GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 3:34-36
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34 To crush all the prisoners of the earth under foot,
35 to deny the right a man has in the very presence
of the Most High,
36 to undermine a man in his cause–
the Lord does not approve of these things.
These verses are all about justice. What the exiles suffered in their affliction was not part of God’s holy plan. The prisoners of verse 34 must be some of the prisoners in Babylon, and the treatment of some of the kings comes to mind. Josiah’s successor Shallum (Jehoahaz) was captured by the Egyptians and exiled. Jeremiah said about him, “Weep bitterly for the one who is exiled, because he will never return. He will never see the land of his birth” (Jeremiah 22:10). Jehoiachin, Josiah’s grandson, was just eighteen when he became king, and did not remain on the throne until his nineteenth birthday. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked the boy king and laid siege to Jerusalem on the 16th of March, 597 (this is according to Nebuchadnezzar’s own records). Jeremiah prophesied about him: “Is this man a despised broken pot? Is he a jar no one wants? Why are he and his children thrown down, cast into a land they do not know? Land, land, O land! Hear the word of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 22:28-29).
If that was happening to their kings, what was happening to the people? How many families were split apart forever? How many men were murdered? How many women were ravished? How many children became slaves? None of those things are the will of God. The first cross, the burden of the exiles in Babylon, was a bitter cross to bear.
The prophet is also stating that the people will be liberated from this kind of cruelty. “The Lord does not approve of these things,” but we should expect good things, and nothing but good things, from the Lord our God. Therefore there would be an end to this misery, and the oppressors would have their day in the courtroom of the Lord.
Under the second cross, the cross of Jesus, this scene takes on a hideous legal sense. For what was it that happened to Christ? Was he not denied his legal rights in the very courtyard of the temple of God? His own temple? His Father’s house (John 2:16)? What would Caiaphas and Annas and the others expect that they would find before the judgment seat of God Almighty for what they did to Jesus of Nazareth? Did they think that they could murder one day and repent the next?
Jesus even prayed for them, after their hideous trial, after their lying evidence, after their cruel condemnation. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, even as the nails were being hammered into place into his hands and feet, “for they don’t know what they are doing.” He prayed for mercy even for them– but how many of them threw away his mercy by denying his divinity to the very end of their lives, but maintaining their jealousy and their hatred of him and of all his followers. They even took an oath, many years later, not to eat anything until they had killed the Apostle Paul (Acts 23:14). How many of them broke that oath, since Paul lived another ten years after that?
His people who carry their third crosses are people who suffer in the world on account of faith. They are often deprived of necessary things because of oppression, a wicked government, a cruel employer; a disease heaped on their lives by Satan. They don’t always know what to pray for, when so many things seem wrong. But in the simplest part of the prayer, “Give us our daily bread,” we remember the simplest of needs:
“Daily bread includes everything that we need for our bodily welfare, such as food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, land and cattle, money and goods, a godly spouse, godly children, godly workers, godly and faithful leaders, good government, good weather, peace and order, health, a good name, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
God condemns injustice so often in his word that some students of the Bible who do not know Christ still applaud the statements of the prophets: “Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah (a dry measure), and an honest hin (a liquid measure)” (Leviticus 19:36). “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich– both come to poverty” (Proverbs 22:16). And again: “Hate evil, love good, and maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15).
Justice apart from Christ does some good in the world, but only a fleeting good, a temporary good. It does not save anyone from the pit of hell. It does not forgive any sins. Repentant men and women are imprisoned and even put to death. Unrepentant men and women escape justice and go on to oppress the helpless, and they openly mock those who can’t do anything about it. But if God used the freaks of Greece and Rome to make just enough peace in the world for the Gospel to be preached, we see how he can bend even wickedness to submit to his plan of salvation. If God uses the oppression of the innocent today to further the spread of the Gospel in some way we cannot see, then may we bear up under our crosses for the sakes of those whose lives will be touched by the Holy Spirit, whose hearts will be ignited into faith through the word of Christ, and who will sit with us at the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb in the Father’s house for all eternity.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2025
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Lamentations 3:34-36 Injustice