pilgrims and worshipers to the City of David was a familiar journey, a trip of joy, and a shared family event.
But now? Since the Babylonians came and captured them, the approach to the city in the minds of the exiles is another cross that they bear. The very roads to Zion, those paths that were “built up, built up, and prepared for my people” (Isaiah 57:14) now themselves sing lamentations. The roads mourn and grieve. There are no travelers. No happy pilgrims. “No one comes to her appointed feasts.” There is silence in the streets of the city. There was talk, music, laughter, excited voices of women and children, the very text of the Scriptures was being recited by the old men in the gates. But now dogs bark and growl; broken tumbleweeds hiss along as they brush the dust of the streets into the air to choke the throats of the few poor and frightened survivors there. There are not many. A few priests, a few girls who will grow up without husbands. They grieve; their throats become too choked for tears.
Our crosses bring many griefs into our lives. Our crosses can be crosses of pain, of disease, of loss or death, debt or poverty, or the sins of other people that come to roost on the corners of the roofs of our houses like vultures and ravens. They are the uninvited companions of the lonely and the sick, waiting for scraps that can only come in one terrifying way. Our crosses are permitted by our loving God, to help us to seek him and search for him only, but their splinters and nails are shoved into our flesh and our spirits by the great Enemy, Satan, who despises everyone who loves Jesus. He terrorizes those who are already frightened and confused. He is altogether cruel and wretched.
The only answer to our crosses of pain is the cross of Jesus Christ. He took up his cross to satisfy the payment due for our many sins, and to ease our suffering with his own blood. His yoke, he promises, is an easy one. He guides us with it, and he does all of the lifting. When we are yoked to our Lord Jesus, he has shattered the yokes that burden us (Isaiah 9:4), and his yoke means we are never lost; never without him, but always connected to him and guided by him. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light (Matthew 11;29). Take away our sins, Lord Jesus, and bind us to you forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Lamentations 1:3-4 The roads to Zion mourn