GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LAMENTATIONS 4:21-22
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A devotion on Lamentations 4:20 will be sent on Palm Sunday
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
you who live in the land of Uz.
A cup will also be passed to you.
You will become drunk
and you will strip yourself naked.
22 O daughter of Zion, the punishment for your guilt is finished.
He will not send you into exile again.
But you, O daughter of Edom,
he will punish your sin
and expose your wickedness.
The land of Uz was where Job and his wife lived, probably in the days of Isaac or Jacob. At that time, Uz went from the desert east of the Dead Sea to perhaps the Euphrates River. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls says, “They shall fight against the rest of the sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Togar, and Mesha, which are beyond the Euphrates” (War Scroll, Column 2 line 11). However, in the time of Lamentations, Uz and Edom were more or less synonymous.
The Edomites had become enemies of Israel and Judah. Joel says that the people of Edom shed the innocent blood of the people of Judah (Joel 3:19). And Amos says that Edom bought captives who were Israelites and took them as slaves (Amos 1:6,9). And Obadiah also describes the violence of the Edomites against the people of Judah, “On the day you stood aloof when strangers carried off Judah’s wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them” (Obadiah 1:11). We don’t know who the attacker was that Obadiah mentions, but assuming an early date for Obadiah, it could well have been Pharaoh Shishak in the years following Solomon’s death. At a later time it could have been either the Assyrians or the Babylonians.
Notice that Edom must receive the cup that was passed to her and become drunk. The Scriptures use the idea of a “cup of punishment” many times (Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 51:17-22; Jeremiah 25:15; Ezekiel 23:32-34; Habakkuk 2:15). Luther explains that the term “symbolizes that specific portion of suffering which God awards” (LW 13:345).
What does the drunk woman do? She exposes herself, stripping herself naked for some man to take her body for his pleasure. Here a verb stem called the hithpael shows an act that is done to oneself (compare “slashed themselves,” 1 Kings 18:28), or else it depicts the drunken woman peeling off one item of her clothing here, and another over there, and another, and another, like the mythical “dance of the seven veils” ascribed to the daughter of Herodias, who danced for the head of John the Baptist (the “seven veils” are not part of the text, Matthew 14:6; Mark 6:22). The Devil talks about “going here and there” over the earth in Job 1:7. Whichever subtle shade of meaning is brought on by the stem, the meaning is clear: Edom had done this to herself. She brought on this judgment on account of her sins and her unbelief.
But in this final example of the first cross in this fourth chapter, or fourth lament, our prophet turns to the Lord in faith and confesses that for Israel, the true Israel, the “daughter of Zion” and by this meaning the true church of believers, there is forgiveness. After the hard punishment of the exile, there is no more punishment; nothing will come as a punishment, for example, after the people have died. There is no intermediate place of purging away sin. They have been rebuked, they have repented, they have turned back to God with faith in the coming Savior, and there is only heaven in store for them.
This is the direct result of the second cross, the Great Cross of Jesus Christ. His cross is not even hidden in this passage, but put on display in all of the glory of its results, even though the writer did not know the shape of form of the cross. He only knew that there would be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, for this was the promise given to Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:15). Struck at last in the heel by Satan, the Son of God would crush Satan’s power and whatever authority he claimed over mankind. The temporary victory of Satan that brought sin and death and damnation into the world was ended by Jesus on the cross. “The punishment for your guilt is finished.” “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). And everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name (Acts 10:43).
Those who reject him have their sinfulness exposed for all eternity as they suffer for it, day in and day out, week upon horrifying week, month upon excruciating month, year after agonizing year, forever. Forever. Forever. Therefore Edom in verse 22 stands for all those everywhere and throughout time who reject Christ and turn away from God.
Now, if in this verse we also want to consider the third cross, the cross of our own temporary suffering in this lifetime, then we see those crosses as they truly are: “light and momentary troubles that are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Note: An ancient Rabbinic tradition is that Job’s wife was none other than Dinah the daughter of Jacob. Whether the marriage connection is correct or not, it shows that the ancient Rabbis had the same view of the date of the events in Job that we have today, around 1900 or 1800 BC, before there was a nation of Israel on the other side of the Dead Sea and before Uz was known as Edom.
Another note: The verb stem of “expose” in verse 22, “He will punish your sin and expose your wickedness,” is a shocking example of the piel verb showing disrespect; an official, even forensic statement and proclamation of everlasting guilt.
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Lamentations 4:21-22 It is finished