A Lament for Fallen Jerusalem

Lamentations 1:1-11

1 How lonely sits the city
That was full of people!
How like a widow is she,
Who was great among the nations!
The princess among the provinces
Has become a slave!

2 She weeps bitterly in the night,
Her tears are on her cheeks;
Among all her lovers
She has none to comfort her.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her;
They have become her enemies.

3 Judah has gone into captivity,
Under affliction and hard servitude;
She dwells among the nations,
She finds no rest;
All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.

4 The roads to Zion mourn
Because no one comes to the set feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests sigh,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she is in bitterness.

5 Her adversaries have become the master,
Her enemies prosper;
For the LORD has afflicted her
Because of the multitude of her transgressions.
Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

6 And from the daughter of Zion
All her splendor has departed.
Her princes have become like deer
That find no pasture,
That flee without strength
Before the pursuer.

7 In the days of her affliction and roaming,
Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things
That she had in the days of old.
When her people fell into the hand of the enemy,
With no one to help her,
The adversaries saw her
And mocked at her downfall.

8 Jerusalem has sinned gravely,
Therefore she has become vile.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts;
She did not consider her destiny;
Therefore her collapse was awesome;
She had no comforter.

"O LORD, behold my affliction,
For the enemy is exalted!"

10 The adversary has spread his hand
Over all her pleasant things;
For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary,
Those whom You commanded
Not to enter Your assembly.

11 All her people sigh,
They seek bread;
They have given their valuables for food to restore life.

"See, O LORD, and consider,
For I am scorned."

This book of lament is where Jerusalem, now reduced to rubble by the invading Babylonian hordes, leads Jeremiah to write a five-poem dirge of his sadness for the death of Jerusalem which now lies barren.  The Babylonian hoards had leveled the once beautiful city of worship and pride of its people, but their sin within her walls brought down judgment and the hand of God used Babylon to level it and carry the remnant off to captivity in an even more godless place of idols.  It begins with Jerusalem in affliction.  The once grand city is now without inhabitants or her former glory among the nations and the princess has been made a slave.  The former friends and lovers allied against her and were not there to wipe away her tears.  The hard adversity and affliction of slavery gave the people of Judah no more rest in their toils given to generate repentance and renewed devotion to their LORD.  Meanwhile, the once busy roads leading to Jerusalem were now empty of pilgrims coming to worship at the temple which no longer stood there open to receive them.  The multitude of their sins handed all over to their enemies for them to prosper instead.  All looked very bleak and hopeless with such a loss of splendor and pleasantries, and their enemies just mocked the fall of that great city of God’s might and right.  Her sins had made her exposed and shameful as if naked and afraid while being despised instead of respected and feared as when they were on God’s side.  Yes, they did not consider the cost or their destiny as they went down the path of rejecting God’s word and their faithfulness to follow in righteous cleanliness of the soul and actions.  Instead of repentance for idolatry and immortality, they had pursued sin instead of Him and found no more comfort from the LORD in their captivity of kind judgment for correction to repentance (Romans 2:4, Isaiah 30:18-19).  Their enemy was lifted up it appeared while they had been brought low.  They had entered the sanctuary meant only for priests made holy and desecrated it by their presence there as the people of the Lord sighed and sought something to eat by buying it at such a high price!  They therefore prayed in the words of Jeremiah for God to look and see their sorry state and consider them once more.  They sought a blessing out of their immediate sight but it appeared lost to them at the time, not seeing it according to God’s timing in their seventy years of corrective discipline in a godless land which their own idolatry and immortality had brought them to.  This book of lament for fallen Jerusalem has hope in it, however.  They just had to trust God’s work and learn to follow again.  This is a lesson for us all in Christ when we sin and are disciplined for our own good (Hebrews 12:10-11).