Lamentations - Fourth Lament

THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS
LESSON 5
CHAPTER 4: THE FOURTH LAMENT
THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM (4:1-22)

Circumcise yourselves for Yahweh, apply circumcision to your hearts, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will leap out like fire and burn with no one to quench it, in return for the wickedness of your deeds.
Jeremiah 4:4

The fourth lamentation is similar to the second. The desolation of the country and Jerusalem and all the suffering its people are experiencing lead the writer to inquire who is to blame. However, the end of the fourth lamentation becomes a rallying cry to seek the Lord, acknowledging that His plans are inscrutable and that only He can resolve the situation the people's sins have brought upon them.

In verses 1-15, the writer describes the terrible condition of the citizens of Jerusalem and their city.
Aleph 1 How the gold has tarnished, how the fine gold has changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at the corner of every street.

Bet 2 The children of Zion, as precious as finest gold "to think that they should now be reckoned like crockery made by a potter!

Gimel 3 The very jackals give the breast, and suckle their young: but the daughter of my people is as cruel as the ostriches of the desert.

Dalet 4 The tongue of the baby at the breast sticks to its palate for thirst; little children ask for bread, no one gives them any.

He 5 Those who used to eat only the best, now lie dying in the streets; those who were reared in the purple claw at the rubbish heaps.

Waw 6 for the wickedness of the daughter of my people exceeded the sins of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand's being laid on it.

Zain 7 Once her young people were brighter than snow, whiter than milk; rosier than coral their bodies, their hue like sapphire.

Het 8 Now their faces are blacker than soot, they are not recognized in the streets, the skin has shrunk over their bones, as dry as a stick.

Tet 9 Happier those killed by the sword than those killed by famine: they waste away, sunken for lack of the fruits of the earth.

Yod 10 With their own hands, kindly women cooked their children; this was their food when the daughter of my people was ruined.

Kaph 11 Yahweh indulged his fury, he vented his fierce anger, he lit a fire in Zion which devoured her foundations.

Lamed 12 The kings of the earth never believed, nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy would ever penetrate the gates of Jerusalem.

Mem 13 Owing to the sins of her prophets and the crimes of her priests, who had shed the blood of the upright, in the heart of the city,

Nun 14 they wandered blindly through the streets, polluted with blood, so that no one dared to touch their clothes.

Samek 15 "Keep away! Unclean!" people shouted, "Keep away! Keep away! Don't touch!" If they left and fled to the nations, they were not allowed to stay there either.

Verses 1-2 describe the situation in Jerusalem. The adults are so focused on their sufferings that they care less about the welfare of their children. The writer accuses them of having less concern for their children than the jackals for their young (verse 3).

The writer focuses again on the famine (cf. 1:11; 2:12, 19). The children have nothing to eat (verse 4). The citizens, accustomed to plenty of food, are now foraging in the rubbish dumps and have become skin and bones (verses 5-8). And horrors upon horrors, some have even resorted to cannibalism (verse 10). The sins of the people are worse than the sins of the people of Sodom (verse 6), destroyed by God in Genesis 19:1-25).

No one could believe that Yahweh would ever have allowed an enemy to "penetrate the gates of Jerusalem" (verse 12). In verse 13, the writer identifies those responsible for the destruction, which includes the sins of Jerusalem's prophets and the iniquities of her priests who desecrated God's city by shedding the blood of the righteous.

Everyone shuns the people and their priests because of their polluted condition; there is no liturgy of worship in the Temple to forgive their sins (verses 14-15).

The narrator moves out of the fallen city, following the path of the people deported by the Babylonians.
Pe 16 The face of Yahweh destroyed them, he will look on them no more. There was no respect for the priests, no defenses for their elders.

Ain 17 Continually we were wearing out our eyes, watching for help "in vain. From our towers we watched for a nation which could not save us anyway.

Zade 18 Men dogged our steps, to keep us out of our streets. Our end was near, our days were done, our end had come.

Qoph 19 Our pursuers were swifter than eagles in the sky; they hounded our steps through the mountains, they lay in ambush for us in the wilds.

Resh 20 The breath of our nostrils, Yahweh's anointed, was caught in their traps, be of whom we said, "In his shadow we shall live among the nations."

Shin 21 Rejoice, exult, daughter of Edom, you who reside in Uz! To you in turn the cup will pass: you will get drunk and strip yourself naked!

Taw 22 Your wickedness is atoned for, daughter of Zion, he will never banish you again. But your wickedness, daughter of Edom, will he punish, your sins he will lay bare!

The people have no king, elders, or priests to lead them, and no one comes to aid them in their darkest hours (verses 16-17). "We watch for a nation which could not save us anyway," in verse 17, refers to Egypt, Judah's ally in the previous war (see Jeremiah 37:6-10). The Babylonian soldiers kept Yahweh's anointed covenant people on the move, hounding their steps as they crossed the mountains and ambushing those who tried to flee (Verses 18-20).

Verse 20 probably refers to God's "anointed" Davdic king, Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:6-7). Some Biblical scholars read verse 20 as a reference to the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ and Christians living in every nation. Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-253) interpreted "his shadow" as the incarnation and commented: "Do you see how the prophet, moved by the Holy Spirit, tells us that the shadow of Christ gives life to the Gentiles? How could he not bring us to life, for when the Word was made flesh Mary was told: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you?" (In Canticum Canticorum, 3, 2. 3). ST. Irenaeus read verse 20 as a reference to Christ's Passion. He wrote: "Scripture taught that though Christ is the Spirit of God, he would be made man and suffer death; the Passion that he would endure is revealed and heard with shock and awe because he is the one in whose shadow it is said that we shall live. The shadow means his body, for as a shadow is cast by the body, Christ's body was made by his Spirit. But the word shadow also stands for the humbling of his body and for how easily his body will be humbled. For as the shadow of every body is cast on the ground and trodden under their feet, Christ's body is thrown to the ground in the Passion and stamped upon" (Demonstratio praedicationis apostolicae, 71).

The prediction of the "cup" of God's wrath passing to Edom in verse 21 and the prophecy of Edom's punishment in verse 22 is for their participation in and gloating over Judah and Jerusalem's destruction. The Edomites were distant relatives of the Israelites, descendants of Jacob-Israel's twin brother, Esau (Genesis 25:19-14; 27:1-46). They took advantage of the covenant people's defeat (see Isaiah 34 and Ezekiel 25). Uz was a descendant of Seir the Horite (see Genesis 36:28; Job 1:1; and Jeremiah's prophecy against Edon in Jeremiah 49:7-22). The "cup of God's wrath" is one of the symbolic images of the prophets. See the chart at Symbolic Images of the Old Testament Prophets and the book, Jesus and the Symbolic Images of the Prophets.

In verse 22, the writer announces that Yahweh has visited His just punishment on Judah and Jerusalem. They have now atoned for their sins. Their punishment is over, and one day, their exile will end, and they will never be sent into exile again. See Jeremiah's prophecy of Judah's return from exile in Jeremiah 25:3-13 and 29:10.

In Jeremiah 25:8-13, Jeremiah prophesied a seventy-year exile for Judah:

8 "So, this is what Yahweh Sabaoth says, Since you have not listened to my words, 9 I shall now send for all the families of the north Yahweh declares, that is, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant and bring them down on this country and its inhabitants and on the surrounding nations; I shall curse them with utter destruction and make them an object of horror, of scorn, and ruin them forever. 10 From them I shall banish the shouts of rejoicing and mirth, the voices of bridegroom and bride, the sound of the handmill and the light of the lamp; 11 and this whole country will be reduced to ruin and desolation, and these nations will be enslaved to the king of Babylon for seventy years. 12 But when the seventy years are over, I shall punish the king of Babylon and that nation, Yahweh declares, for the wrong they have done, that is, the country of the Chaldaeans, 13 and make it desolate forever, and against that country, I shall perform all the words with which I have threatened it, that is, everything written in this book.'"

In the past, Jeremiah only referred to the "enemy from the north" (ten times in Jeremiah 1:13, 14, 15; 3:18; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20; 16:15). He identified Babylon as Judah's enemy in the oracle of 20:1-6, delivered sometime before 605 BC, and now, for the first time, he names the "enemy from the north" as the Empire of the Babylonians/Chaldaeans.

10 From them I shall banish the shouts of rejoicing and mirth, the voices of bridegroom and bride, the sound of the handmill and the light of the lamp...
The invasion of the Babylonians will bring the cessation of marriage, pertinent to God's command to Jeremiah not to marry (Jer 16:1). However, in addition to marriage, the basic activities of daily life will cease for the citizens of Judah and Jerusalem.

11 and this whole country will be reduced to ruin and desolation, and these nations will be enslaved to the king of Babylon for seventy years.
In addition to the desolation of the people and the land, God condemned the citizens of Judah and their neighboring nations to seventy years of exile in Babylon.

Seventy years was considered a normal life span (see Psalm 90:10), but there is a specific reason the covenant people owe Yahweh seventy years in atonement. What is that reason? See Leviticus 25:1-7, 18-22, and 2 Chronicles 36:21. The covenant people had failed to obey the seventh year Sabbath rest for the land; therefore, they owed God seventy years of "rest" for the land.

The Promised Land never "belonged" to the Israelites. They were God's tenants on His land (Leviticus 25:23). The purpose of the Sabbath year was that it served as an opportunity for the covenant people to demonstrate their faith and trust in God to provide for them in the Promised Land, as He promised in His list of blessings for covenant obedience (Leviticus 26:3-13 and Deuteronomy 28:1-14). Every seventh year, the land was to lie fallow for an entire year. Crops were not sown, the vineyards were not pruned, no grain was harvested, and no grapes were gathered from the untrimmed vines. However, whatever the land produced naturally in its Sabbath year without organized labor served to feed the people, their servants, the resident aliens, the cattle, and even the wild animals (Leviticus 25:4-7). The land was at "rest" just as God rested on the seventh day of the Creation event in Genesis 2:1-3. In abandoning God's Law, the covenant people also failed to keep the Sabbath rest while they enjoyed the land. Therefore, God would take them out of His land so it could receive the 490 years of Sabbath rest it was owed!

12 But when the seventy years are over, I shall punish the king of Babylon and that nation, Yahweh declares, for the wrong they have done, that is, the country of the Chaldaeans, 13 and make it desolate forever, and against that country, I shall perform all the words with which I have threatened it, that is, everything written in this book.'"
When God used a nation as His instrument of justice, it did not mean it was free to act without justice. In fact, those nations were under a greater obligation to behave in a righteous and just manner. The Assyrians, who were God's instrument of judgment against the Northern Kingdom of Israel, were later punished by the Babylonians for their cruelty (2 Kings 19:35-37; 2 Chronicles 32:20-21; Nahum 1:2-3). In 612 BC, after a bitter civil war, the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was destroyed by a coalition of its former subjected peoples, including the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Scythians, and Cimmerians, ending the Assyrian empire. Likewise, the Babylonians would receive God's judgment for their unjust actions. Yahweh, whose attributes include mercy and justice, promised to judge the Babylonians at the end of Judah's seventy-year exile sentence for the crimes they committed against the people they harshly oppressed as God's instrument of justice.