chin, king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, delivering him from the special bondage in which he had been held all these years, v. 32. and spake kindly unto him and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon, captive monarchs of other conquered nations, v. 33. and changed his prison-garments, witnesses of his deep humiliation;

and he did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life. V. 34. And for his diet there was a continual diet given him of the king of Babylon, every day a portion, until the day of his death, all the days of his life. Cp. 2 Kings 25, 27-30. The same Lord who humbles the proud transgressors is able also to exalt those who turn to Him in true repentance.

The Jews had the custom of singing songs of lamentation after the death of some beloved person, some of these elegies being of unusual beauty and power. Cp. 2 Sam. 1, 17; 3, 33. In a similar way they mourned over the destruction of cities and countries. Cp. Amos 7, 1; Ezek. 26, 17.

It is no matter for surprise, then, that we find an entire group of such songs concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of Judah, the poems contained in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. These elegies were evidently composed while Jerusalem lay in ruins, some time between 587 and 536. And since the author appears as an eye-witness of the catastrophe, a fact which is brought out also by the vividness of his presentation, it seems plausible to place the date of the poems in the early decades of the sixth century before Christ.

Both the Jewish Synagog and the Christian Church state that Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations, this statement being made expressly in the introduction to the book which was added by the Greek translators in the version known as the Septuagint. The language of the book is characterized by the same emphasis upon the guilt of the Jews, the frequent repetition of the same expressions and figures of speech, the reference to words of the

Law, and a certain broadness and monotony of narration which is so obvious in the Book of Jeremiah. It was natural, therefore, that the various Bible versions placed Lamentations immediately after the book of Jeremiah's prophecy, although they are strictly poetical in character and for this reason might be grouped with Job, the Psalms, and the poetical books of Solomon.

We have five chapters, that is, five poems in the Book of Lamentations, all of them, with the exception of the last, in the form of an alphabetical acrostic, chapter 3 having three verses for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 1 is a lamentation over the exile of the Jews and the misery of the ruined city, chapter 2 a song of Jerusalem's destruction and the mockery of the enemies, chapter 3 an elegy picturing the grievous sufferings of the pious, but also the hope of eventual deliverance, chapter 4 a discourse on the fact that the destruction of the Temple and the distress of the city were well deserved, and chapter 5 a prayer to God that He would not forget the pitiful condition of His stricken people, but give them speedy help.1)

1) Cp. Fuerbringer, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 70-72; Concordia Bible Class, May, 1919, 71. 72.

Lamentation over the Destruction of the

City, the Nation, and the Temple. DESCRIPTION OF THE SHAMEFUL LOT WHICH HAS COME UPON JERUSALEM.-V.1. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! It is a strong expression of horrified astonishment over the fact that the formerly populous city is now lonely and deserted, sitting alone in deep mourning. How is she become as a widow! She no longer enjoys the fellowship of Jehovah, her Husband, and she has lost her children, who have been killed in battle

and carried away into exile. She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, her rule being accepted more or less continuously in the surrounding provinces from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates, how is she become tributary! herself condemned to servitude and to the payment of tribute-money. V. 2. She weepeth sore in the night, the slumber being driven away from her eyelids by the greatness of her sorrow, and her tears are on her cheeks, since they flow without stop

ping and have no chance to dry; among all her lovers, who formerly professed affection for her, she hath none to comfort her; all her friends, upon whom she depended for assistance, have dealt treacherously with her, deserting her in the midst of the dangers which came upon her; they are become her enemies, their former profession of loyalty changing to open hostility. V. 3. Judah is gone into captivity, led away into exile, because of affliction, the misery upon the country on account of the occupation of the land by the Chaldeans, and because of great servitude, the servile work which was included in the tributary service exacted by the conquerors; she dwelleth among the heathen, sojourning among them, as it were, in the hope of finding some measure of security; she findeth no rest, being disappointed also in this respect; all her persecutors overtook her between the straits, so that there was no outlet for her, no chance to escape. V. 4. The ways of Zion do mourn, all the roads leading to the capital lying desolate, because there are no pilgrims found there, because none come to the solemn feasts, the great festivals of the Jewish year; all her gates are desolate, for there is no longer the happy traffic of former years; her priests sigh, under the heavy oppression which they suffer and because the Temple and its worship are no longer in existence, her virgins are afflicted, since their joyful singing no longer enlivened the great festivals, and she is in bitterness, she feels her misfortunes with poignant grief. V. 5. Her adversaries are the chief, that is, the head, the rulers of Judah, her enemies prosper, their good fortune intensifying the darkness of her own calamity; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions, the punishment which she was suffering being fully deserved; her children are gone into captivity before the enemy, literally, "her infants in absence of strength before the pursuer." V. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed, the presence of Jehovah and His glory in her midst; her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, so that they have no strength to flee and escape from the enemy, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Cp. 2 Kings 25, 3. 4. V. 7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, the members of the Jewish Church recalling with eager remembrance the glorious evidences of God's blessing which had been theirs, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her, the days of her calamity contrasting very strikingly with her former state of blessedness; the adversaries saw her and did mock at her Sabbaths. As the Jewish day of rest was a favorite object of mockery on the part of the

enemies, so they now thought it a huge joke that a general and lasting Sabbath had come upon their country. V. 8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, chiefly by joining in the idolatry of Israel and the heathen nations, therefore she is removed, as one separated from the congregation on account of legal impurity; all that honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness, her sins and vices having now become known; yea, she sigheth, since now at last she has, in a measure, come to the realization of her transgressions, and turneth backward, withdrawing from men, so that her shame may no longer be witnessed. V. 9. Her filthiness is in her skirts, as of a woman Levitically unclean; she remembereth not her last end, she did not consider the result of her persistent iniquity, therefore she came down wonderfully, the greatness of her fall being such as to cause men to marvel; she had no comforter, no one to take her part with so much as a word of consolation. It is for this reason that her sighing is heard: O Lord, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself, increasing his insolence and violence. The prophet now continues his description of Jerusalem's misery. V. 10. The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things, blasphemously robbing even the precious vessels and appointments of the Temple; for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her Sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation, the heathen as such being excluded from the Temple, except where they were proselytes of righteousness. They had been excluded from the Sanctuary, but here they entered with blasphemous intent, ruthlessly trampling down and robbing just as they chose. V. 11. All her people sigh, with the calamity of the severe famine as a further cause for groaning, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul, no valuables being too precious, in this emergency, where the question is to save lives. Their groaning arises in a fervent appeal: See, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile, an object of wretchedness. The first step of true repentance is a full and unequivocal acknowledgment of one's own sinfulness and a corresponding free confession of it to the Lord.

THE LAMENT OF THE CITY AND THE ANSWER OF THE LORD. - V. 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Will none of those who are witnesses of her misery and shame take the proper notice of her calamity? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger. The greatness of Jerusalem's misery was so unusual that men seeing it were bound to conclude that there was a special hand and work of God in it. The picture is that of an outcast by the wayside

begging the passers-by for at least some show of sympathy. And it may be said that Jerusalem, in this instance, prefigures Christ, whom the language is prophetically made to suit. V. 13. From above hath He sent fire into my bones, which are here thought of as organs of the body that are first to feel a racking pain, and it prevaileth against them, so that the very vital powers are affected; He hath spread a net for my feet, to entangle her in His judgments; He hath turned me back, making it impossible to become free from the meshes of the net; He hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The city is thus pictured as a person whose happiness is destroyed and whose health is broken. V. 14. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand, sin being not only a taskmaster, but a yoke pressing the sinner down, with God Himself, as it were, holding the reins firmly twisted round His hand, so that escape is impossible; they are wreathed, the many cords of sin being woven together increasing the load, and come up upon my neck, binding the sinners to their wilful transgressions; He hath made my strength to fall, so that it is entirely broken; the Lord hath delivered me into their hands from whom I am not able to rise up, whom she did not have the strength to resist. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me, slaying them while they were engaged in the defense of the city; He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men, the very expression setting forth the strange contrast and the severity of the punishment; the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press. Cp. Joel 4, 13; Is. 63, 2. 3. V. 16. For these things I weep, giving free rein to her tears, mine eye, mine eye, runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me, the friends to whom she might have looked for words and deeds which would restore her soul having forsaken her; my children are desolate because the enemy prevailed, the enemy being still in power, with the result that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were destroyed, that they perished most miserably. V. 17. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, in a gesture imploring help, and there is none to comfort her; the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him, his very neighbors being his enemies and seeking his destruction. Jerusalem is as a

V. 15.

menstruous woman among them, shut out from intercourse with people and from attendance at the Temple-worship. These facts impress Jerusalem as being important and true; she must admit their justice. V. 18. The Lord is righteous, just in His treatment of the rebellious city; for I have rebelled against His commandment. Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow, since she feels the need of sympathy; my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity, this fact showing the very climax of her afflictions. V. 19. I called for my lovers, the nations which had professed an interest of true affection, but they deceived me; my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, both the spiritual and the temporal rulers expiring in the neighborhood of the Sanctuary of Jehovah, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls, the very nobles of the people being obliged to seek food of any kind whatsoever, if it only would suffice to preserve their lives. V. 20. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, she implored Him to observe how badly she fared. My bowels are troubled, being violently excited with excessive grief; mine heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled, the punishment being altogether deserved, in the full measure in which it struck her. Abroad the sword bereaveth, as the battle demanded its victims; at home there is as death, namely, by famine and pestilence. V. 21. They have heard that I sigh, the former friends and allies being fully aware of her groaning; there is none to comfort me, for they all ignore her trouble. All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that Thou hast done it, rejoicing over the Lord's punishment upon Zion. Thou wilt bring the day that Thou hast called, the day of wrath with whose coming the Lord had threatened for many years, and they shall be like unto me, for the Lord would visit her enemies as He had punished her. V. 22. Let all their wickedness come before Thee, for a just punishment, and do unto them as Thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions, according to the same righteous judgment; for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. This is not a vindictive prayer, but a plea for justice, which repentant believers of all times may well send up to the throne of God. The very punishment of God upon rebellious children is intended to change into a blessed experience of good.

Lamentation over the Destruction of Zion and the Desolation of Judah.

A DESCRIPTION OF JEHOVAH'S JUDGMENT. V. 1. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion, His own city, formerly the

seat of His Church, with a cloud in His anger, with the chilly darkness of ignominy and shame, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, the glory of the capital itself, chosen by God, as

it had been, for the seat of His glory and power in the midst of His people had been established there, and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger! so that the very Ark of the Covenant, 1 Chron. 28, 2, where Jehovah was enthroned between the wings of the cherubim, was removed and destroyed. V. 2. The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, the entire country being included in the ruin, and hath not pitied, carrying out His judgment with merciless severity; He hath thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, the fortified places sharing the fate of the hamlets in the open country; He hath brought them down to the ground, in a total destruction; He hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof, by delivering the country together with its rulers into the hands of the heathen conquerors. V. 3. He hath cut off in His fierce anger all the horn of Israel, symbol of strength and majesty, breaking it in the heat of His indignation; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy, withdrawing His assistance from His people and thus delivering them into the power of the invaders, and He burned against Jacob like a flaming fire which devoureth round about, the Lord thus being directly active in its destruction. V. 4. He hath bent His bow like an enemy, attacking them with a deadly weapon; He stood with His right hand as an adversary, wielding a ruthless sword, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye, all that charmed and delighted the eye, both in children and in goods, in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion, in the entire city of Jerusalem; He poured out His fury like fire, in the capture and destruction of the city. V. 5. The Lord was as an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel, or, "The Lord became - as a hero He hath destroyed"; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, the fine dwellings of the rich and mighty; He hath destroyed His strongholds, all the fortified places throughout the country, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation, or "sorrow and sadness, mourning and misery," as we might translate in following the play of similar sounds in the original. V. 6. And He hath violently taken away His Tabernacle as if it were of a garden, the Temple being subjected to ruin like a garden which the owner converts into some other kind of plot if it no longer suits his purposes; He hath destroyed His places of the assembly, where He met with His people in the communion of the covenant, in the Sanctuary protected by His holy Law. The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, this being the natural result of the city's destruction, and hath despised, in the indignation of His anger, the king and the priest; for

He no longer desired these mediators of His covenant, and the service of the priests was no longer required when the Temple-worship ceased. V. 7. The Lord hath cast off His altar, rejecting it with disdain, chiefly on account of the hypocritical worship connected with it; He hath abhorred His Sanctuary, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, the center of the Jewish cultus; He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces, the proud buildings of the Temple, which reared their columns high above the surrounding city and country. They have made a noise in the house of the Lord, the enemies breaking forth into loud shouts of rejoicing over their victory, as in the day of a solemn feast, in a noisy celebration. V. 8. The Lord hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion, the destruction of Jerusalem setting into execution the judgment of God, 2 Kings 25, 10; He hath stretched out a line, in taking measures to level the city in unsparing rigidity of punishment; He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying, from bringing total ruin upon the city; therefore He made the rampart and the wall to lament, they languished together, overcome by the shame which was done to them. V. 9. Her gates are sunk into the ground, buried under a mass of rubbish and earth, which the destruction of the city has scattered over them; He hath destroyed and broken her bars, with which the gates were bolted against the attack of the enemies. Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles, in shameful captivity; the Law is no more, its ordinances and provisions no longer being in force; her prophets also find no vision from the Lord, the Lord withholding His ordinary revelations and communications, as at the time of the Judges, 1 Sam. 3, 1. V. 10. The elders of the daughter of Zion, the leaders of the Jewish Church, sit upon the ground and keep silence, they have no counsel to give, chiefly because they are dumb with grief; they have cast up dust upon their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth, in token of the greatness of their mourning; the virgins of Jerusalem, ordinarily care-free and happy, hang down their heads to the ground, in an excess of grief. Such is the effect when the Lord carries out His sentence of judgment upon nations and upon individuals who oppose His will.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN CONSOLATION TOGETHER WITH A PLEA FOR HELP. — V. 11. Mine eyes do fail with tears, being spent, worn out, with weeping, my bowels are troubled, his heart being most deeply affected, my liver is poured upon the earth, that is, since the liver was considered the seat of the passions, all my feelings are dissolved with pain, for the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city,

the fainting away of these innocent victims of the calamity being the very climax of its severity. V. 12. They say. to their mothers, as they are tortured with the pangs of hunger, Where is corn and wine? anything to eat, when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, faint with weakness for lack of food, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom, breathing out their lives while lying on their mothers' laps, the latter being compelled to look on in helpless misery. V. 13. What thing shall I take to witness for thee? to bring some measure of comfort from the experience of others. What thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? in making some comparison which would tend to arouse her drooping spirits. What shall I equal to thee that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? Any attempt of this kind is bound to fail in this instance, since no real comparison can be made. For thy breach is great like the sea, immeasurably boundless in extent and depth; who can heal thee? As the conditions are, Jerusalem can expect neither comfort nor healing from her prophets. V. 14. Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee, namely, the false prophets, to whom the people of Jerusalem listened, much against Jeremiah's advice; and they have not discovered thine iniquity, pointing out the real cause of all this misery, to turn away thy captivity, namely, by leading the people to repentance, but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment, that is, the contents of their prophecies, while apparently directed against the enemies, are such as to bring ruin upon Judah. V. 15. All that pass by clap their hands at thee, in scorn and mockery; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, in expressing the derision which they felt, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? It is a question of scornful wonderment, denying Jerusalem's right ever to have borne such designations. To this behavior of strangers is added the mocking triumph of enemies. V. 16. All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee, in a gesture of mockery and derision; they hiss and gnash the teeth, as an expression of satisfied rage, of vindictive malice. They say, We have swallowed her up, thus effecting a complete destruction; certainly this is the day that we looked for, which they had so eagerly awaited; we have found, we have seen it, and they feel a corresponding satisfaction and pleasure. But the destruction of Jerusalem was not a chance happening, nor was it alone the culmination of men's hateful plans. V. 17. The Lord hath done that which He had devised, what He

had resolved upon; He hath fulfilled His word that He had commanded in the days of old, for the holiness of the Lord demands the punishment of every act of rebellion against His holy Law; He hath thrown down and hath not pitied, carrying out His threat with merciless severity; and He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries, 80 that they were given power, authority, and victory. V. 18. Their heart, that of the Jews suffering such great afflictions, cried unto the Lord, even while they addressed the fortifications of their city, O wall of the daughter of Zion, the city with all its inhabitants, let tears run down like a river day and night, in the intensity of grief over the present conditions; give thyself no rest, no surcease from sorrow; let not the apple of thine eye cease, in desisting from shedding tears. V. 19. Arise, cry out in the night, throughout all the watches of the night; in the beginning of the watches, with the desire and strength for weeping renewed again and again, pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord, the very heart dissolving in tears, as it were, in the excess of the sorrow caused by the great calamity; lift up thy hands toward Him, in a gesture of fervent supplication, for the life of thy young children that faint for hunger in the top, at the head, of every street. V. 20. Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom Thou hast done this, so the prayer of the city's inhabitants now arises. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? in revolting cannibalism caused by excessive hunger. Cp. Lev. 26, 29; Deut. 28, 53; Jer. 19, 9. Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the Sanctuary of the Lord? The one was against God's moral order governing the universe, the other conflicted with His covenant and the worship connected with it. V. 21. The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets, being slaughtered without mercy; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword, neither age nor sex being spared. Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger; Thou hast killed and not pitied. V. 22. Thou hast called as in a solemn day, as for a festival prepared for the enemies, my terrors round about, from every direction, so that Jerusalem was surrounded by them, so that in the day of the Lord's anger none escaped nor remained, all being involved in the common ruin; those that I have swaddled and brought up, with the fondest love of a parent, hath mine enemy consumed. Fortunate is the person who, when experiencing the Lord's punishment, cries out thus in true repentance!