GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 1:7-8
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7 Jerusalem remembers the days of her affliction,
and her wandering,
and all the precious treasures that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into the hands of the enemy
there was no one to help her.
Her enemies looked at her and laughed at her destruction.
The prophet lifts his shoulders high and drops them again as he sighs. At the beginning of this lament, he described Jerusalem as a widow, or a lonely lover without any comfort. Then his eyes turned to the roads leading up to her from everywhere in the land, now deserted and empty. He described her people: most in exile, with a handful here and there, remaining behind. Her princes are nowhere to be found.
Now he pictures the city doing the same thing he has done: She remembers the way that it was. In the immediate past, she suffered “the days of her affliction.” This was the attack of the Babylonians that saw the downfall of the city’s walls, gates, buildings, towers, homes, and the temple as well.
Before that were “the days of her wandering.” Those were the days of the divided kingdom, when for nearly four hundred years the people were allowed to go astray after false, foreign gods. Sometimes a good king would strive to make changes, and there were always prophets calling the people to repentance, but many of those prophets were killed, and nearly all were ignored or imprisoned. It was not a time to be proud of. But we all know that when the flames are raging all around, sinful mankind blames the weather and not his own sinfulness.
Then there were “the days of old,” the days of David and Solomon, and before them Samuel, Joshua and Moses. But it was David who made Jerusalem into the gemstone on the finger of the bride of Christ. That glory was gone. The beauty, the splendor, the safety, and the prosperity were gone.
At the end of verse 7, the enemies laugh at “her destruction.” This word means the end of a thing, such as its annihilation, but it is also related to the word for the end of work and the end of the week: the Sabbath. Perhaps the enemies thought it was funny that Jerusalem’s sabbath was her destruction. After all that holy talk, they, the enemies, felt vindicated that Judah wasn’t so beloved and protected by their God after all. He had abandoned them, and they reaped the prizes.
This first of the crosses in Lamentations is the cross of the people of Judah, grieving over what had happened to them. Verse 7 had brought us through a summary of those troubles, also recalling what was lost. Verse 8 will remind us of why.
8 Jerusalem has committed terrible sins,
and has become unclean.
All who once honored her despise her
because they have seen her nakedness.
She moans in grief and turns away.
The true sin of Jerusalem was idolatry, which God compared many times with the sin of adultery (Hosea 1:2; Jeremiah 3:8; 13:26; Ezekiel 6:9; 16:32; 23:45; Daniel 9:7). These sins made her unclean in the way that blood made anyone unclean. Some might think that the reference to uncleanness here is to a woman’s uncleanness on account of her monthly period (Leviticus 12:2), but it isn’t. It’s the uncleanness of a whore or a prostitute. Except that Jerusalem’s sin has been even worse. The Lord thundered out: “You adulterous wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband! Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you” (Ezekiel 16:32-34).
This is the terrible sin that Jerusalem’s people, priests, and kings committed. Idolatry in any and every fashion. Sometimes it was simply ignoring God’s word, his laws, his festivals. Other times it amounted to making up new versions of those laws– the distant beginnings of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the modern synagogues. And of course, there were times when it was open, blatant worship of false gods like the Baals and Asherah and others.
Just as some wicked men strive to have their way with a girl, and once they have satisfied their lust, they turn away from her in disgust, so also it was with Judah’s “lovers,” those foreign kingdoms she dallied with to win their approval and alliances. There was no one who loved her. No one who would help.
Jerusalem lifted her shoulders high and dropped them again as she sighed. She moaned in grief. It is here that the second cross, the Great Cross of Christ, touches the cross of the Jews in exile. Their sins were not truly punished by the exile. That was rage. That was a lesson about faithfulness– and faithlessness. That was part of the preparation for the Great Cross, since it led the Jews, at least some of them (for “not all the Israelites accepted the good news,” Romans 10:16), to repentance. And the cross of Jesus atoned for all of the sins of all mankind forever. All who put their faith in him are cleansed of all their unholy sins and trespasses. We are saved through Jesus, “who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
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 1:7-8 terrible sins