Lamentations 5

1-22 Plea for Mercy

Note: Although it has 22 verses, Chapter 5 is not in the form of an acrostic, according to Easton's Bible Dictionary. Since Jeremiah is one of those left behind in Jerusalem, it speaks of their conditions as a besieged city.

1 Remember us, O LORD, and see our disgrace!

2-5 1) Our inheritance and our homes are gone; 2) we have become orphans and widows; 3) we must buy water and wood; 4) we are slaves; 5) we get no rest. A list of results of their punishment

6-7 1) We made a pact with Egypt and Assyria for bread; 2) we bear the punishments of our ancestors, who are no longer here.

8-18 More evidence of their punishment:

1. Slaves rule over us, and we have no deliverer;
2. getting bread is perilous (they had to sneak outside the city to get it);
3. our skin is black from working in the sun;
4. our women are raped, our princes hung up by their hands;
5. young men and boys are subject to hard labor;
6. old men no longer sit at the gate, young men no longer play their music;
7. our dancing has turned to mourning;
8. our crowns have fallen from our heads;
9. our hearts are sick, our eyes are dim;
10. jackals prowl over Mt. Zion.

19-20 But you, O LORD, you live forever. Why have you forgotten us completely?

21-22 Restore us, O LORD, unless you have rejected us completely.

Jeremiah ends on that note of dejection and utter sense of abandonment.

Lamentations 4

1-22 The Punishment of Zion

Just as in chapters 1 and 2, each of the 22 verses begins with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

1-2 The children of Zion are like gold that has grown dim, now as worthless as earthen pots.

3-4 Even jackals feed their young, but my people have grown cruel, and their young go hungry.

5-6 Those who ate fine food and wore fine clothing now wear rags; their punishment is greater than Sodom’s.

7-8 Her royalty, previously fair, are now black, shriveled, unrecognizable.

9-10 Those who perished by the sword were happier than those who starve; previously compassionate women eat their own children.

11-12 The LORD pours out his hot anger on Jerusalem; no one would have believed an enemy could enter its gates.

13-16 Her prophets and priests shed the blood of the righteous and caused them to be fugitives among their own people, therefore he has scattered priests and elders, showing them no honor.

17-19 We watched vainly for help, but our pursuers would not leave us alone, neither in our own streets, nor on the mountains, nor in the wilderness.

20 The LORD’s anointed was taken in their pits. This lamentation is referenced in 2 Chronicles 25:35, where it applied to Josiah. Here, it probably refers to Zedekiah, though not of the character of Josiah, was still in the lineage of the ultimate “Anointed One,” Christ, and as king was supposed to be their protector.

21-22 Rejoice while you can, Edom, because your punishment is coming. Zion’s exile will come to an end, but he will uncover your sins.

Lamentations 3

1-66 God's Steadfast Love Endures

Note: As stated previously, in Hebrew, chapter 3 is 22 sets of 3 verses. The first 3 verses begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second 3 with the second letter, and so on.

1-6 God has afflicted me; he has driven me into darkness, made my flesh to waste away, besieged me with bitterness and tribulation.

7-9 He has imprisoned me, chained me up, and will not hear my prayer.

10-15 He preys on me, like a bear or a lion, tears me to pieces, hunts me down and shoots me, making me a laughingstock of all the people, filling me with bitterness.

16-20 I eat gravel, I cower in ashes, I have forgotten what happiness is, I continually think of my afflicting.

21 "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope."

22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

24 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him."

Amazing. Jeremiah describes his misery in great detail, blaming God for it, until he remembers that the LORD is loving and merciful, and that gives him hope. So does this mean that God is not responsible for his misery after all, or does it mean that his misery is part of God's mercy and love?

25-30 The LORD is good to those who seek him, so it is good to wait quietly for his salvation, to sit alone in silence, to bow to the ground, to submit to punishment.

31-36 For though he causes grief, he will have compassion; he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone. He sees the perversion of justice in the land, and the suffering of humans because of it.

This seems to answer my previous question. Yes, Jeremiah still holds God responsible for his pain, but trusts that it is necessary to bring about God's purposes of love and mercy.

37-42 The LORD ordains both good and bad; none of us has a right to complain about punishment for our sins, so let us examine our ways and return to the LORD, lifting up our hearts and our hands.

43-48 In your anger [LORD], you have killed without pity, deaf to our cries, making us filth in the eyes of the people, who mock us as we are destroyed; my eyes flow with tears.

49-51 My eyes will flow without ceasing until the LORD looks down in pity, as I look at the fate of the the young women in the city.

52-54 My enemies hunt me down, throw me into a pit filled with water. I am lost. (See Jeremiah 37:11-21)

55-57 From the pit, I called on your name, O LORD, and you heard me; you told me not to fear.

58-63 You have redeemed my life, judged my cause and seen their malice toward me, how they taunt and plot and whisper against me all day long.

64-66 Pay them back, O LORD, pursue them in anger and destroy them.

Lamentations 2

1-22 God's Warnings Fulfilled

See Lamentations 1 for notes on structure.

1-2 The LORD in his anger has humiliated Zion, thrown her down to earth, destroyed her dwellings without mercy, brought her down with dishonor.

3-4 He has cut down her might, removed his protection, become a consuming fire, bent his bow like an enemy.

5-7 He has become an enemy, destroying Zion's palaces, laid its strongholds in ruins, multiplied Judah's mourning, destroyed his tabernacle, festival and sabbath, spurned king and priest, and delivered the city's walls to the enemy.

8-10 The LORD lay the city in ruins; her gates have sunk into the ground. Her king, princes and prophets give no guidance, her elders sit on the ground in silence, dust and sackcloth.

11-12 My eyes have no more tears because I see infants and babes faint in the streets.

13 O Jerusalem, I have nothing to compare your ruin to, I can't comfort you.

14 Your prophets misled you by not exposing your iniquity and by giving false oracles

15-17 Passersby mock your destruction, enemies rejoice that finally the LORD's warnings have been fulfilled.

18-19 Cry out to the LORD night and day, Zion, "pour out your heart like water," lift your hands to him for the lives of your children.

20-22 Look, O LORD, see who is suffering! The young and old have fallen by the sword of your anger, you have invited our enemies as if to a party. Details in these verses are gruesome.

Lamentations 1

Lamentations 1

1-22 The Deserted City (Jerusalem)

Note: In the original Hebrew, each of these 22 verses begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet: Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, etc. The same structure is followed in chapters 2 and 4 as well. Chapter 3 has 66 verses, where each 3 successive verses begin with the same letter, i.e. verses 1-3 begin with Aleph, 4-6 with Beth, etc. Although it also has 22 verses, chapter 5 is not an acrostic.

1-2 Lonely as a widow, or as a princess that has become a slave, she weeps bitterly in the night with no friends or lover to comfort her, for they are now her enemies.

3-4 Judah, now in exile, finds no rest. No one comes to her parties, her priests groan, her young girls grieve

5-6 As punishment from God for her sins, she serves her foes, her children have been taken captive, she has been stripped of her royalty, her princes have run away

7-8 She remembers how it used to be, before her enemies looked down on her, mocking her in her nakedness.

9-10 When she prostituted herself, she wasn't thinking of the future – now enemies have invaded the holy sanctuary.

11-12 Her people starve, ashamed of what they've become, receiving no pity from passersby.

13-15 The LORD has sent fire, captured me in a net, gathered all my sins and makes me carry them on my back, given me to my enemies, crushed my young men, trodden me as in a wine press. From verses 12-16, and again in verses 17-22, Jeremiah switches to the first person. He takes on Judah's suffering as his own.

16-18 For all this I weep, but there is no one to comfort. But I acknowledge God's righteousness in this. Others must learn from my suffering.

19 My former lovers deceived me; my priests and elders have starved to death.

20-22 LORD, see my distress, how my enemies rejoice at my punishment. Deal with them as you have dealt with me.

Introduction to Lamentations

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Lamentations, Book of

Called in the Hebrew canon 'Ekhah , Meaning "How," being the formula for the commencement of a song of wailing. It is the first word of the book (see 2 Samuel 1:19-27). The LXX. adopted the name rendered "Lamentations" (Gr. threnoi = Heb. qinoth) now in common use, to denote the character of the book, in which the prophet mourns over the desolations brought on the city and the holy land by Chaldeans. In the Hebrew Bible it is placed among the Khethubim. (See BIBLE .)

As to its authorship, there is no room for hesitancy in following the LXX. and the Targum in ascribing it to Jeremiah. The spirit, tone, language, and subject-matter are in accord with the testimony of tradition in assigning it to him. According to tradition, he retired after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to a cavern outside the Damascus gate, where he wrote this book. That cavern is still pointed out. "In the face of a rocky hill, on the western side of the city, the local belief has placed 'the grotto of Jeremiah.' There, in that fixed attitude of grief which Michael Angelo has immortalized, the prophet may well be supposed to have mourned the fall of his country" (Stanley, Jewish Church).

The book consists of five separate poems. In chapter 1 the prophet dwells on the manifold miseries oppressed by which the city sits as a solitary widow weeping sorely. In chapter 2 these miseries are described in connection with the national sins that had caused them. Chapter 3 speaks of hope for the people of God. The chastisement would only be for their good; a better day would dawn for them. Chapter 4 laments the ruin and desolation that had come upon the city and temple, but traces it only to the people's sins. Chapter 5 is a prayer that Zion's reproach may be taken away in the repentance and recovery of the people.

The first four poems (chapters) are acrostics, like some of the Psalms (25,34,37,119), i.e., each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. The first, second, and fourth have each twenty-two verses, the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The third has sixty-six verses, in which each three successive verses begin with the same letter. The fifth is not acrostic.

Speaking of the "Wailing-place (q.v.) of the Jews" at Jerusalem, a portion of the old wall of the temple of Solomon, Schaff says: "There the Jews assemble every Friday afternoon to bewail the downfall of the holy city, kissing the stone wall and watering it with their tears. They repeat from their well-worn Hebrew Bibles and prayer-books the Lamentations of Jeremiah and suitable Psalms."

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Copyright Statement
These dictionary topics are from M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain, copy freely.