GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 2:19-20
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The content of verse 20 might be especially upsetting to some readers or listeners.
19 Stand up, cry out in the night,
just as the watches begin.
Pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him in prayer
for the lives of your babies,
who faint for hunger
where every street begins.
This verse continues the call to prayer. There is a Hebrew idiom in the final clause that is often translated “at the head of every street.” This phrase is fairly common in the prophets (Isaiah 51:20; Ezekiel 16:25,31; Nahum 3:10) and appears later in this book (4:1). The word for “street” really just means “the outside,” and the idea, I think, is that what is described is happening right outside one’s front door, where the outside is, and where the “street” begins. That is to say, the babies are fainting for hunger, but they’re not far away or across town. They’re right outside the front doors of their own houses.
Another item of poetic interest here is the use of the word “head” (Hebrew rosh) in the beginning of the verse as well as the end. So just as the streets have a “head” in the last phrase, so also the watches of the night each has a “head” or beginning in the first sentence.
The imagery takes the Christian reader from the burden and cross of the people of Jerusalem as they cried out to the Lord, to Gethsemane just east of the city, as Jesus fell to his knees in prayer. But Jesus did not pray about a handful of children, but all children of every generation throughout the entire history of mankind. He, yes even Jesus himself, was filled with dread over the prospect of taking and drinking the cup of the Father’s wrath over sin– the sin of Adam and all his children. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Matthew 26:39).
Listen again to the words of the lament, “Pour out your hearts like water,” and recall the words of the Gospel: “Being in agony, he prayed even more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 23:44). The words the poet-prophet thought were probably a hyperbole, “make your heart pour out like water,” was taken up and reversed into the unthinkable by the Lord our God: The water of his body’s sweat fell heavily like blood. What man can scarcely even imagine, the Lord our God and Savior Jesus did to the utmost on our behalf.
20 Look, O LORD, and see:
Who have you done this to?
Should women eat their children,
the babies they have held close?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?
Here in this verse there is another strange and unexpected piece of wordplay. The verb “done” in the first line is an intensive form, but the word is very similar to the term here and in verse 19 for “babies.” The two words are not at all related, but are homophones. The hideous, tragic and heartbreaking scene is recorded in Jeremiah 19:9 and had also happened when the Assyrians laid siege to Samaria (2 Kings 6:29). The awful and true horrors of war are seldom worth contemplating.
The prophet also recalls that prophets and priests were cut down and put to death in the temple. Some of the senior priests and elders were taken away to be executed (2 Kings 25:18-20) but the rest were just put to death were they happened to serving when the enemy broke through the walls. But others had been killed by their brother Jews. Why? Every preacher experiences the symptoms of this, but thanks be to God that the results vary in intensity. At first, people are glad to hear the Gospel. “Preach hellfire to those sinners!” people say with delight. That is, until hellfire is preached at their own pet sins. Then people become enraged, the way Herod Philip was furious with John the Baptist when he condemned his sinful incest with his own sister-in-law (Luke 3:19). In Luther’s time, the pope was enraged by many things that Martin Luther condemned, even when the entire Catholic Church knew that he had overstepped what the Scriptures say, such as having the authority to command God’s holy angels! We have the same trouble today when we condemn the obscenity of so-called open communion, which violates the command of Christ, the warnings of Paul, and the practice of the entire Christian church. But we are called unloving and other nonsensical things for defending the Scriptures against the unloving “love” that condemns the unwary to God’s holy wrath and judgments by taking the sacrament without recognizing the true body and blood of Christ in what they receive (1 Corinthians 11:29). But as Luther writes: “You must not give up if for your labor you get the reward of ingratitude” (AE 17:173).
There is the third cross: the ingratitude, attacks, venom, spittle, and poisoned words of those who oppose the right and correct preaching of the holy Gospel. “With pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous” (Psalm 31:18). But if this is what we face, then this is what we face, for the sake of Christ our Lord. As Paul says: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). He gave his Son for us. So we will endure the crosses we carry, for it was Jesus who gave them to us. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). We are blessed to see that he said that before he himself took up his physical cross, so that we will not be tempted to think that our crosses compare to his, or that carrying our crosses atone for anything. For his cross, and his cross alone, made atonement for our sins (Hebrews 10:10). Our crosses, heavy as they seem, are a means to show our love and thanks for our Savior.
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 2:19-20 Who can be against us