GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 3:16
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16 He has ground my teeth with gravel.
He has made me cower in ashes.
This unusual verse may show a peculiar trouble for the Jews in Babylon. This can have two meanings: either to force one to “eat dirt” literally or figuratively. But the verb stem here seems to simply be active and not causative (although it is hifil), and so “he has ground (or broken) my teeth” is the better translation.
Grinding stones were used all over the ancient world. These were large stones where corn or similar foods could be ground into a mash for easier cooking and eating. But when softer stones were used, such as sandstone, bits of the stone would invariably get mixed into the cornmeal. This had the result of wearing down the teeth of the exiles more quickly than they had been used to back home. This may have been peculiar to the exiles in Babylon and not the rest of the population, but this wasn’t always the case. In Egypt, even the teeth of Pharaohs and their families show extensive wear from sand and grit. In wartime, even in the Twentieth Century, poverty-stricken countries sometimes added non-foods to bread to provide bulk and a feeling of being full when one ate even though there was no food value at all. It’s a bit of historic accuracy in an old TV show like Hogan’s Heroes to here a prisoner say about a change in the food rations: “Well, back to the sawdust.”
I grew up with a mom who would call out to us kids, “Wash your hands before you eat!” I wonder what it would be like to have lived in a culture when moms and dads might call out, “Wash your food before you eat!”
It is especially in the second part of this verse that we see our third cross, the cross of the Christian. We are brought to fall down in ashes in repentance by the word of God, when the law crushes our opinions of ourselves and brings us to our knees. But the gospel of Christ crucified raises us up again in gratitude. He has loved us with an everlasting love.
We return now to the great second cross, the cross of our Savior. When we talk about his cross, we are especially talking about his passive obedience, his suffering, pain, death, and burial. This verse is not far from Psalm 102:10-11: “I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears because of your great wrath, for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.” Christ allowed himself to eat dust and ashes, figuratively in his torment, but literally because of the tortures of the soldiers, the dust of the afternoon heat, the dusty floor fo the torture chamber, and the definitive cry, “I am thirsty!” (John 19:28).
The actual animals brought for sacrifice were always dispatched quickly, and as painlessly and humanely as possible. The regulations in Leviticus did not allow for variations on this treatment. To be able to bring an animal’s blood before the Lord required an efficient and effective means for slaughtering it so that it died almost instantly (Leviticus 1:5). The same went for birds that were to be killed quickly by wringing their necks (Leviticus 5:8). No such consideration was given to Jesus, who was punished and slowly tortured as a criminal, even though Pilate proclaimed publicly that Jesus was not a criminal.
But we also remember that Jesus did not only atone for us with his passive obedience. His active obedience was his complete obedience in keeping the Father’s will in everything. He was holy. He was sinless. He did not disobey or fail to keep any of God’s commandments at any point of his entire life. And he was born without a sinful nature. He had a human nature, just as Adam had one; but Christ did not sin. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). For Jesus came “to fulfill the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 5:17).
What Jesus did actively, he did in our place, so that on account of his divinity it also counts for all. What Jesus did passively, he did in our place, so that once again, on account of his divinity, it has infinite value and covers us all. But on account of his humanity, it was not just done by someone who was not required to do those things, like an angel, or an eagle, or a lion. He became a man to set us free, and so we lift our crosses, ground teeth, ashes, and all, and we follow him freely.
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 3:16 Ground teeth, ashes, and all