Lamentations 1 Study Notes

1:10 Judah lost the most outstanding of all her glorious possessions—the temple of God. The sanctuary was off limits to Gentiles previously, but now the nations tramped through it with disregard.

1:11 In order to stay alive, the people bartered their precious belongings for food. Valuables such as jewels were exchanged for meager foodstuffs.

1:12-17 The second half of this first lament intensifies as the plan and purpose of God are unveiled.

1:12 A plea for pity goes out to the nations to see if there is any pain like Judah’s. It is another day of the Lord, this day of his burning anger.

1:13-15 Four strong metaphors depict the sufferings that Jerusalem endured: (1) fire from on high, (2) a hunter’s net for her feet, (3) an animal yoke on her neck, and (4) being trampled and crushed like grapes in a winepress. Each figure depicted the dies irae, the “day of wrath” belonging to the Lord. The fire from on high was nothing less than fire from God (Gn 19:24; Ps 11:6). So was the net from God, because it came as a check on one’s lifestyle (Ps 94:13; Jr 50:24; Ezk 12:13; 17:20; 32:3; Hs 7:12). The yoke recalled Jeremiah’s encounter with the false prophet Hananiah (Jr 28). Likewise, the winepress was a symbol of the final judgment (Is 63:1-4; Jr 6:9; Jl 3:13; Rv 14:18-20; 19:13-15).

1:16 The heartbreak was wrenching to the core of Jeremiah’s being because the enemy had prevailed.

1:17 Once again, for the fourth time in this chapter, the mournful words fall: there is no one to comfort her.

1:18-22 After structuring his first poem around the first seventeen letters of the Hebrew alphabet, describing all the while Israel’s bitter response to her suffering, with the eighteenth letter Jeremiah begins a brief interlude in which Judah confesses that the Lord is in the right and asks him to deal with them [Judah’s enemies] as you have dealt with me.

1:18 Judah’s confession begins with the Lord is just; the people of Judah had rebelled against his command.

1:19 Judah’s professed lovers ended up being her betrayers, and they themselves had perished in the city while searching for food.

1:20-21 Two requests are issued in these verses: (1) for the Lord to witness the enormous mental and emotional distress Judah was experiencing, and (2) for the Lord to pay back the jeering nations.

1:22 Jeremiah’s request for the day of wrath to fall on the nations as it had fallen on Judah need not make us blush even though Jesus told us to “love [our] enemies” (Mt 5:44). The kind of love Jesus had in mind was required even of OT believers such as Jeremiah, but it does not conflict with what Jeremiah says here. There are two types of enemies. First, there are those who simply bear ill will toward us. These we must love, commending them to God in prayer. Second, some enemies do more than bear ill will toward us. They maliciously rage against us and our God, threatening our very lives. If they persist in this despite our sincere efforts to make peace, we are justified in turning them over to God for his sentencing and judgment (Ps 139:19).