Lament for and by Jerusalem:
1:1–2 Alef/Bet. The poet does not name Jerusalem at the start, but simply speaks of the city. The name of the city does not have to be spoken; poet and readers would know the identity of the now deserted city of Jerusalem. As today there is no doubt when a New Yorker refers to “the city,” so there is no secret concerning the identity of the city among Judeans. This once bustling place (a city “closely compacted together” [Ps. 122:3]) is now eerily deserted. The poet engages the readers by using an exclamation to get them to picture the scene of the deserted city in their imagination (How deserted lies the city once so full of people!). We feel the poet’s sadness right from the start as he compares the formerly populated city to the nearly empty one now.
He goes on to compare the city with a widow in a second exclamation (How like a widow is she . . . !). This personification also invites the reader to contrast the city’s past with its sad present. Once great among the nations, this city is like a widow, one bereft of a husband. A widow is now alone when she had once had companionship. She is sad when before she was happy. She who had solid social standing when her husband was alive has now been moved to the bottom rung of life. “Marriage is an image of domestic fullness in Scripture; widowhood is an image of loss and emptiness” (DBI, p. 946).
A second image is used that underlines the contrast between the city’s past and its present. In the past, she was like a queen—honored, respected, and well cared for. Now she is a slave—despised, exploited, needy.
Verse 2 continues the metaphor of Jerusalem as a widow in mourning. Here she weeps at night. The nighttime setting accentuates the loneliness of the scene. The second colon of this first poetic line concretizes the image by citing the tears that roll down her cheeks.
In a fashion similar to that in Ezekiel 16 (see v. 15), the poet refers to Judah’s hoped-for political allies as her lovers. The historical books and the prophets (Jer. 2:18, 36; 37) reveal that Judah hoped to fend off the Babylonian threat by means of powerful allies like the Egyptians, not as they should by trusting God. The metaphor of allies as lovers also evokes the metaphor of God as Judah’s husband. By taking on other lovers, Judah is committing spiritual adultery against God. These lovers are no longer there. They were unable and unwilling to help Judah in her need. Some even turned against her. The third poetic line of the verse continues this idea. Here Judah’s potential allies are called her friends rather than her lovers, but the point in the same. They are no longer her friends/allies; they are now her enemies.
1:3–4 Gimel/Dalet. The reason Judah is desolated is because she has gone into exile. The exile, of course, here refers to the aftermath of the Babylonian defeat of Judah in 586 B.C. Not all citizens of Judah, but the leading citizens, are taken away from Judah and brought to Babylon, thus causing major social disruption (see Jer. 52:28–30). Babylon’s final victory in 586 B.C. was preceded by earlier sieges in 605 (Dan. 1:1–2) and 597. These conditions brought affliction and hard labor. There was also inner turmoil as godly prophets like Jeremiah sought to sway a hostile monarchy to repent.
As a result of the exile, Judah no longer enjoys a separate existence, but rather dwells among the nations. The promised land had been a resting place for them but now their leaders live in a land not their own. She has become vulnerable to her enemies (all who pursue her have overtaken her).
The desolation of Judah continues to be the theme of verse 4, where the initial focus is on the roads at the time of the appointed feasts. The three feasts are Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. At these times, all God’s faithful were to travel to Zion (Jerusalem) to celebrate. The roads to Zion would have been packed with joyful celebrants. Indeed, most scholars believe that the “Psalms of Ascent” (Pss. 120–134) were sung during these pilgrimages. This picture contrasts vividly with the empty roads of the period after the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of its leading citizens.
With travelers off the road, the gateways into Jerusalem are also empty. The gates of a city in the ancient Near East were typically teeming with people, but because of the deportation of many and the suppression of those who remained, they are desolate. In particular, maidens and priests are said to be depressed and the city itself, still being personified as a woman (she), is said to be in anguish. Priests would have played a special role during the appointed (religious) feasts and women too are often associated with such joyous occasions (see Provan, Lamentations, p. 40, who lists Judg. 21:19–21; Jer. 31:13; Ps. 68:25).
1:5–7 He/Vav/Zayin. Her unfortunate situation has come about because her foes, most notably Babylon, have become her masters. In 586, not only was Judah taken and Jerusalem significantly destroyed, but the land was incorporated into the Babylonian empire as a province. No longer was there a king in Judah. Now a Babylonian-appointed Judean governor, Gedaliah, was the local official representing the empire. The siege of Jerusalem completed, Babylon was now at ease, having subdued the people of God.
The second parallel line of verse 5 articulates the reason for Jerusalem’s present problems. It is her many sins. These sins are not detailed here, but the prophet Jeremiah mentions a number including lying, kidnapping, murder, theft, and Sabbath-breaking (Jer. 7:9–11; 9:5; 17:19–27). They even offered their own children as sacrifices (Jer. 7:30–34). The people of God also offended God by forming illegitimate and ill-advised foreign military alliances, showing they trusted other nations to protect them rather than God their Divine Warrior. But worst of all was their idolatry (Jer. 10:1–16). In this way, Israel broke covenant (Jer. 11:1–17) and thus deserved the punishment that it received.
These sins have led to Jerusalem’s destruction and the exile of many of her leading citizens. Among the exiles would be children, the poet focusing on them to increase the pathos of the description.
The poet then remarks that the splendor has departed from the Daughter of Zion. Zion is the mountain made sacred by the presence of the temple. “Daughter” is sometimes used with geographical terms to indicate those areas that are in some sense dependent on the named geographical location. In that case, the Daughter of Zion would be a reference to Jerusalem and its surrounding villages. Referring to Jerusalem as the Daughter of Zion also effectively communicates a kind of intimacy and concern for the place that makes its destruction all the more tragic.
The splendor (hadar) of the Daughter of Jerusalem speaks to its eminence and majesty (Ps. 48:1–3). However, “splendor” is a word that is often associated with God himself (Ps. 29:4; 96:16; Isa. 2:10, 19, 21). To say that splendor has departed certainly should be connected to the idea that God abandoned his temple on the eve of the destruction of Jerusalem (Ezek. 9–11).
In the midst of such a crisis one would expect the leaders of the people to take charge and provide direction. However, the poet describes them (her princes) like deer with no pasture. Such deer would wander from place to place in desperation to find food. Deer don’t typically attack those who hunt them; they flee as do Judah’s princes before those who pursue them.
In verse 7, the NIV does not well represent the proper syntax of the first two cola (see Additional Notes), creating a slight change of meaning. Jerusalem, still personified as a bereaved woman) remembers her affliction and wandering. The latter refers to the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the subsequent displacement of its population. In addition, the personified city remembers her previous esteemed position before God’s judgment led to her downfall (all the treasures that were hers in days of old). While Israel and Judah never achieved superpower status, they knew days when they had more than enough resources to enjoy the life God gave them in the land.
The second two cola of this verse reflect on the powerlessness of the people of God at the time of their fall. When the enemy (the Babylonians) attacked, they had no one to help them, not even Egypt, which had indicated that they would help them against the onslaught from the north. The allies they had depended on had let them down. Since they were so defenseless, their enemies simply laughed at them since their defeat was so easy. An obedient, godly Israel would be the occasion for God’s laughter at their enemies (Ps. 2:4), but here the enemies laugh at God’s people because he has abandoned them.
1:8–9 Khet/Tet. Again (see 1:5) the poet points to the excessive sinfulness of God’s people as the cause of their present condition. They have rendered previously holy Jerusalem unclean. The book of Leviticus describes the conditions that render a person unclean. Since Jerusalem continues to be personified as a woman in this passage, perhaps the reader is to think of her as menstruating or as experiencing some other type of vaginal discharge (Lev. 15:19–30). Of course, if this is right, it is metaphorical of an uncleanness caused by moral rather than ritual infractions. Her uncleanness has rendered her repulsive not only to others but even to herself (she herself groans and turns away).
The filthiness on her skirts likely refers to the menstrual blood (though for the possibility that it is the result of sexual violence, see Additional Notes). The reversal was a shock (her fall was astounding). The surprise of Jerusalem’s defeat was not the result of having no warning. God sent many prophets (including Ezekiel and Jeremiah) to warn them. It must have been the theological presumption of the citizens of Judah that led them to think that they would never be defeated (see Jer. 7). With no one to comfort her, personified Jerusalem turns to God and pours out her heart as she expresses her pain. Her brief prayer serves to elicit some measure of sympathy on the part of the reader.
1:10 Yod. The metaphor of the violated woman in 1:8–9 prepares the way for the description of the violated temple. Nothing disturbed the psyche of Judeans, especially the faithful, more than the pillaging of the temple. The temple was the place God made his presence known on earth. Even apostate Judeans felt that the temple was special; it was a sacred spot. Jeremiah (see chs. 7 and 26) castigated the sinful people of God not for neglecting the temple, but in being presumptuous about its significance. They felt that since the temple was in Jerusalem nothing would happen to that city. How wrong they were. God abandoned the temple (Ezek. 9–11) and then used the Babylonians to rob its remaining treasures and destroy it.
To do so, soldiers from Babylon and their vassal states (those you had forbidden to enter your assembly) had to enter the holy precincts. Such an act in and of itself would be considered sacrilege. Psalm 74 presents a horrifying description:
Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;
they set up their standards as signs.
They behaved like men wielding axes
to cut through a thicket of trees.
They smashed all the carved paneling
with their axes and hatchets.
They burned your sanctuary to the ground;
they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.
They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land. (Ps. 74:4–8)
1:11 Kaf. The devastation of the land left the people homeless and struggling to survive. After such an attack, food would have been scarce for those who survived and those who were not deported. Treasures mean nothing if one is starving, and the people are willing to give them up for simple bread. Earlier, personified Jerusalem appealed to God to consider her suffering (1:9), now the people (or perhaps since the prayer is in the singular [I] personified Jerusalem standing for the people) plaintively speak to God to pay attention to their horrid situation.
1:12 Lamed. The verse opens with personified Jerusalem questioning (see Additional Notes for an alternative understanding) those who pass by. Those who pass by are likely thought to be those who would walk by and marvel at the frightful sight of a destroyed city. At the same time, those who walk by might be likened to those who walk by a desolated human being. A contemporary analogy might be walking by a homeless person ravaged by a hard life and living on the streets. The temptation of those passing by would be to mock (2 Chr. 7:21–22) and to exploit (Ps. 80:12; 89:41). The most telling use of the phrase comes in Jeremiah (18:16; 19:8; 22:8; 49:17; 50:13), where those who pass by a ruined city are appalled.
Speaking to those who pass by, personified Jerusalem claims to have experienced unprecedented suffering and even more importantly attributes the suffering to none other than God himself. God’s anger is the explanation for the horrific condition of the city.
1:13 Mem. Though on the human level it was the Babylonian army that destroyed Jerusalem, the poet knows that God was the ultimate actor. Babylon was a tool of God’s judgment. Here God is pictured as throwing fire (lightning?) down from heaven to burn personified Jerusalem. Indeed, the fire is said to go to her very bones, as inward as one might get. The second parallelism uses the common image of a snare to describe the downfall of the city. The net is a hunting image and Jerusalem is the prey. Personified Jerusalem was rendered totally weak (faint).
1:14 Nun. This verse again pinpoints the cause of God’s judging actions on the sins of the people. God has taken the sins and shaped them into a yoke that burdens the people. They are enslaved to their sins. They are like an ox or another type of beast of burden yoked to a mill or to a cart. In this way, the poet’s image is similar to that of Isaiah in 5:18: “Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes.” Jeremiah dramatizes the yoke image by putting an actual one around his neck and parading around Jerusalem (however, his yoke does not represent sin, but the yoke of servitude that the Babylonian king will soon impose on the people, Jer. 27). By carrying such a heavy burden, personified Jerusalem is soon sapped of strength. At that point God brings them into conflict with Babylon (those I cannot withstand).
1:15 Samek. Judah had an army, but its effectiveness did not depend on its size or the quality of its troops but rather on the disposition of God toward it. Israel won tremendous victories with insufficient troops and/or fighting skill (Jericho; Gideon) and they lost battles with superior strength (Ai). Thus, the fact that God has rejected Judah’s warriors is all that is needed to assure defeat. Against Judah’s rejected army, God raised an army (Babylonian) to defeat them. The third parallelism in the verse likens her defeat to the crushing of grapes in a winepress (see also Isa. 63:1–6). The image is gruesome as one pictures the blood-red juice of a crushed grape and likens it to a crushed, bleeding battlefield casualty.
1:16 Ayin. Like the lamenting psalmist, personified Jerusalem punctuates her sorrowful words with overflowing tears (Pss. 6:6; 42:3; 56:8; 80:5; 102:9; 116:8; 119:136). The depth of her anguish is deepened by the fact that there are no comforters for her; no one to tell her that things are going to be better or that there is a positive meaning to her suffering. Indeed, God is meant to be the one who is to comfort and to restore one’s soul (Ps. 23). However, God has left her to wallow in her misery. And it is not her misery alone. The enemy has turned her children into paupers. We are probably to think of personified Jerusalem’s children as another way to describe the inhabitants of that city. Alternatively it may be a way of referring to the villages and smaller towns that were in the vicinity and thus in a economic and political relationship with Jerusalem.
1:17 Pe. Here we have a one verse narrative statement that divides the two speeches (vv. 12–16 and vv. 18–22) of the woman who represents Jerusalem. Zion is the name given here to personified Jerusalem, pointing to the fact that the city contained the most sacred place on earth. However, Lamentations bemoans the destruction of the temple on Mount Zion and so she stretches out her hands with hope to beseech help, but again (1:16, but also vv. 2 and 21) no one, not even God, is there to comfort her (see also 1:21). Indeed, not only is there no comfort from God or from any human being, God has appointed Judah’s neighbors to be hostile toward it. Of course, this means Babylon, but also the smaller states nearby. Most notably Edom (see Obadiah) harassed Judah whenever they were given the opportunity. They are hostile toward Judah because she has become unclean (see 1:8–9). As such, she is either ignored or pelted with stones.
1:18–19 Tsade/Qof. The second extended speech of the woman Jerusalem begins with a confession and acknowledgement that God is righteous and that she has sinned (rebelled) against his command. This provides at least an implicit recognition that her suffering is deserved (contra Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, 71). Thus, as she turns and invites the peoples to view her suffering it may be for a didactic purpose: “See what happens when one rebels against God.” Her suffering is further described as the exile of her young citizens, referring to the deportation of Judeans to Babylon (beginning in 605 B.C. with Daniel and his three friends, continuing in 597 with Jehoiachin and Ezekiel among others, and then culminating with the exile of 587 B.C.).
At the time of her duress when under Babylonian siege, Jerusalem’s political allies let her down. Aside from an abortive attempt by Egypt to move against the Babylonians (Jer. 37), there were no other attempts on the part of allies to help them. As a result, the people languished. Here priests and elders, religious and political leaders, are described as looking for food to keep themselves alive, presumably during the siege.
1:20 Resh. Personified Jerusalem is in emotional torment. She calls God’s attention to her state of mind, perhaps to elicit his pity and compassion. However, she realizes that she has only herself to blame. She does not blame God, but only her own rebellion. Death is all around her. Outside (literally, “in the street”) and inside (literally, “in the house”)—everywhere—there is death. Presumably she refers to inside and outside of the city. Outside is the enemy army that deals death by the sword. Inside the besieged city there is famine and disease.
Interestingly, Dobbs-Allsopp does not comment on this verse in his commentary on the book. He is so intent on building a picture of woman Jerusalem as offended by a violent God that he passes quickly or in silence over those passages where woman Jerusalem owns her own responsibility for her plight.
1:21 S(h)in. Her inner turmoil has issued outer groans that are heard by people who do not come to her aid. No one comforts her (see 1:17); indeed, her groans bring shouts of joy from her enemies. This verse continues an address to God, so the second person address (you) refers to God and again shows awareness of that Jerusalem’s destruction was ultimately the result of God’s decree to judge them for their rebelliousness.
Nowhere in the book of Lamentations thus far is there any reference to the day God has announced, a time when Jerusalem’s enemies will become like Jerusalem, overrun by their enemies and destroyed. This colon shows some awareness of the prophetic message in books like Isaiah and Jeremiah. God promised destruction by an enemy who would serve as the tool of his anger, but he also pointed out that this very nation would suffer their own punishment since they fought for their own glory and imperialist purposes and not for the glory of God. Such a message is found in the so-called oracles against the nations. For an example, see the oracle against Babylon in Jeremiah 50. God has used Babylon for his purposes, but now they will suffer the effects of their own rebellion even as Judah is restored.
1:22 Tav. The final verse of the first poem both reaffirms Jerusalem’s awareness that her sad state is her own fault (because of all my sins) and also calls down God’s wrath on the enemies that he used to punish them. It is only fair; God’s people suffered a horrible fate because of their sin, so now should their enemies.
The poem ends, though, with a restatement of woman Jerusalem’s inner turmoil and the articulation of that turmoil in audible groans.
Additional Notes
1:7 The Hebrew of this verse begins with “Jerusalem remembers” and has no preposition “in” before “days of her affliction and wandering.” These two cola should thus read:
Jerusalem remembers her affliction and wandering,
(and) all the treasures that were hers in days of old.
For the meaning of this line, see commentary.
1:8–9 In a very subtle and psychologically sensitive discussion of the theme of the unclean woman representing Jerusalem in this passage, Dobbs-Allsopp (Lamentations, pp. 63–65) compares and contrasts the image with the common prophetic use of a sexually abused woman. In passages like Isaiah 47:3; Jeremiah 13:22, 26–27; Ezekiel 16:15–34; 23:1–22; Nahum 3:1–4, the sexual violence (he takes the blood on the skirts as a indication of violence rather than menstruation) and shame directed toward the woman are acts of judgment due to sin. Here the perspective is from the point of view of those who shame the woman, pointing out her uncleanness. However, in the present passage, the perspective is from the victim. Such a perspective elicits more sympathy even though it is clear that this is a well-deserved punishment.
1:12 The phrase translated is it nothing to you? is literally rendered only “not to you.” Some versions think that the text is so disturbed that they leave it untranslated (NAB; NJB). Provan (Lamentations, p. 48) believes it should be rendered something like “is it not for you?” in the sense that this devastation has happened as an example for those who pass by.