GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 4:17-18
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17 Moreover, our eyes failed, looking in vain for help;
keeping watch from our watch towers
for a nation that could not save us.
18 They stalked our steps,
keeping us from walking in our city squares.
Our end was near, our days were over,
for our end had come.
Here the poet has gone back through his memory to the days that Jerusalem fell. The other cities were collapsing, their garrisons defeated and their walls were pulled down and broken up. A fragment of a message written on a piece of pottery at that time says, “We are watching the [signal] fires from Lachish, but we can no longer see Azekah” (Lachish Ostracon IV). Those two cities are also the ones described in Jeremiah 34:7 as “the cities that alone remained from all of Judah’s fortified cities” (EHV). Egypt couldn’t help. They were like “a splintered reed that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it” (Isaiah 36:6 EHV). The Babylonians had Judah bottled up and about to break. The poet is perfectly right: “Our end was near, our days were over, for our end had come.”
At that time, the prophet Ezekiel was already in Babylon. He had been for about seven years, since 593 BC. He was given this message to proclaim to Judah: “I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look on you with pity or spare you; I will surely repay you for all your detestable practices among you… The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come! Doom has come upon you– you who dwell in the land” (Ezekiel 7:3-4, 6-7). The first cross, the cross of the Jews in Babylon, was a bitter cross, a terribly bitter cross.
The second cross, the cross of Jesus Christ on Calvary, was even more bitter– the most bitter of all. For the suffering he went through was not at all according to his conduct; he was not repaid for any of his own sins. “He was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). But he willingly accepted the punishment for each one of our sins, our failures; each way that we, in small ways or big ways, break God’s holy will and by doing so set ourselves up as petty little gods in his place.
It was Christ who had no help, who could not be rescued. He did not keep careful watch from any watch tower, but asked his disciples to watch with him from a little olive grove on a hill. They were not watching for help, nor even on the lookout for attackers, even though Judas the traitor was on the way, stalking the Savior’s steps. No, they were told to “watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation” (Mark 14:38). The temptation was to deny Jesus when he was arrested; to be unfaithful to him. But all the time, even while he prayed, he was keeping watch over them. “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).
And on account of Christ, all of the troubles of these verses are reversed into blessings as we carry our own crosses. Even if our eyes physically fail, we do not look for help in vain. The father of one boy prayed to Jesus, “Take pity on us and help us” (Mark 9:22), and that is exactly what Jesus did. “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2).
A Christian might be preyed upon by a maniac, someone who stalks the steps, keeping them “from walking in the city square,” and who might have terrible intentions. We pray that the Lord would keep us and our children from such people! But the devil wants to harm us, and to kill us when he can (Mark 9:22). He may savagely twist the mind of some person, or cause a person to kill in a moment of confusion, fear, or fury. O Lord our God, keep our people from such times! But the devil is after us at all times. When terrible times come to us, we remember the comforting words of Paul: “God is faithful. He will not let you be tested beyond your ability. But when he tests you, along with the test he will give you an outcome that you will be able to bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). That outcome might mean the end of a person’s life, for the test can be a sudden accident, or a long-lasting disease, or something in between. But God will bring us through so that our souls are preserved. It may be that at any moment, “Our end was near, our days were over, for our end had come,” but our Savior Jesus is with us, and he will bring our souls safely to his side in heaven. “The Lord will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming, and going” (Psalm 121:7-8)
The crosses he gives to us or allows us to bear are there in part to strengthen us, in part to turn us to him in repentance and in faith, and in part to present us with the means to worship him with our lives and even with our struggles and suffering. Praise him for your cross. He promises to be with us to the very end of the age, or to the very end of our lives on earth. “The Lord will watch over you both now and forevermore” (Psalm 121:8).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Additional thought: We live in a frightening moment when, through an act that still frightens and confuses us, certain citizens of our country have been arrested without any process of law and sent to another country’s prison, from which there might be no release, whether guilty or not. These men, some of them innocent of any crime at all, “look for a nation that could not save them.” But even with such a cross for themselves and their families, and a burden of fear and confusion on those of us who remain behind, but uncertain whether our own government or police may suddenly decide that we are undesirable in its eyes– even such a cross can be borne with faith, even under such injustice. Perhaps a day will come when these devotions come to an end because I myself will have been arrested because I look like some other man, or because we share a common name, or for no reason at all, and there will be no way for anyone to find me or help me. But pray that Christ will be with me, and that I will cling to my faith in Jesus, trusting him to bring me through the terrible dark days of prison and torture or worse, and send his angels to wing my soul to heaven while my body waits for the resurrection.
Listen or watch Bible classes online. https://splnewulm.org/invisible-church/
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 4:17-18 They stalked our steps