Section V The Prayer of a Penitent Nation
Lamentations 5:1-22
In this closing poem there is no alphabetic acrostic. However there are twenty-two verses, which indicates that these five poems belong together. This chapter is more of a prayer than a song of lamentation. Although a large part of the material is a recital of the miseries that the people have suffered, they are enumerated so as to appeal to the compassion of God and to gain His help. They are used confessionally here (recited by the congregation) in order to lead the people to a place of humility and penitence where they may cast themselves on the mercies of God. The poet calls upon the Lord to look with mercy upon their miserable condition. He acknowledges that their afflictions are a result of sin (7). There is much grief on account of these things, and over the desolate condition of Zion. Their only hope arises from the fact that, unlike the thrones of earth, God's throne is eternal, and He is utterly trustworthy in His dealings with men.
Remember, O Lord (1). There is more in this remember than appears on the surface. It is the language of prayer. There is in it a sense of great urgency. It breathes of hope and faith. It implies that, if God's attention can be gained and His consideration given, help will soon be forthcoming.
In this fervent appeal Jeremiah calls the attention of God to the suffering and the reproach that His chosen people have undergone. Strangers and aliens (2) have occupied the inheritance (land) and the houses that God had given them. God's people were as helpless as orphans and widows (3) who had no fathers or husbands to defend them. The most necessary things of life have to be purchased from their captors; our water for money; our wood is sold unto us (4). Did they have to pay the enemy for water from their own cisterns? If this is a picture of Judah following the fall of Jerusalem, it may be so. The yoke of servitude was especially galling; Our necks are under persecution (5). They were forced to labour constantly for the enemy, and were given no time for decent rest. The humiliation of having to give the hand (submit) to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians in order to keep from starving was almost more than one could bear. The mention of Egyptians and Assyrians is symbolic of enemies east and west; i.e., they were surrounded by foes on every side.
Judah makes her final appeal with strong crying and tears. There seems to be no resentment against God for the punishment she suffers, only penitence and shame. The appeal is made with the faith that, although God has punished, He will also forgive, Since they have gained His attention and He has seen their afflictions, their sufferings will not last forever, nor will He let their oppressors escape judgment.
B. THE COMPLETE CONFESSION, 5:7-18
The poet confesses that there is a moral reason for the nation's plight: Our fathers have sinned…we have borne their iniquities (7). He recognized that there was a solidarity in the Jewish nation that no generation could escape. The children suffered for the sins of the parents. They were enslaved by their former servants (8). They obtained their bread with the peril of their lives (9), because of the desert robbers, the fierce Bedouin, who are likened to the sword of the wilderness. Their skin was black like an oven (10); i.e., hot because of the fever brought on by hunger. Their women had been ravished (11), their princes and elders (12) dishonored. The young men grind at the mill (13), i.e., do women's work, and even “boys stagger under loads of wood” (RSV). All the joy (15) of living has disappeared; only mourning remains. Prosperity and honor disappear. The crown is fallen from our head (16); i.e., national sovereignty and statehood is gone for the Jews. The nation is no more.
The climax of this passage is reached when the poet himself confesses for his generation, Woe unto us, that (for) we have sinned! (16) The whole truth is confessed at last! Jeremiah will no longer allow Judah to put all the blame on the past generation, our fathers (7), although they were guilty. It is always a good sign when men quit confessing the sins of others and begin to acknowledge their own guilt. Now that the confession has started, he makes it complete. Because of sin, “the whole head is sick,” and the whole heart is faint (17; Isa. 1:5). Because of sin the eyes are dim through weeping. Because of sin Zion lies desolate and in ruins.
With their confession complete, hope begins to rise in the hearts of the people. Loosed from a preoccupation with themselves, thoughts of the greatness of God begin to fill their minds. They cry in exultation, Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever (19). Unlike the gods of the heathen, the Lord is the Eternal One—the Ever Living One. All other powers and kingdoms may crumble and fall, but thy throne (His moral governorship over men) continues throughout all generations. All else may disappear, but God remains! Here is an anchoring place for the soul! Here one's heart may safely rest! Here is ample ground for hoping! “Since His throne endures eternally in heaven, He cannot let His kingdom perish on earth.”1 Therefore it does not seem illogical, when one understands Hebrew psychology, for the people to make a request in the form of a question, “Why dost Thou forsake us so long a time?” (20, lit.) Underneath the surface, the question is packed with hope, for it is based on a Hebrew conception of the character of God.
Verses 21-22 must be taken as a unit. It is stated awkwardly for the modern mind, but in the Hebrew the meaning can be discerned when read in the light of 19. Since God is forever the moral Governor of the universe, His people may have hope. This is what happens in the last two verses of the book—the people cast themselves without reservation on the mercies of God. They have become fully aware that submission and surrender is the only way out of their predicament, “Turn us back to thyself, O Lord, that we may be turned…unless Thou hast utterly rejected us, unless Thou art exceedingly angry with us” (21-22, lit.). Verse 22 is difficult, and it is almost certainly an admission that Judah deserves to be utterly rejected. Nevertheless it throbs with ill-concealed hope and unutterable longing.
Thus the book closes on a note of reckless faith—a faith that throws everything in one vast sweep of utter abandonment on the mercies of an eternal God.