Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 1:12
[Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by? 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.
12. Is it nothing to you ] This rendering is precarious. Lhr considers the original commencement of the v. to be irrevocably lost. The lit. rendering of MT. is “not to you, etc.” So the Syr., while the LXX fail to give any clear indication of their Heb. text. The Heb. letter ( Lamed) which commences the v. is written small, apparently as an indication that a corruption is suspected. Budde’s translation (obtained by a slight difference in the punctuation of the first word in MT.), viz. “O ye that pass by, look on me and see,” is perhaps the best.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
12 22. See introductory note. Zion, as at the end of the previous v., now speaks.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The lamentation of the city, personified as a woman in grief over her fate.
Lam 1:13
It prevaileth – Or, hath subdued.
He hath turned me back – Judaea, like a hunted animal, endeavors to escape, but finds every outlet blocked by nets, and recoils from them with terror and a sense of utter hopelessness.
Lam 1:14
Bound by his hand – As the plowman binds the yoke upon the neck of oxen, so God compels Judah to bear the punishment of her sins.
They are wreathed, and … – Or, they are knotted together, they come up etc. Judahs sins are like the cords by which the pieces of the yoke are fastened together Jer 27:2; they are knotted and twined like a bunch upon the neck, and bind the yoke around it so securely that it is impossible for her to shake it off.
He hath made … – Or, it hath made my strength to stumble. The yoke of punishment thus imposed and securely fastened, bows down her strength by its weight, and makes her totter beneath it.
The Lord – The third distich of the verse begins here, and with it a new turn of the lamentation. The title Adonai (properly, my Lord) is in the Lamentations used by itself in fourteen places, while the name Yahweh is less prominent; as if in their punishment the people felt the lordship of the Deity more, and His covenant-love to them less.
Lam 1:15
The Lord hath trodden under foot – Or, ‘adonay has made contemptible (i. e. put into the balance, made to go up as the lighter weight, and so made despicable) my war-horses (put metaphorically for heroes).
In the midst of me – They had not fallen gloriously in the battlefield, but remained ignominiously in the city.
Assembly – Or, a solemn feast; the word especially used of the great festivals Lev 23:2. ‘adonay has proclaimed a festival, not for me, but against me.
The Lord hath trodden … – Or, ‘adonay hath trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Judah. See Jer 51:14 note. By slaying Judahs young men in battle, God is trampling for her the winepress of His indignation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Lam 1:12-22
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
Zions appeal
1. The whole passage evidently expresses a deep yearning for sympathy. Mere strangers, roving Bedouin, any people who may chance to be passing by Jerusalem, are implored to behold her incomparable woes. The wounded animal creeps into a corner to suffer and die in secret, perhaps on account of the habit of herds, in tormenting a suffering mate. But among mankind the instinct of a sufferer is to crave sympathy, from a friend, if possible; but if such be not available, then even from a stranger. This sympathy, if it is real, would help if it could; and under all circumstances it is the reality of the sympathy that is most prized, not its issues. It should be remembered, further, that the first condition of active aid is a genuine sense of compassion, which can only be awakened by means of knowledge and the impressions which a contemplation of suffering produce. Evil is wrought not only from want of thought, but also from lack of knowledge; and good-doing is withheld for the same reason. Therefore the first requisite is to arrest attention. We are responsible for our ignorance and its consequences wherever the opportunity of knowledge is within our reach.
2. The appeal to all who pass by is most familiar to us in its later association with our Lords sufferings on the Cross. But this is not in any sense a Messianic passage; it is confined in its purpose to the miseries of Jerusalem. Of course there can be no objection to illustrating the grief and pain of the Man of Sorrows by using the classic language of an ancient lament if we note that this is only an illustration.
3. In order to impress the magnitude of her miseries on the minds of the strangers whose attention she would arrest, the city, now personified as a suppliant, describes her dreadful condition in a series of brief, pointed metaphors. Thus the imagination is excited; and the imagination is one of the roads to the heart. Let us look at the various images under which the distress of Jerusalem is here presented.
(1) It is like a fire in the bones (Lam 1:13). It burns, consumes, pains with intolerable torment; it is no skin-deep trouble, it penetrates to the very marrow.
(2) It is like a net (Lam 1:13). We see a wild creature caught in the bush, or perhaps a fugitive arrested in his flight and flung down by hidden snares at his feet. Here is the shock of surprise, the humiliation of deceit, the vexation of being thwarted. The result is a baffled, bewildered, helpless condition.
(3) It is like faintness. The desolate sufferer is ill. It is bad enough to have to bear calamities in the strength of health. Jerusalem is made sick and kept faint all the day–with a faintness that is not a momentary collapse, but a continuous condition of failure.
(4) It is like a yoke (Lam 1:14) which is wreathed upon the neck–fixed on, as with twisted withes. The poet is here more definite. The yoke is made out of the transgressions of Jerusalem. As there is nothing so invigorating as the assurance that one is suffering for a righteous cause, so there is nothing so wretchedly depressing as the consciousness of guilt.
(5) It is like a winepress (Lam 1:15). Wine is to be made, but the grapes crushed to produce it are the people who were accustomed to feast and drink of the fruits of Gods bounty in the happy days of their prosperity. So the mighty men are set at nought, their prowess counting as nothing against the brutal rush of the enemy; and the young men are crushed, their spirit and vigour failing them in the great destruction.
4. The most terrible trait in these pictures, one that is common to all of them, is the Divine origin of the troubles. Yet there is no complaint of barbarity, no idea that the Judge of all the earth is not doing right. The miserable city does not bring any railing accusation against her Lord; she takes all the blame upon herself. The grief is all the greater because there is no thought of rebellion. The daring doubts that struggle into expression in Job never obtrude themselves here to check the even flow of tears. The melancholy is profound, but comparatively calm, since it does not once give place to anger. It is natural that the succession of images of misery conceived in this spirit should be followed by a burst of tears. Zion weeps because the comforter who should refresh her soul is far away, and she is left utterly desolate (verse 16).
5. Here the supposed utterance of Jerusalem is broken for the poet to insert a description of the suppliant making her piteous appeal (verse 17). He shows us Zion spreading out her hands, that is to say, in the well-known attitude of prayer. She is comfortless, oppressed by her neighbours in accordance with the will of her God, and treated as an unclean thing; she who had despised the idolatrous Gentiles in her pride of superior sanctity has now become foul and despicable in their eyes!
6. After the poets brief interjection describing the suppliant, the personified city continues her plaintive appeal, but with a considerable enlargement of its scope. She makes the most distinct acknowledgment of the two vital elements of the case–Gods righteousness and her own rebellion (verse 18). These carry us beneath the visible scenes of trouble so graphically illustrated earlier, and fix our attention on deep seated principles. Although it cannot be said that all trouble is the direct punishment of sin, and although it is manifestly insincere to make confession of guilt one does not inwardly admit, to be firmly settled in the conviction that God is right in what He does even when it all looks most wrong, that if there is a fault it must be on mans side, is to have reached the centre of truth.
7. Enlarging the area of her appeal, no longer content to snatch at the casual pity of individual travellers on the road, Jerusalem now calls upon all the peoples–i.e., all neighbouring tribes–to hear the tale of her woes (verse 18). The appeal to the nations contains three particulars. It deplores the captivity of the virgins and young men; the treachery of allies–lovers who have been called upon for assistance, but in vain; and the awful fact that men of such consequence as the elders and priests, the very aristocracy of Jerusalem, had died of starvation after an ineffectual search for food–a lurid picture of the horrors of the siege (verses 18, 19).
8. In drawing to a close the appeal goes further, and, rising altogether above man, seeks the attention of God (verses 20-22). This is an utterance of faith where faith is tried to the uttermost. It is distinctly recognised that the calamities bewailed have been sent by God; and yet the stricken city turns to God for consolation. Not only is there no complaint against the justice of His acts; in spite of them all, He is still regarded as the greatest Friend and Helper of the victims of His wrath. This apparently paradoxical position issues in what might otherwise be a contradiction of thought. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the righteous judgment of God, against which no shadow of complaint is raised; and yet God is asked to pour vengeance on the heads of the human agents of His wrath! The vengeance here sought for cannot be brought into line with Christian principles; but the poet had never heard the Sermon on the Mount. It would not have occurred to him that the spirit of revenge was not right, any more than it occurred to the writers of maledictory Psalms. There is one more point in this final appeal to God which should be noticed, because it is very characteristic of the elegy throughout. Zion bewails her friendless condition, declaring, there is none to comfort me. This is the fifth reference to the absence of a comforter (see 1:2, 9, 16, 17, 21). The idea may be merely introduced in order to accentuate the description of utter desolation. And yet when we compare the several allusions to it, the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that the poet has a more specific intention. Our thoughts instinctively turn to the Paraclete of St. Johns Gospel. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
A Jeremiad
I. An earnest expostulation. If there is anything in all the world that ought to interest a man, it is the death of Christ. Yet do I find men, learned men, spending year after year in sorting out butterflies, beetles, and gnats, or in making out the various orders of shells, or in digging into the earth and seeking to discover what strange creatures once floundered through the boundless mire, or swam in the vast seas. I find men occupied with things of no sort of practical moment, yet the story of God Himself is thought to be too small a trifle for intelligent minds to dwell upon it. O reason! where art thou gone? O judgment! whither art thou fled? It is strange that even the sufferings of Christ should not attract the attention of men, for generally, if we hear any sad story of the misfortunes of our fellow creatures, we are interested. How is it earth does not stretch out her hands and say, Come and tell us of the God that loved us, and came down to our low estate, and suffered for us men and for our salvation? It ought to interest us, if nothing more. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? And should it not be more than interesting? Should it not excite our admiration? You cannot read of a man sacrificing himself for the good of his fellow creatures without feeling at once that you wish you had known that fine fellow, and you feel instinctively that you would do anything in the world to serve him if he still lives, or to help relatives left behind if he has died in a brave attempt. Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die for men? If I had no share in His blood, I think I should love Him. The life of Christ enchants me; the death of Christ binds me to His Cross. Even were I never washed in His blood, and were myself cast away into hell, if that were possible, I still feel I must admire Him for His love to others. Yea, and I must adore Him, too, for His Godlike character, His superhuman love in suffering for the sons of men. But why, why is it that such a Christ, so lovely and so admirable, is forgotten by the most of mankind, and it is nothing to them?
II. A solemn question. The Lord Jesus Christ may be represented here as bidding men see if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow, which is done unto Him.
1. Truly the sufferings of Jesus were altogether unique; they stand alone. History or poetry can find no parallel. King of kings and Lord of lords was He, and the government was upon His shoulders, and His name was called Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. All the hallelujahs of eternity rolled up at his august feet. But He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Never one so falsely accused. Oh! was ever grief like His! exonerated yet condemned! adjudged to be without fault, yet delivered up to His direst foes! treated as a felon, put to death as a traitor; immolated on a gibbet which bore triple testimony to His innocence by its inscription. With none to pity, no one to administer comfort, forsaken utterly, our Saviour died, with accessories of sorrow that were to be found in no other decease than that which was accomplished at Jerusalem. Still, the singularity of His death lies in another respect.
2. There was never sorrow like unto the sorrow which was done unto Christ, because all His sorrow was borne for others. His Godhead gave Him an infinite capacity, and infused a boundless degree of compensation into all the pangs He bore. You have no more idea of what Christ suffered in His soul than you have, when you take up in a shell a drop of sea-water, power to guess from that the area of the entire boundless, bottomless ocean. What Christ suffered is utterly inconceivable. Was ever grief like Thine? Needless question; needless question; all but shameful question; for were all griefs that ever were felt condensed into one, they were no more worthy to be compared therewith than the glowworms tiny lamp with the ever-blazing sun. If Christ be thus alone in suffering, what then?
3. Why, let Him stand alone in our love. High, high, set up Christ high in your heart. Love Him; you cannot match His love to you; seek at least to let your little stream run side by side of the mighty river. If Christ be thus alone in suffering, let us seek to make Him, if we can, alone in our service. I wish we had more Marys who would break the alabaster box of precious ointment upon His dear head. Oh! for a little extravagance of love, a little fanaticism of affection for Him, for He deserves ten thousand times more than the most enthusiastic devotees ever dream of rendering.
4. If He be thus so far beyond all others in His sorrow, let Him also be first and foremost in our praise. If ye have poetic minds, weave no garlands except for His dear brow. If ye be men of eloquence, speak no glowing periods except to His honour. If ye be men of wit and scholarship, oh seek to lay your classic attainments at the foot of His Cross! Come hither with all your talents, and yield them to Him who bought you with His blood. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Is it nothing to you?
The crucified Christ is still amongst us. We may even now by faith behold the Lamb of God in the very act of sacrificing Himself for the sin of the world. There are many who do not pass by the Cross on which He hangs. Come joy or sorrow, come honour or disgrace, whether others join you or whether you should be alone, in life and in death, you are resolved in penitential love and joyful obedience to dwell beneath the shadow of the Cross of Christ. But there are others who pass by. There are scorners and scoffers now, as in the times of old. All who live profligate and wicked lives; all who deliberately indulge in fleshly lusts; the licentious, the intemperate, the covetous, the proud, the revengeful; all who cherish some secret sin and will not give it up; all such pass by; for the sight of the great Example of self-sacrifice so condemns those who are resolved on a life of self-indulgence, and the sufferings He endured to save from sin so reproach those who determine to commit sin, that they cannot find any pleasure in their wickedness except as they banish Him from their thoughts; and so they pass by. It is possible that none of you may be fairly classed either with scorners or profligates. But nevertheless you may pass by Christ. Here are some in holiday attire, tripping and dancing along. Listening to the syren voice of pleasure, they wander off, some in one direction, some in another, in quest of new delights and fresh excitements. They often come within reach of the Cross, but they do not even see it, or they look at it so listlessly that it produces no effect. Others rush past, eager to grasp the phantom forms which beckon them onward and still fly before them. Here comes one bending beneath a heavy load which eagerly he increases, as ever and anon he picks up some shining bit of earth and adds it to his store. Stooping down and gazing intently on the ground, he does not see the Cross. Miserable man! Eager to multiply riches which increase your cares and which you must soon lose, you neglect the only true, the imperishable treasure, and pass by! Now approach a sorrowful company, in dark attire, their cheeks bedewed with tears, their heads bowed down with grief. Oh, why do you not look up to that great Example of suffering, that Brother in adversity? You are passing by Him who is able to remove at once the heaviest portion of your burden, and by His sympathy to wipe your tears and heal your wounds! Others approach who have often been here before. They stopped at first, and admired, and went on; but now the Cross is too familiar to attract their notice. Here come others apparently determined to remain. They are much interested in the Cross. One sits down to sketch it. Another examines the wood of which it is made. A third measures its height and thickness. It is possible to be profound theologians and eloquent preachers, and yet pass by Christ. Others approach who are too intent in contemplating themselves to consider the crucified One. Not confessing themselves to be sinners, they pass by the Saviour, as having no need of Him. At length others come who resolve not to pass by. They are arrested by the sight of that patient sufferer; they wonder, they admire, they regret their former ignorance and folly, they will amend their lives, they will abandon their sins, they will remain beside the Cross; but it shall be–tomorrow! And so they also pass by! In order to pass by Christ it is not necessary to insult. Ye who have never yet really mourned for sin and forsaken it; who are not earnestly seeking Christ and relying on Him as your only Saviour; who do not imitate His example and obey His commands; ye who are not, for His sake, crucifying the flesh, dying with Christ to sin, that you may live with Christ in holiness; whatever your external behaviour, in heart you are amongst those to whom Jesus appeals, Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Do not say it is nothing to you because you are not included in the favoured few for whom Christ died. He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and therefore for yours! You helped to fasten Christ to the Cross. Every sin was a blow of the hammer to drive in the nails. Is this nothing to you? On the Cross God proclaims that He is ready to pardon you and receive you home as His child; and that for this He gave Jesus to die for you. Is this nothing to you? Will you refuse to give heed to the earnest appeal of Him who beseeches you to be saved? What is anything to you if not Christ? If you heard a cry of Fire, you might selfishly say, It is nothing to me. But suppose it was your own house in flames? Sinner! it is your own soul which is in jeopardy, and it is for you that Jesus dies. (Newman Hall, D. D.)
The appeal of the Saviours sorrows
There is a most striking and close parallel between the sufferings of Jerusalem here impersonated as crying, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? and those endured by our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
1. The city that was in ruins, was, of all earths cities, the one most intimately associated with God. The suffering Saviour was the only begotten Son of God; He alone, of all living beings, could say, I and the Father are one.
2. The misery of Jerusalem consisted largely in the wrongs and insults of foes. Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? And as His enemies passed by the suffering Saviour on Calvary, they wagged their heads, and said, He saved others, etc.
3. The misfortunes of Jerusalem were greatly aggravated, because her friends dealt treacherously with her, and became her enemies. The suffering Saviour was betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and at last they all forsook Him and fled.
4. In her sorrows, Jerusalem cried unto God who had left her, and delivered her into the hand of her enemies, The suffering Saviour too appealed to God in the profoundly awful cry, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
5. Jerusalem was enduring the greatest misfortunes that history records of any city in any war. The suffering Saviour bore agony that no other being could endure. Every man has to bear his own burden, but the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
I. Those who sorrow claim our special attention.
1. Because by sorrow sympathy is excited. Even those men who are most depraved are quickened to sympathise by any suffering that is placed before them in the peculiar phase they can understand. The best men will be quickened to sympathise with it in whatever form it appears. Christ was. No sort of sorrow was beneath His compassion, nor beyond the limits of HIS sympathy.
2. Because sorrow will generally teach us some lesson. The asking of Why this sorrow? How can it be destroyed? will often lead to the discovery of the profoundest and most necessary truths. Parents endure sorrow and suffering that their sons may learn lessons; neighbours, that their neighbours; nations, that surrounding nations may. But if the son will thoughtlessly pass by the sorrow of his parent; or the neighbour will pass by that of the neighbour; or the nation will pass by that of the nation–the son, the neighbour, the nation, must sorrow for themselves.
II. Of all who ever have sorrowed, Jesus Christ preeminently claims our attention.
1. He sorrowed more intensely than all others. He held Himself back from no grief, shrank from no abyss, refused no cross. Others have crowned themselves with royalty. He put the crown of sorrows upon his own brow. The solitariness of the Saviours sufferings, moreover, gives Him preeminence in grief. Others have known the creeping shadows of loneliness; He its midnight.
2. As a sorrower, He taught infinitely more important lessons than all others.
(1) The evil of sire If sin could cause that sorrow in a holy Being, what will it cause in us?
(2) Gods hatred of sin. He loved His Son, and yet He thus gave Him to bruising and to death for us.
(3) Gods love for man, and way of saving him. Comprehend Gods mercy, by comprehending Christs agony. (A. R. Thomas.)
The sufferings of Christ demand the attention of all
I. Let us, first, inquire into the true meaning of these words; and, in order to that, examine the connection in which they stand. Jerusalem is here represented as speaking, in the character of a female person, and that of a widow, bitterly lamenting her desolate condition, and calling for compassion. Whether any sorrow was like unto her sorrow at this period, we cannot determine, nor is this material. It was, undoubtedly, very great; and it was not unnatural for them to suppose it peculiar and unexampled. This is a common ease, both with bodies of people and individuals. Persons, when exercised with heavy and complicated afflictions, are very apt to suppose no sufferings equal to their own, and no sorrow like theirs. It is also very common and very natural for persons under heavy afflictions to feel it as a high aggravation that they have none to sympathise with them under their troubles, or to show any disposition to afford them relief.
1. This is a very grievous and pitiable condition for any to be in.
2. To exercise sympathy towards the afflicted is what may most reasonably be expected, and the neglect of it is highly culpable.
II. How applicable the description in the text is to the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. There are many who may be said to pass by with unconcern, as if all this was nothing to them and they had no concern in it.
1. What think yon of the great number of those who are called by the name of Christ, who never set themselves seriously to contemplate His sufferings: who never, or but seldom, attend the preaching of Christ crucified; or who, though they may sometimes hear the doctrine of the Cross, never bestow a serious thought about the ends and designs of the Saviours sufferings, or the concern which they themselves have in them?
2. And what shall we say of those persons, who even profess faith in Christ and love to His name, and attend the ordinary worship of His house with apparent decency, who yet neglect to fulfil His dying command to commemorate His sufferings and death in that peculiar ordinance, in which we have a visible representation of them, designed to perpetuate the memory of them in the world, and affect the heart with a sense of His love. (S. Palmer.)
Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.
Searchings of heart
The greatest natures are capable of the greatest sorrow. It is utterly inconceivable to man of how much sorrow a nature like that of Jesus is capable. What sorrow would be ours if, for a single day, we were endowed with a power of vision which enabled us to see underneath all the coverings of life, into the heart of things; if all persons were laid bare to us, and we saw the stern reality below the veneer and polish and dress and shows of things! Let us not forget that the sufferings of our Lord historically recorded, are but part of His sufferings. The apostle speaks of filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. There are sorrows for the Son of Man still, for He has identified Himself with us, and become one with us. Does not His Church cause Him sorrow? Is it not like raw material, so very hard to His hand as to be almost incapable of being moulded into any shape or form of beauty? Does He not sorrow over our ignorance? Our mental dulness? Our pride of knowledge which is often worse than ignorance? Our unloveliness of spirit and unlovableness? Our hard thoughts of others? Do not these things cause Him sorrow? Again, our want of patience in doing His work? Our expecting to reap on the very day we sow? Does not our Lord sorrow over our legalism–that old Jewish spirit of slavishness to mere forms and customs which are of human device–the letter which killeth; the rigidity which knows not how to bend or adapt itself to weakness and feebleness and infirmity? Must He not sorrow over our sectarianisms–our thinking more of mere sectional names than of the real unity which underlies all these? Yea, sometimes, must not our very prayers be a source of sorrow to Him? Yes, truly, our Lord may well say, as He looks into the hearts of the members of His professing Church, Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow. When, in a court of justice, a mans own witnesses seem to damage his cause, the ease is indeed painful And yet, our Lords deepest, profoundest, tenderest sorrow does not arise from any inconsistencies, or defects, or blunders, or ignorances, or wilfulnesses which He sees among those who believe in Him, trust Him and look to Him, many of whom do their feeble, blundering best, to serve Him. For, every man who names the name of Christ, and departs from iniquity, honours Christ. His chief sorrow is not over His Church, with all its multiplied inconsistencies, ignorances, and wilfulnesses, but over others; over you young man, to whom He has given a godly father and mother, who daily pray for you, though you hear it not, who love you with a love that, as far as a finite thing can represent an infinite thing, is like the love of God. Over you also, fathers and mothers, men and women bearing the holiest names that this world knows; into whose arms a gift has been placed than which this earth can furnish none so marvellous or wonderful–have you appreciated that gift at its true value? Have you realised that the flesh was only a platform for an immortal spirit to stand upon! Must there not be sorrow in the heart of Christ as He sees fathers and mothers treating children as though they were mere animal forms, or, at the most, mere children of this world, to be trained for this world, everything nurtured in them except that which is highest, that which is distinctive, that which makes them men? When our Lord looks from the height of His infinite knowledge upon the world of fathers and mothers, and sees how, by their example, they are bending their childrens souls away from Him, how often must His feeling be like to that expressed in these words, Is any sorrow like unto My sorrow? Does not this line of reflection touch every one of us? What sorrow greater than that of being perpetually misunderstood? And who knows this sorrow as the Son of God knows it? Have we not misunderstood Him most egregiously? Have we not thought of Him as the condemner? Yet is He the Saviour. Have we not resisted the Holy Spirits movements in our souls? Have we not almost forced ourselves into darkness? And all this has been so much of sorrow poured into the lot of the Son of Man. Yet still He broods over us, with a love that many waters cannot quench. (R. Thomas.)
Everyone disposed to think his afflictions peculiarly severe
I. The afflicted are very apt to imagine that God afflicts them too severely.
1. There are many degrees and shades of difference in those evils which may be properly called afflictions. But those who suffer lighter troubles are very apt to let their imagination have its free scope, which can easily magnify light afflictions into great and heavy ones. So that mankind commonly afflict themselves more than God afflicts them.
2. There is another way, by which the afflicted are apt to magnify their afflictions. They compare their present afflictions, not only with their past prosperity, but with the afflictions of others; which leads them to imagine that their afflictions are not only great, but singular, and such as nobody else has suffered; at least, to such a great degree.
II. This is a great and unhappy mistake.
1. None that are afflicted ever know that God lays His hand heavier upon them than upon others. Mankind are extremely apt to judge erroneously, concerning the nature and weight of their own afflictions, and the nature and weight of the afflictions which others around them suffer. They have a high estimation of the good which they see others enjoy, but a low estimation of the evil they suffer. And, on the other hand, they cherish a low idea of their own prosperity, and a high idea of their own adversity.
2. The afflicted never have any reason to imagine that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them more than they know they deserve. Every person has sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every sin deserves punishment; and it belongs to God to inflict any punishment that sin deserves.
3. The afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them more than they need to be afflicted. God afflicts some to draw forth the corruption of their hearts, and make them sensible that they are under the entire dominion of a carnal mind, which is opposed to His character, His law, His government, and the Gospel of His grace, and of course exposed not only to His present, but His future and everlasting displeasure. This is suited to alarm their fears, and excite them to flee from the wrath to come. God afflicts others to try their hearts, and draw forth their right affections, and give them sensible evidence of their having the spirit of adoption, and belonging to the number of His family and friends, and thereby removing their past painful doubts and fears. And He afflicts others, to give them an opportunity to display the beauties of holiness, by patience, submission, and cordial obedience in the darkest and most trying seasons.
4. The afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, because He never afflicts them any more than His glory requires Him to afflict them.
Improvement–
1. It is very unwise, as well as criminal, for the afflicted to brood over and aggravate the greatness of their affliction.
2. If the afflicted have no reason to think hard of God, or indulge the feeling that He corrects them too severely, then as long as they do indulge such a thought and feeling, they can receive no benefit from the afflictions they suffer.
3. If the afflicted have no reason to think that God afflicts them too severely, then they always have reason to submit to Him under His correcting hand.
4. It appears from what has been said, that men may derive more benefit from great than from light afflictions. They are suited to make deeper and better impressions on the mind.
5. It is as easy to submit to heavy as to light afflictions. As there are greater and stronger reasons to submit to heavy than to lighter evils, so these reasons render it mere easy to submit to heavy than light afflictions.
6. If men are apt to think that God afflicts them too severely, then their afflictions give them the best opportunity to know their own hearts. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Instructive sorrows
1. The godly in all their afflictions must look unto the Lord the striker, and not respect the rod wherewith He smiteth.
2. Corrections laid upon others ought not to be neglected, but duly considered of, as the rest of Gods works.
(1) God often smiteth some to instruct others thereby.
(2) We being of one mould should take to heart the condition one of another.
3. Man is not to be proud though God do many things by him and for him that seem both strange and commendable.
4. The wicked have no cause to rejoice when they prevail against the godly, though they do so usually.
(1) They are but the Lords rods, who (without repentance) shall be cast into the fire.
(2) They do not, as they imagine, overthrow the godly and establish themselves, but the clean contrary.
5. The godly endure more trouble in this world, both inwardly and outwardly, than any other.
(1) God loveth us, and would wean us from delighting in this world.
(2) Our nature is so perverse that it will not he framed to any spiritual things without many and grievous corrections.
(3) Satan and the world do hate us, and labour continually for our destruction.
6. It is a usual thing with us, to think our own troubles more heavy and intolerable than any others suffer.
(1) We feel all the smart of our own, and do only afar off behold that which others bear.
(2) We are more discontented with our own crosses than we should, which maketh us bear them the more impatiently, and think them the more intolerable.
7. The afflictions that God layeth upon His servants are and ought to be grievous unto them for the present time (Heb 12:11).
(1) We justly have deserved them through our sins.
(2) We must be led by them to repentance, or we abuse them.
8. Though our sins do always deserve it, and our foes do daily desire, yet can no punishment befall the godly till God see it meet to lay it upon them.
9. The anger of God is hot against sin, even in His dearest servants.
(1) He is most righteous, and cannot bear with any evil.
(2) It tendeth to His great dishonour.
10. God doth not always afflict His servants, but at such special times as He seeth it meetest for them. (J. Udall.)
Good Friday
I. Some of the particulars in which our Saviours sufferings were above those of all others.
1. He endured bodily torture the most severe.
2. Jesus suffered still deeper sorrows of the soul. All that pierces our hearts with sorrow was heaped on Christ. What so grievous as the treachery of a friend? And Judas, His own familiar friend, betrayed Him. What so bitter as to be forsaken? Yet all His disciples forsook Him and fled. Mockery and scorn and reviling are more cruel than the pains of the body; and He suffered them all, though He had done no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Often man has much to soothe his dying moments; the eye of love watches by his pillow, and the hand of affection tries to lighten his pains. But this was denied to Jesus. When He died, malice and hatred were by, to pour fresh bitterness into His cup of death.
3. But will not God support Him? will not His Heavenly Fathers presence and consolation supply the place of all others? No: Christ is in the sinners stead; He is made sin for us, and His Fathers countenance is turned away.
II. How are we to think of what Christ has done and suffered? Why are we come together on this day, if it concerns us not? This day is our day of redemption. Hope, this day, has risen to a lost and sinful world. The things we hear and read of today are no vain story of years gone by: they are our very life. You who are passing by, as it were, in the carelessness and thoughtlessness of youth, young men and young women! you are called today to think of Jesus Christ. He speaks to you, and says, Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which I have borne for you. It is for your redemption. He will count all His sorrows as lightly borne, if you will let Him save your souls alive. Go to Him now in the first and best of your days. Give them to God, and not to sin; and so will He be with you in all your journey through this evil world, so shall you enjoy true peace of conscience. You who are passing by in manhood! to you also Jesus speaks. What are His sorrows to you? Do you find time and leisure to think of Him amidst the business, the labour, the burdens of life? Do you know anything of the power of His Cross? Has it led you to hate sin? Are you become new creatures in Christ Jesus? Do you pray for His Spirit to lead and sanctify you? You who are old, on the brink of the grave and of eternity! have you ever listened to the Saviours call? Have you believed upon His name? How has your faith been shown? Has it appeared in a life devoted to His service, or have your years been spent in deadness to God? You who are living in the practice and love of any known sin, in profaneness, in the lusts of the flesh, in general carelessness about religion, trample not under your feet the precious blood as on this day shed. Oh, may you seek Him while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near. Christian! is the death of Christ nothing to you? Nay; it is all in all. It is your hope, your life, the source of pardon and of peace. What is the voice that speaks to you from the Cross of Christ? It bids you die wholly unto sin, rise more truly unto righteousness. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
Sorrow seen in its true light
Everybody is so sorry for me except myself! These are the words of Frances Ridley Havergal, that sweet singing spirit who dragged about through many years a weary, fragile, pain-ridden body. Everybody poured their sympathy upon her, and yet she half resented it. What is the secret of her triumph? She gives it us in one of the letters she wrote to her friends: I see my pain in the light of Calvary. Everything depends upon the light in which we view things. There are objects in the material world which, seen in certain lights, are visions of glory. Deprived of that revealing light, they are grey and commonplace. The Screes at Wastwater, looked at in dull light, are only vast slopes of common pebble and common clay, but when the sunlight falls upon them they shine resplendent with the varied colours of a pigeons neck. We must set our things in the right light. Frances Havergal set her pain in the light of Calvary, and so could almost welcome it. I remember another of her phrases, in which she said she never understood the meaning of the apostles words, In His own body, until she was in great pain herself, and then it seemed as though a new page of her Masters love had been unfolded to her. Bring your common drudgery, your dull duties, your oommonplace tasks, your heavy, sullen griefs, into the light of the Saviour s sacrifice, and they will glow and burn with new and unexpected glory. In Thy light shall we see light. (Hartley Aspen.)
Our sorrows rightly estimated
Wilt we see in the water seemeth greater than at is, so is the waters Marah. All our sufferings, saith Luther, are but chips of His Cross, not worthy to ye names in the same day. (J. Trapp.)
On the Passion of our Saviour
I. The greatness of our Saviours sufferings.
II. The interest that we have in our Saviours sufferings.
1. We were the occasion of them.
2. Their benefits redound unto us (Col 1:14; Heb 10:19-20; Rom 3:15; Heb 10:20).
III. The regard and consideration we should bestow on them. Fix the eyes of your mind, and call up your most serious attention; reach hither the hand of your faith, and thrust it into your Saviours side; put your fingers into the print of the nails; lay to heart all the passages of His lamentable story; and this cannot but melt your heart, unless it be harder than the rocks, and dealer than the bodies in the graves. (H. Scougal, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?] The desolations and distress brought upon this city and its inhabitants had scarcely any parallel. Excessive abuse of God’s accumulated mercies calls for singular and exemplary punishment.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The prophet speaks in the name of the Jewish church, as a woman in misery sitting by the way-side, and calling to passengers that came by to have compassion on her, suggesting to them that her affliction was no ordinary affliction, nor the effect of a common and ordinary providence, but the effect of the Lords fierce anger, a most severe punishment.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. The pathetic appeal ofJerusalem, not only to her neighbors, but even to the strangers”passing by,” as her sorrow is such as should excite thecompassion even of those unconnected with her. She here prefiguresChrist, whom the language is prophetically made to suit, more thanJerusalem. Compare Israel, that is, Messiah, Isa49:3. Compare with “pass by,” Mat 27:39;Mar 15:29. As to Jerusalem, Da9:12. M AURER, fromthe Arabic idiom, translates, “do not go off on yourway,” that is, stop, whoever ye are that pass by. EnglishVersion is simpler.
Mem.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
[Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by?…. O ye strangers and travellers that pass by, and see my distress, does it not at all concern you? does it not in the least affect you? can you look upon it, and have no commiseration? or is there nothing to be learned from hence by you, that may be instructive and useful to you? Some consider the words as deprecating; may the like things never befall you that have befallen me, O ye passengers; be ye who ye will; I can never wish the greatest stranger, much less a friend, to suffer what I do; nay, I pray God they never may: others, as adjuring. So the Targum,
“I adjure you, all ye that pass by the way, turn aside hither:”
or as calling; so the words may be rendered, “O all ye that pass by” y; and Sanctius thinks it is an allusion to epitaphs on tombs, which call upon travellers to stop and read the character of the deceased; what were his troubles, and how he came to his end; and so what follows is Jerusalem’s epitaph:
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me; as it is natural for everyone to think their own affliction greatest, and that none have that occasion of grief and sorrow as they have; though there is no affliction befalls us but what is common unto men; and when it comes to be compared with others, perhaps will appear lighter than theirs:
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger; signifying, that her affliction was not a common one; it was not from the hand of man only, but from the hand of God; and not in the ordinary way of his providence; but as the effect of his wrath and fury, in all the fierceness of it.
y “O vos omnes”, V. L.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The lamentation of the city. – Lam 1:12. The first words, , are difficult to explain. The lxx have ; but the reading ought certainly to be . . . The Vulgate is, o vos omnes ; the Chaldee, adjuro vos omnes . They all seem to have taken as an exclamation. Hence Le Clerc and others would read ; but in this case one would require to supply a verb: thus, Le Clerc renders utinam adspiciatis , or, “O that my cry might reach you!” But these insertions are very suspicious. The same holds true of the explanation offered by J. D. Michaelis in his edition of Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, Lect. xxii.: non vobis, transeuntes in via, haec acclamo (viz., the closing words of Lam 1:11): this is decidedly opposed by the mere fact that passers-by certainly could not regard a call addressed to Jahveh as applying to them. Without supplying something or other, the words, as they stand, remain incomprehensible. Ngelsbach would connect them with what follows: “[Look] not to yourselves…but look and see….” But the antithesis, “Look not upon yourselves, but look on me (or on my sorrow),” has no proper meaning. If we compare the kindred thought presented in Lam 1:18, “Hear, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow,” then seems to express an idea corresponding to . But we obtain this result only if we take the words as a question, as if = , though not in the sense of an asseveration (which would be unsuitable here, for which reason also is not used); the question is shown to be such merely by the tone, as in Exo 8:22; 2Sa 23:5. Thus, we might render the sense with Gerlach: Does not (my sighing – or, more generally, my misery – come) to you? The Syriac, Lowth, Ewald, Thenius, and Vaihinger have taken the words as a question; Ewald, following Pro 8:4, would supply . But such an insertion gives a rendering which is both harsh and unjustifiable, although it lies at the foundation of Luther’s “I say unto you.” Hence we prefer Gerlach’s explanation, and accordingly give the free rendering, “Do ye not observe, sc. what has befallen me, – or, my misery?” The words are, in any case, intended to prepare the way for, and thereby render more impressive, the summons addressed to all those passing by to look on and consider her sorrow. is passive (Poal): “which is done to me.” Since has no object, the second does not permit of being taken as parallel with the first, though the Chaldee, Rosenmller, Kalkschmidt, and others have so regarded it, and translate: “with which Jahveh hath afflicted me.” With Ewald, Thenius, Gerlach, etc., we must refer it to : “me whom Jahveh hath afflicted.” The expression, “on the day of the burning of His anger,” is pretty often found in Jeremiah; see Jer 4:8, Jer 4:26; Jer 25:37, etc.
Lam 1:13-14 In Lam 1:13-15, the misfortunes that have befallen Jerusalem are enumerated in a series of images. “Out from the height (i.e., down from heaven) hath He sent fire into my bones;” is rendered by Luther, “and let it have the mastery” (Ger. und dasselbige walten lassen ). Thenius explains this as being correct, and accordingly seeks to point the word , while Ewald takes to be cognate with , and translates it “made them red-hot;” and Rosenmller, following N. G. Schrder, attributes to , from the Arabic, the meaning collisit, percussit lapide . All these explanations are not only far-fetched and incapable of lexical vindication, but also unnecessary. The change of vowels, so as to make it the Hiphil, is opposed by the fact that , in the Hiphil, does not mean to cause to manage, rule, but to read down, subdue (Isa 41:2). In Kal, it means to tread, tread down, and rule, as in Jer 5:31, where Gesenius and Deitrich erroneously assume the meaning of “striding, going,” and accordingly render this passage, “it stalks through them.” The lexically substantiated meaning, “subdue, rule, govern, (or, more generally,) overpower,” is quite sufficient for the present passage, since is construed not merely with , but also with the accusative: the subject is , which is also construed as a masc. in Jer 48:45; and the suffix may either be taken as a neuter, or referred to “my bones,” without compelling us to explain it as meaning unumquodque os (Rosenmller, etc.). The bones are regarded as bodily organs in which the pain is most felt, and are not to be explained away allegorically to mean urbes meas munitas (Chaldee). While fire from above penetrated the bones, God from beneath placed nets for the feet which thus were caught. On this figure, cf. Jer 50:24; Hos 7:12, etc. The consequence of this was that “He turned me back,” ita ut progredi pedemque extricare non possem, sed capta detinerer (C. B. Michaelis), – not, “he threw me down backwards,” i.e., made me fall heavily (Thenius). “He hath made me desolate” ( ), – not obstupescentem, perturbatam, desperatam (Rosenmller); the same word is applied to Tamar, 2Sa 13:20, as one whose happiness in life has been destroyed. “The whole day (i.e., constantly, uninterruptedly) sick,” or ill. The city is regarded as a person whose happiness in life has been destroyed, and whose health has been broken. This miserable condition is represented in Lam 1:14, under another figure, as a yoke laid by God on this people for their sins. , . . , is explained by Kimchi as , compactum vel colligatum , according to which would be allied to . This explanation suits the context; on the other hand, neither the interpretation based on the Talmudic , punxit, stimulavit , which is given by Raschi and Aben Ezra, nor the interpretations of the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate, which are founded on the reading , harmonize with , which must be retained, as is shown by the words . Ewald supposes that was the technical expression for the harnessing on of the yoke. “The yoke of my transgressions” (not “of my chastisements,” as Gesenius, Rosenmller, and Ewald think) means the yoke formed of the sins. The notion of punishment is not contained in , but in the imposition of the yoke upon the neck, by which the misdeeds of sinful Jerusalem are laid on her, as a heavy, depressing burden which she must bear. These sins become interwoven or intertwine themselves ( ), after the manner of intertwined vine-tendrils ( , Gen 40:10; cf. remarks on Job 40:17), as the Chaldee paraphrase well shows; and, through this interweaving, form the yoke that has come on the neck of the sinful city. Veluti ex contortis funibus aut complicatis lignis jugum quoddam construitur, ita h. l. praevaricationis tanquam materia insupportabilis jugi considerantur (C. B. Michaelis). is used of the imposition of the yoke, as in Num 19:2; 1Sa 6:7. The effect of the imposition of this yoke is: “it hath made my strength to stumble (fail).” Pareau, Thenius, Vaihinger, and Ngelsbach assume God as the subject of the verb ; but this neither accords with the current of the description, nor with the emphatic mention of the subject in the clause succeeding this. Inasmuch as, in the first member of the verse, God is not the subject, but the address takes a passive turn, it is only the leading word that can be the subject of : the yoke of sins which, twined together, have come on the neck, has made the strength stumble, i.e., broken it. This effect of the yoke of sins is stated, in the last member, in simple and unfigurative speech: “the Lord hath given me into the hands of those whom I cannot withstand,” i.e., before whom I cannot maintain my ground. On the construction , cf. Ewald, 333, b; Gesenius, 116, 3. is here viewed in the sense of standing fast, maintaining ground, as in Psa 18:39; and, construed with the accusative, it signifies, to withstand any one; its meaning is not surgere , which Thenius, following the Vulgate, would prefer: the construction here requires the active meaning of the verb.
Lam 1:15 In Lam 1:15 this thought is further carried out. and , “to lift up,” is only used in poetry; in Psa 119:118 it takes the Aramaic meaning vilipendere , as if in reference to things that can be lifted easily; here it means tollere , to lift up, take away (lxx , Vulgate abstulit ), tear away forcibly, just as both meanings are combined in : it does not mean to outweigh, or raise with a jerk, – the warriors being regarded as weighty things, that speedily were raised when the Chaldean power was thrown into the scale (Thenius, and Bttcher in his Aehrenl. S. 94). This meaning is not confirmed for the Piel by Job 28:16, Job 28:19. does not mean to summon an assembly, i.e., the multitude of foes (Raschi, Rosenmller, Gesenius, Neumann), but to proclaim a festival (cf. Lam 2:22), because in Lam 1:4 and Lam 2:6 (cf. Lev 23:4) denotes the feast-day, and in Lam 1:21 means to proclaim a day. means “against me;” for those invited to the feast are the nations that God has invited to destroy the youths, i.e., the young troops of Jerusalem. These celebrate a feast like that of the vintage, at which Jahveh treads the wine-press for the daughter of Judah, because her young men are cut off like clusters of grapes (Jer 6:9), and thrown into the wine-press (Joe 3:13). The last judgment also is set forth under this figure, Isa 63:2.; Rev 14:19., Rev 19:15. , “to (for) the virgin of Judah;” her young men are regarded as a mass of grapes, whose life-sap (blood) is trodden out in the wine-press. As to the expression ‘ , see on Jer 14:17. “The addition of the word ‘virgin’ brings out the contrast between this fate, brought on through the enemy, at God’s command, and the peculiar privilege of Judah as the people of God, in being free from the attacks of enemies” (Gerlach).
Lam 1:16 Lam 1:16 concludes this series of thoughts, since the address returns to the idea presented in Lam 1:12, and the unprecedented sorrow (Lam 1:12) gives vent to itself in tears. “Because of these things” refers to the painful realities mentioned in Lam 1:13-15, which Jerusalem has experienced. The form is like the feminine form in Psa 128:3; Isa 17:6; cf. Ges. 75, Rem. 5. The repetition of “my eye” gives greater emphasis, and is quite in the style of Jeremiah; cf. Jer 4:19; Jer 6:14 (Jer 8:11), Jer 22:29; Jer 23:25; the second is not to be expunged (Pareau and Thenius), although it is not found in the lxx, Vulgate, Arabic, and some codices. On , cf. Jer 9:17; Jer 13:17; Jer 14:17. In these passages stands , but here , as the stronger expression: the eye flows like water, as if it were running to the ground in water. Gesenius, in his Thesaurus, appositely cites the German “sich die Augen aus dem Kopfe weinen” with which the English corresponds: “to weep one’s eyes out of his head”. Still stronger is the expression in Lam 3:48. But the sorrow becomes thus grievous, because the weeping one has none to comfort her; friends who could comfort her have faithlessly forsaken her (cf. Lam 1:2, Lam 1:9), and her sons are , i.e., destroyed, not “astonished” (Jer 18:16; Jer 19:8), but, as in Lam 1:13, made desolate, i.e., made so unhappy that they cannot bring their mother comfort in her misery. On , cf. Lam 1:11. “Because the enemy hath become strong,” i.e., prevailed ( as in Jer 9:2).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| God Acknowledged in Affliction; Jerusalem’s Complaint. | B. C. 588. |
12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? 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. 13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. 14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. 15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. 16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. 17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. 18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls. 20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. 21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. 22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.
The complaints here are, for substance, the same with those in the foregoing part of the chapter; but in these verses the prophet, in the name of the lamenting church, does more particularly acknowledge the hand of god in these calamities, and the righteousness of his hand.
I. The church in distress here magnifies her affliction, and yet no more than there was cause for; her groaning was not heavier than her strokes. She appeals to all spectators: See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, v. 12. This might perhaps be truly said of Jerusalem’s griefs; but we are apt to apply it too sensibly to ourselves when we are in trouble and more than there is cause for. Because we feel most from our own burden, and cannot be persuaded to reconcile ourselves to it, we are ready to cry out, Surely never was sorrow like unto our sorrow; whereas, if our troubles were to be thrown into a common stock with those of others, and then an equal dividend made, share and share alike, rather than stand to that we should each of us say, “Pray, give me my own again.”
II. She here looks beyond the instruments to the author of her troubles, and owns them all to be directed, determined, and disposed of by him: “It is the Lord that has afflicted me, and he has afflicted me because he is angry with me; the greatness of his displeasure may be measured by the greatness of my distress; it is in the day of his fierce anger,” v. 12. Afflictions cannot but be very much our griefs when we see them arising from God’s wrath; so the church does here. 1. She is as one in a fever, and the fever is of God’s sending: “He has sent fire into my bones (v. 13), a preternatural heat, which prevails against them, so that they are burnt like a hearth (Ps. cii. 3), pained and wasted, and dried away.” 2. She is as one in a net, which the more he struggles to get out of the more he is entangled in, and this net is of God’s spreading. “The enemies could not have succeeded in their stratagems had not God spread a net for my feet.” 3. She is as one in a wilderness, whose way is embarrassed, solitary, and tiresome: “He has turned me back, that I cannot go on, has made me desolate, that I have nothing to support me with, but am faint all the day.” 4. She is as one in a yoke, not yoked for service, but for penance, tied neck and heels together (v. 14): The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. Observe, We never are entangled in any yoke but what is framed out of our own transgressions. The sinner is holden with the cords of his own sins, Prov. v. 22. The yoke of Christ’s commands is an easy yoke (Matt. xi. 30), but that of our own transgressions is a heavy one. God is said to bind this yoke when he charges guilt upon us, and brings us into those inward and outward troubles which our sins have deserved; when conscience, as his deputy, binds us over to his judgment, then the yoke is bound and wreathed by the hand of his justice, and nothing but the hand of his pardoning mercy will unbind it. 5. She is as one in the dirt, and he it is that has trodden under foot all her mighty men, that has disabled them to stand, and overthrown them by one judgment after another, and so left them to be trampled upon by their proud conquerors, v. 15. Nay, she is as one in a wine-press, not only trodden down, but trodden to pieces, crushed as grapes in the wine-press of God’s wrath, and her blood pressed out as wine, and it is God that has thus trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah. 6. She is in the hand of her enemies, and it is the Lord that has delivered her into their hands (v. 14): He has made my strength to fall, so that I am not able to make head against them; nay, not only not able to rise up against them, but not able to rise up from them, and then he has delivered me into their hands; nay (v. 15), he has called an assembly against me, to crush my young men, and such an assembly as it is in vain to think of opposing; and again (v. 17), The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him. He that has many a time commanded deliverances for Jacob (Ps. xliv. 4) now commands an invasion against Jacob, because Jacob has disobeyed the commands of his law.
III. She justly demands a share in the pity and compassion of those that were the spectators of her misery (v. 12): “Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Can you look upon me without concern? What! are your hearts as adamants and your eyes as marbles, that you cannot bestow upon me one compassionate thought, or look, or tear? Are not you also in the body? Is it nothing to you that your neighbor’s house is on fire?” There are those to whom Zion’s sorrows and ruins are nothing; they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. How pathetically does she beg their compassion! (v. 18): “Hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: hear my complaints, and see what cause I have for them.” This is a request like that of Job (ch. xix. 21), Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends! It helps to make a burden sit lighter if our friends sympathize with us, and mingle their tears with ours, for this is an evidence that, though we are in affliction, we are not in contempt, which is commonly as much dreaded in an affliction as any thing.
IV. She justifies her own grief, though it was very extreme, for these calamities (v. 16): “For these things I weep, I weep in the night (v. 2), when none sees; my eye, my eye, runs down with water.” Note, This world is a vale of tears to the people of God. Zion’s sons are often Zion’s mourners. Zion spreads forth her hands (v. 17), which is here an expression rather of despair than of desire; she flings out her hands as giving up all for gone. Let us see how she accounts for this passionate grief. 1. Her God has withdrawn from her; and Micah, that had but gods of gold, when they were stolen from him cried out, What have I more? And what is it that you say unto me? What aileth thee? The church here grieves excessively; for, says she, the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. God is the comforter; he used to be so to her; he only can administer effectual comforts; it is his word that speaks them; it is his Spirit that speaks them to us. His are strong consolations, able to relieve the soul, to bring it back when it is gone, and we cannot of ourselves fetch it again; but now he has departed in displeasure, he is far from me, and beholds me afar off. Note, It is no marvel that the souls of the saints faint away, when God, who is the only Comforter that can relieve them, keeps at a distance. 2. Her children are removed from her, and are in no capacity to help her: it is for them that she weeps, as Rachel for hers, because they were not, and therefore she refuses to be comforted. Her children were desolate, because the enemy prevailed against them; there is none of all her sons to take her by the hand (Isa. li. 18); they cannot help themselves, and how should they help her? Both the damsels and the youths, that were her joy and hope, have gone into captivity, v. 18. It is said of the Chaldeans that they had no compassion upon young men nor maidens, not on the fair sex, not on the blooming age, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17. 3. Her friends failed her; some would not and others could not give her any relief. She spread forth her hands, as begging relief, but there is none to comfort her (v. 17), none that can do it, none that cares to do it; she called for her lovers, and, to engage them to help her, called them her lovers, but they deceived her (v. 19), they proved like the brooks in summer to the thirsty traveller, Job vi. 15. Note, Those creatures that we set our hearts upon and raise our expectations from we are commonly deceived and disappointed in. Her idols were her lovers. Egypt and Assyria were her confidants. But they deceived her. Those that made court to her in her prosperity were shy of her, and strange to her, in her adversity. Happy are those that have made God their friend and keep themselves in his love, for he will not deceive them! 4. Those whose office it was to guide her were disabled from doing her any service. The priests and the elders, that should have appeared at the head of affairs, died for hunger (v. 19); they gave up the ghost, or were ready to expire, while they sought their meat; they went a begging for bread to keep them alive. The famine is sore indeed in the land when there is no bread to the wise, when priests and elders are starved. The priests and elders should have been her comforters; but how should they comfort others when they themselves were comfortless? “They have heard that I sigh, which should have summoned them to my assistance; but there is none to comfort me. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me.” 5. Her enemies were too hard for her, and they insulted over her; they have prevailed, v. 16. Abroad the sword bereaves and slays all that comes in its way, and at home all provisions are cut off by the besiegers, so that there is as death, that is, famine, which is as bad as the pestilence, or worse–the sword without and terror within, Deut. xxxii. 25. And as the enemies, that were the instruments of the calamity, were very barbarous, so were those that were the standers by, the Edomites and Ammonites, that bore ill will to Israel: They have heard of my trouble, and are glad that thou hast done it (v. 21); they rejoice in the trouble itself; they rejoice that it is God’s doing; it pleases them to find that God and his Israel have fallen out, and they act accordingly with a great deal of strangeness towards them. Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them, that they are afraid of touching and are shy of, v. 17. Upon all these accounts it cannot be wondered at, nor can she be blamed, that her sighs are many, in grieving for what is, and that her heart is faint (v. 22) in fear of what is yet further likely to be.
V. She justifies God in all that is brought upon her, acknowledging that her sins had deserved these severe chastenings. The yoke that lies so heavily, and binds so hard, is the yoke of her transgressions, v. 14. The fetters we are held in are of our own making, and it is with our own rod that we are beaten. When the church had spoken here as if she thought the Lord severe she does well to correct herself, at least to explain herself, but acknowledging (v. 18), The Lord is righteous. He does us no wrong in dealing thus with us, nor can we charge him with any injustice in it; how unrighteous soever men are, we are sure that the Lord is righteous, and manifests his justice, though they contradict all the laws of theirs. Note, Whatever our troubles are, which God is pleased to inflict upon us, we must own that therein he is righteous; we understand neither him nor ourselves if we do not own it, 2 Chron. xii. 6. She owns the equity of God’s actions, but owning the iniquity of her own: I have rebelled against his commandments (v. 18); and again (v. 20), I have grievously rebelled. We cannot speak ill enough of sin, and we must always speak worst of our own sin, must call it rebellion, grievous rebellion; and very grievous sins is to all true penitents. It is this that lies more heavily upon her than the afflictions she was under: “My bowels are troubled; they work within me as the troubled sea; my heart is turned within me, is restless, is turned upside down; for I have grievously rebelled.” Note, Sorrow for our sin must be great sorrow and must affect the soul.
VI. She appeals both to the mercy and to the justice of God in her present case. 1. She appeals to the mercy of God concerning her own sorrows, which had made her the proper object of his compassion (v. 20): “Behold, O Lord! for I am in distress; take cognizance of my case, and take such order for my relief as thou pleasest.” Note, It is matter of comfort to us that the troubles which oppress our spirits are open before God’s eye. 2. She appeals to the justice of God concerning the injuries that her enemies did her (Lam 2:21; Lam 2:22): “Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, the day that is fixed in the counsels of God and published in the prophecies, when my enemies, that now prosecute me, shall be made like unto me, when the cup of trembling, now put into my hands, shall be put into theirs.” It may be read as a prayer, “Let the day appointed come,” and so it goes on, “Let their wickedness come before thee, let it come to be remembered, let it come to be reckoned for; take vengeance on them for all the wrongs they have done to me (Psa 109:14; Psa 109:15); hasten the time when thou wilt do to them for their transgressions as thou hast done to me for mine.” This prayer amounts to a protestation against all thoughts of a coalition with them, and to a prediction of their ruin, subscribing to that which God had in his word spoken of it. Note, Our prayers may and must agree with God’s word; and what day God has here called we are to call for, and no other. And though we are bound in charity to forgive our enemies, and to pray for them, yet we may in faith pray for the accomplishment of that which God has spoken against his and his church’s enemies, that will not repent to give him glory.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 12-22: HER PLEA FOR COMPASSIONATE UNDERSTANDING
First, there is an appeal to those who casually pass by, (vs. 12-17).
1. Though Jeremiah was thinking only of Jerusalem when he wrote, and though our Lord asked no sympathy for Himself, (Luk 23:28), many have seen, in verse 12, an allusion to the Messiah’s making His soul an offering for sin at Calvary.
a. Here is an appeal to the carelessly indifferent: Does the suffering of others mean nothing to you?
1) Will you consider, sympathize and understand that divine judgment upon sin IS REAL? and, thus, abandon your rebellion?
2) Will we not recognize that the very RECORD of such suffering is given for OUR ADMONITION, and benefit?
3) Will we not tremble to recognize that ANOTHER HAS SUFFERED IN OUR STEAD? being wounded and afflicted “for our transgressions” in the day of the Lord’s fierce anger?
b. In fiery indignation the faithful Lord deals with the adversary – even when that proves to be His own faithless people! (vs. 13); He does what is necessary to bring them to the end of themselves!
c. In verse 14 He is pictured as weaving a yoke (of their transgressions) and placing it upon their necks – a symbol of subjugation and slavery; sin always leads to bondage and death!
2. His lover rejected (Isa 62:5; Hos 2:19-20), the Lord has tossed aside the mighty men in whom Jerusalem trusted, and called a solemn assembly for the utter trampling (as in a wine press) of the virgin daughter of Judah, (vs. 15)
a. Note that it is NOT Judah who is being called to a festival; nor is it a festival of praise to God for His bounty in vintage and harvest.
b. ft is her enemies who are here summoned to a festival which is celebrated for THE CRUSHING OF JERUSALEM-her very life being spilled like the blood of the grape gushing from the vats wherein they are trampled! ,
c. It is THE LORD who has done this, through instruments of His own choosing; yet, there is now, no complaint against Jehovah: HIS WAYS ARE RIGHT!
3.Though Zion weeps, and stretches forth her hands in supplication, she finds no one to comfort her in this distress, (vs. 16-17).
a. The Lord has ordered her neighboring nations to be her adversaries.
b. To them she has been revealed as “unclean”!
4. Yet, she JUSTIFIES THE LORD (declaring Him to be righteous) -for she has rebelled against His voice! (vs. 18a; comp. Psa 51:4).
a. Prolonged negligence of her covenant-responsibilities have brought upon her the long-threatened destruction of national life as she has known it, (1Sa 12:14-15).
b. The judgment that has befallen her is JUST, because it has been administered by a RIGHTEOUS GOD! (Psa 119:75); this righteousness is the very basis of Judah’s hope.
c. The people of God, in every age, need a sensitive conscience toward God; a readiness to acknowledge our sins; and a consciousness of our utter helplessness apart from His grace!
Then, there Is an appeal to the nations, (vs. 18b-19).
1. How great is Jerusalem’s sorrow – seeing that her children have gone into captivity! (vs. 18b; Deu 28:15; Deu 28:32; Deu 28:41).
2. Though, in her extremity, she appealed to her “lovers” (allies); they dealt falsely with her, (vs. 19a, 2; comp. Job 19:13-19).
3. Having rejected the faithful message of Jeremiah – choosing, rather, to believe the LIES of her false prophets – her priests and elders had died of starvation as they searched for food, (vs. 11; Lam 2:20; comp. Deu 32:21; Deu 32:24; Jer 14:15).
Finally, there Is an appeal to Jehovah Himself, (vs. 20-22).
1. Jerusalem desires the Lord to behold, with sympathetic understanding, the deep distress of her heart (comp. Jer 4:19-20; Lam 2:11); conscious of her grievous rebellion against the Lord, she faces the silent bereavement of the death of her children, (vs. 20; comp. Eze 7:14-18).
2. The daughter of Zion is aware that her enemies now exult in what has befallen her (comp. Psa 35:15-17; Jer 50:11-13), but expresses confidence that, in a coming day, the Lord will as certainly judge her enemies in like manner, (vs. 21; comp. Isa 14:4-7; Isa 47:6; Isa 47:11; Jer 30:16).
3. Then she directly calls for divine vengeance upon her adversaries (comp. Neh 4:4-5; Psa 137:7-8), as upon her own transgressions; she sighs, and her heart is faint, (vs. 22).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
The beginning of the verse is variously explained. Some read it interrogatively, “Is it nothing to you who pass by the way?” Others more simply, “I see that I am not cared for by you; to you my sorrow is nothing.” Some again read thus, “Let it not be a sorrow to you;” and others, “Let not sorrow be upon you,” that is, let not what I have happen to you; so that it is a prayer expressive of benevolence.
What I prefer is the interrogation, Is it nothing to you who pass by the way ? for the letter, ה, He, the note of a question, is often omitted. But were it read affirmatively, the meaning would not be unsuitable: “It does not concern you who pass by,” as though Jerusalem, in its lamentations, felt grieved that all those who passed by were not touched either with pity or with sorrow. (138)
But she addressed those who passed by, that she might more fully set forth the greatness of her calamity. For. had she directed her words to neighbors alone, there would not have been so much force in them; but when she spoke to strangers, she thus shewed that her calamity was so great, that it ought to have roused the sympathy of men from the remotest parts, even while on their journey. And she asks them to look and see. The order is inverted, for she said before, “See, Jehovah, and look.” Then Jerusalem asked God, first to turn his eyes to see her calamities, and then attentively to notice them: but now for another purpose she says, look ye and see, that is, consider how evident is my calamity, which otherwise might have been in a measure hidden from you. Look ye, she says, is there a sorrow like my sorrow? she adds, which is come to me: some render the words actively, “which Jehovah has brought on me;” but the other version is more correct, for it is more literal. Jerome’s rendering is, “who has gleaned me;” and צעלל olal, means sometimes to glean, nor do I wish to reject this interpretation. But what follows is incorrectly rendered, as in a former instance, by Jerome, “of which Jehovah has spoken:” for he derived the verb, as before stated, from הגה, ege; but it comes from יגה, ige, as it is evident from the letter ו, vau, being inserted. There is then no doubt but that the Church intimates that God was the author of that sorrow which she deplored.
And it is necessary to know this, lest men should be carried away into excesses in their mourning, as it frequently happens. For the majesty of God imposes a check, when we perceive that we have to do with him. Simple and bare knowledge of this is not, indeed, sufficient, for, as it has been said, the ungodly, while they know that their sorrows proceed from God, yet murmur against him: but it is nevertheless the beginning of patience and meekness when we have a regard to God. It was, then, for this reason that Jerusalem said that she had been afflicted by God.
And it is added, In the day of the indignation of his wrath. Here the Prophet wished to express the grievousness of God’s vengeance, by mentioning the indignation of wrath. Some render חרום, cherun, “fury;” but as the word “fury” is too harsh, the word “indignation,” or great heat ( excandescentia) is not unsuitable. We must, however, bear in mind the design of the Prophet, which was to shew that God’s vengeance had been so dreadful, as though his wrath had all been on a flame against Jerusalem: and this is more fully confirmed in the following verse, —
(138) It is evidently taken as לו by the Sept. , the Vulg. , and the Targ. ; but as a negative by the Syr. , and the sentence is taken as a question: and this gives the best meaning. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
Lam. 1:12-22. These verses form the second section of the poem. The city is represented as complaining of its harassed condition, 1216, and then as acknowledging her persistent sin in sight of her righteous Lord, who will deal out justice to all transgressors, 1722.
() Lam. 1:12. The curtness of the opening Hebrew phrase causes doubt as to its proper explanation. Hence by some it is taken as an address to the wayfarers, and is paraphrased in words like, I pray all you, or Oh, that my cry might reach all you. By others it is taken as a question, and more reasonably; so they explain it by words like, Does not my misery come to you? or Do you not observe what has befallen me? In either case it conveys a call, as from the weeping, solitary woman, sitting on the ground, to all travellers to consider her deplorable state, and our English Versions have caught the right tone. Is it nothing to you, all ye passers by the way? Is there nothing in my condition to produce seriousness in you instead of indifference or levity? Nothing to warn you? Nothing to call forth your sympathy? Behold and see if there is sorrow like my sorrow. The feeling of a troubled present tends to make it loom before the sufferer as if there never was the like before, which is done to me whom Jehovah has afflicted in the day of the heat of his anger.
The ascription, in religious addresses, which has been often made of this verse to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, is far from commendable. In a very real sense His sorrows were unparalleled, but innocent of sin though He was, He made no attempt to call attention to Himself as peculiarly afflicted. His thought was for others sufferings. Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
() Lam. 1:13. Here begin references to various events which had contributed to her unequalled sorrow. Fire, a net, sickness and a yoke are set forth. The figure presented in the last clause of the preceding verse is now more fully traced. From on high he sent fire, Upon the wicked He shall rain fire (Psa. 11:6), into my bones, where pain is supposed to be most keenly felt. She recognises that the cause, which is behind all visible causes, of her pain is in the spiritual realm, and that in the face of the Eternal Righteousness her bones must be shrivelled up; and it overpowered them. The next figure is, He spread a net for my feet; he turned me back. So entangled, she could not go away and escape capture. The third figure is sickness. He made me desolate, all the day faint. The light of her life was quenched, and she was constantly exhausted.
() Lam. 1:14. There follows a figure from agricultural pursuits. A yoke [formed] of my transgressions is bound by his hand. The Hebrew verb here is of uncertain meaning, and there is no rendering preferable to that which is given. She has made thongs or cords for the yoke with her sins; they are twisted together. Her misdoings have acted and reacted that they are knit together, so as to constitute a thraldom which cannot be thrown off; so intertwined they have come up upon my neck. A consequence of this enthralment by the knotted yoke is, it has made my strength to fail, literally to stumble, i.e., to stagger from the weakness and exhaustion incident to such a fearful yoke. The yoke of transgression is hard; the yoke of Christ is easy. The conviction is now expressed that the Divine Ruler is at work, and a new phase rises in the lamentation. The Lord has given me into the hands [of those that are against me]. I am not able to stand up. She can do nothing but yield. Consciousness of transgression paralyses body and mind. Note that it is the general, not the covenant name of her God which she utters. This title occurs fourteen times by itself in this book, while in the Prophecies of Jeremiah only along with the covenant name. The reason for this usage of Lord, and of refraining from Jehovah has yet to be found. To say that the people, in their punishment, felt the Lordship of the Deity more, and His covenant love to them less, is a statement which is not confirmed by an examination of the passages in the Lamentations where each name is found.
() Lam. 1:15. Inability to resist is associated with other fatal experiences. He has set at naught all my strong ones; not on an open battlefield, not in a struggle to hold an important post, is it that her able-bodied men are counted for nothing before the Chaldean host; losses they might have had, the bubble reputation attached to thm, but not when cooped up in the city, in the midst of me. He has convoked a solemn assembly against me; it is the word used of the annual and other religious festivals, as in Lam. 1:4, and intimates that to the enemies of Jerusalem a call had been issued to gather at an appointed time and have such joy as might be found in the ability to crush my young men, those who promised to be the strength of the nation in the generation following. And, to make the overthrow complete, the maidens, who had been carefully guarded from violence, the Lord has trodden as in a wine-press the virgin daughter of Judah. The treading of the grapes in a wine-press, as illustrative of the execution of divine judgment, is not unusual in the Scriptures (Isa. 63:5; Rev. 14:19), and signifies both suffering and good results from suffering rightly borne
Still hope and trust, it sang; the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod.
() Lam. 1:16. Having shown by the events how terrible her sorrow could not but be, Jerusalem reiterates her complaint with a flood of tears. Because of these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runs down with water, so great is her trouble and so unalleviated, for far from me is the comforter, the restorer of my soul. My children are become desolate, and cannot cheer me, for the enemy has prevailed.
() Lam. 1:17. The sobs of the weeper stifle her utterance. In the pause the poet himself seems to take up the word, something like the part of the chorus in Greek tragedies, and describes the state of the three personified objectsthe Temple, the people, the city. He sees that Zion, representing the house of prayer for all nations, stretches out her hands, as praying in a land where no water is, but in suspense; there is no comforter for her. He sees that Jehovah, her covenant God, has commanded concerning Jacob, representing the people whom He chose for His heritage, that those round about him, the neighbouring nations, should be his adversaries. He sees that Jerusalem, representing the government and national aspirations, has become as an unclean one among them (Lam. 1:8).
HOMILETICS
A DISTRESSED NATION
(Lam. 1:12-17)
I. Utters a piteous appeal for sympathy. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, &c. (Lam. 1:12). Sorrow craves sympathy. A crumb an atom, however trifling, is eagerly seized and fondly cherished. It matters not from what source it comes. It is welcome from any casual passer-by, from anybody, from anything. The despairing find comfort in a flower as it gracefully bends towards them; in the mute sympathy of a favourite dog, as it caressingly thrusts its nose into the limp hands. It is easy to exaggerate our troubles and imagine there is no sorrow like our own; but a wider knowledge of the worlds ills helps us to correct our magnified estimate. There is only Onethe worlds Redeemerwhose sufferings are unique and unparalleled.
II. Painfully conscious of the overwhelming nature of its sufferings (Lam. 1:13-15).
1. In their fierceness. From above hath He sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against themsubdues them (Lam. 1:13). It is no earthly, but heavenly fire which burns in the bones of Jerusalem (Speakers Commentary). It is a fact well established in osteology that inflammation in the bones is not only extremely painful, but dries them up and renders them brittle and useless (Henderson).
2. All attempts to escape from them are futile. He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day (Lam. 1:13). Judea, like a hunted animal, endeavours to escape, but finds every outlet blocked with nets, and recoils from them in terror, and a sense of utter hopelessness and exhaustion. The only thing to flee from is sin; the only refuge to flee to is God. There is no relief from suffering till we are divested of the coils of our sin.
3. They are an unmistakable consequence of sin. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand: they are wreathed and come up upon my neck, &c. (Lam. 1:14). The metaphor is taken from agricultural life. As the ploughman binds the yoke with cords so knotted and twined together that they form a bunch upon the neck of the oxen impossible to shake off, so does God compel Judah to bear the punishment of her sins. The yoke thus imposed by the hand of God, and securely knotted around the neck of Judah by the entangled bonds of her own sins, bows down her strength by its weight, and makes her totter and stumble beneath it. He hath made my strength to fallto stumble (Speakers Commentary). Sin by and by becomes an intolerable burden, and is constantly reasserting its power over us. There is a lake in Switzerland, shut in by high mountains, a solitary, lonely place, which few travellers visit, and where few care to linger, so desolate and homeless is the spot. Here, an old legend says, every night at midnight the watcher may see the ghost of Pilate come to the shore and try with piteous lamentations to wash from his hands some red stains that are upon themthe marks of the blood of Jesus. But as fast as he washes them off they reappear. So is it with all our sins, small and great.
4. They are an evidence of contemptuous and crushing defeat. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me, &c. (Lam. 1:15). They had not fallen gloriously in the battlefield, but remained ignominiously in the city, confessing their inability to fight. Irving once said, With every exertion, the best of men can do but a moderate amount of good, but it seems in the power of the most contemptible individual to do incalculable mischief. The governor-general of a Russian province was once mildly remonstrated with by his secretary regarding a high-handed proceeding, producing at the same time a paragraph from a state volume proving the illegality of the action. The angry governor seized the book and sat upon it, shouting, Where is the law now? He then pointed to his decorated breast, and continued in a pompous strain, Here it is; I am the law! and the secretary had to beat a prudent retreat. It is very humiliating to be in the grip of tyranny like this.
III. The most passionate expression of sorrow brings no relief. For these things I weep, &c. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her, &c. (Lam. 1:16-17). Spreading out the hands is a token of the deepest distress. There is no one to comfortnot God, for He is chastening; nor man, for all the neighbouring nations have become enemies (Lam. 1:2). Tears are a sign of weakness and helplessness. To give way to grief is not the way to conquer it. God is the only refuge in distress, and His help, if sincerely sought, is not in vain. The common cry of the Breton mariner is, My God, protect me! my bark is so small and Thy ocean so vast.
I am so weak, dear Lord, I cannot stand
One moment without Thee:
But oh! the tenderness of Thine enfolding;
And oh! the faithfulness of Thine upholding;
And oh! the strength of Thy right hand:
That strength is enough for me.
I am so needy, Lord, and yet I know
All fulness dwells in Thee;
And hour by hour that never-failing treasure
Supplies and fills, in overflowing measure,
My least, my greatest need; and so
Thy grace is enough for me.
LESSONS.
1. It is painful to witness distress we are helpless to relieve.
2. National distress is the fruit of national crime.
3. National suffering should purify the national life.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 1:12. The sufferings of the classes of the human family.
2. Unique worlds Redeemer:
1. Appeal to all in their character and purpose.
Lam. 1:3. Aggravated by the mysterious manifestation of the Divine wrath.
4. The basis of the worlds salvation.
5. Should arrest the attention and engage the prayerful thought of the sinner.
Is it nothing to you? I. The sufferings of Christ upon the Cross were unparalleled.
1. Because of the dignity of His person.
2. Because of the perfect innocence of His character.
3. Because there was such a conjunction of griefs.
4. Because they were voluntarily undertaken and continued in.
5. Because those for whom He died thus voluntarily were His enemies.
6. Because they were expiatory. II. The sufferings of Christ have had a deep interest in them for many.
1. Multitudes have found in them a cure for despair.
2. In others they have wrought a complete transformation of their lives.
3. Had power on mens minds to gird them to heroic deeds.
4. Men who love the suffering Saviour become patient in their everyday sufferings.
5. They learn to hate sin by seeing the agonies by which redemption was obtained. III. What have you to do with Christ? Write down your decision whether you will have Christ or not. A poor, suffering girl, who had long loved the Saviour, under a feeling of depression, confessed to her minister that she had deceived herself, and did not love Him. The minister walked to the window and wrote on a piece of paper, I do not love the Lord Jesus Christ, and said, Susan, here is a pencil. Just put your name to that. No, sir, she said, I could not sign that. Why not? I would be torn to pieces before I would sign it, sir. But why not sign it if it is true? Ah! sir, she said, I hope it is not true. I think I do love Him.C. H. Spurgeon.
Our duty towards the Jewish people. I. The facts on which the appeal is founded. The unparalleled sorrow and sufferings of the Jewish people. Where is the nation that has been subject to such universal contempt? All mankind seems to have conspired to despise the Jews. They seem under the curse of Heaven. II. The appeal itself. Is it nothing to you? That the world should pass by we cannot wonder. That the heathen or Mohammedan should neglect the Jew can excite no surprise. That the mere self-loving nominal Christian should heed him not, is all natural; but that the follower of Christ should pass by may well excite astonishment. It is an error to suppose we need not care to labour among the Jews because the Gospel is a Gentile dispensation, and that the Jews are shut out until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. The Gospel is as much a Jewish dispensation as was the Law. To them it was promised; to them it was given. By them it was proclaimed to the Gentiles, and theirs it still is. Zeal for the honour of Christ should lead us to direct our first endeavours to the Jewish people.MCaul.
Lam. 1:13. Divine punishment. I. Marked try great severity. From above hath He sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them. II. Admits of no escape from its toils. He hath spread a net for my feet; He hath turned me back. III. Thoroughly subdues the sufferer. He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
Lam. 1:14. The galling tyranny of sin. I. Oppressive. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they are wreathed and come up upon my neck. II. Exhausting. He hath made my strength to fall. III. Reduces the soul to helplessness. The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
The misery of the penitent.
1. When conscious of the burden of sin.
2. When realising his increasing helplessness. III. When abandoned to reap the consequences of his transgressions.
4. Can be relieved only by the pitifulness of the Divine mercy.
Lam. 1:15. Inglorious defeat. I. The veteran warriors are captured in the midst of the city from which they had not courage to issue forth and defend. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me. II. The combinations of the foe were too powerful for the bravery of the young to resist. He hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men. III. The defeat of the nation is abject and complete. The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press.
Lam. 1:16-17. The helplessness of despair. I. Tears and entreaties are in vain. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her (Lam. 1:16-17). II. Sin debases a people in the estimation of God and man. Jerusalem is as a menstruous womanhath become a loathingamong them (Lam. 1:17). III. There is no hope of escape. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed (Lam. 1:16). The Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob that his adversaries should be round about him (Lam. 1:17).
ILLUSTRATIONS.A distressed nation: the havoc of war. When the French army invaded Russia in 1812, and penetrated as far as Moscow, Count Rostopchin, the governor, thinking it more glorious to destroy the ancient capital of the Czars than suffer it to harbour and protect an enemy, caused it to be burned to the ground. The most heartrending scenes were witnessed. The people, hastily snatching up their most precious effects, fled before the flames. Others, actuated by the general feelings of nature, saved only their parents or their infants, who were closely clasped in their arms. They were followed by their other children, running as fast as their little strength would permit, and, with all the wildness of childish terror, vociferating the beloved name of mother! The old people, borne down by grief more than by age, had not sufficient power to follow their families, and expired near the houses in which they were born. No cry, no complaint was heard. Both the conqueror and the conquered were equally hardened. The fire, whose ravages could not be restrained, soon reached the finest parts of the city. The palaces were enveloped in flames. Their magnificent fronts, ornamented with bas-reliefs and statues, fell with a dreadful crash. The churches, with their steeples resplendent with gold and silver, were destroyed. The hospitals, containing more than 12,000 wounded, began to burn, and almost all the inmates perished. A few who still lingered were seen crawling half burnt amongst the smoking ruins, and others, groaning under heaps of dead bodies, endeavoured in vain to extricate themselves from the horrible destruction which surrounded them. From whatever side viewed, nothing was seen but ruin and flames. The fire raged as if it were fanned by some invisible power. The most extensive range of buildings seemed to kindle, to burn, and to disappear in an instant. The wild pillagers precipitated themselves into the midst of the flames. They waded in blood, treading on dead bodies without remorse, while the burning ruins fell on their murderous hands. The signal patriotism of sacrificing the city in order to subdue the enemy actuated all ranks.
Affliction reveals our sins. So long as leaves are on the trees and bushes, you cannot see the birds nests; but in the winter, when all the leaves are off, then you see them plainly. And so long as men are in prosperity and have their leaves on, they do not see what nests of sin and lust are in their hearts and lives; but when all their leaves are off, in the day of their afflictions, then they see them, and say, I did not think I had had such nests of sins and lusts in my soul and life.Bridge.
Whose sorrows are like unto mine? O thou erring mortal, repine not. Our Father has some great and wise purpose in thus afflicting thee, and wilt thou dare murmur against Him when He removed the idol that He alone may reign? Pause and reflect. Examine well thy conscience, and see if there were not earthly attractions clinging to thy soul and leading thee to forget the Creator in thy love for the creature. Raise not thy feeble voice against the Most High, lest He send upon thee a still greater trial in order to teach thee submission. Behold His noble example when persecuted by a whole world. Imagine Him, the God of the universe, standing before the Jewish Sanhedrin, condemned, buffeted, spit upon! One blazing look of wrathful indignation would have annihilated that rude rabble; but, with all the beauty and grace of self-abnegation, He bowed His head and prayed, Father, forgive them; they know not what they do. Wouldst thou find relief for thy sufferings? Contemplate the life of Him who spake as never man spake. Follow Him through all those years of toil and suffering. Witness His deeds of mercy and love, and thengo thou and do likewise.German Reformed Messenger.
Self-sacrifice. An extraordinary example of self-sacrifice was witnessed at Chicago. A member of the brotherhood of Knight-Templars was operated upon for cancer, and a wound nearly a foot square was left. The surgeon declared that if the patient was to recover, the wound must be covered with new human skin. At once 132 members of the brotherhood volunteered to allow a small strip of skin to be cut from their arms, so that the pieces thus obtained might be transferred to the wound of their comrade. The operation was performed. Several of the brave fellows fainted, but the majority bore the incision of the surgeons knife without flinching. It is inspiriting to hear of such heroic self-sacrifice. Much of the suffering of the Christian worker is vicarious; but no number of acts of suffering on behalf of others can equal the sublime sacrifice of Him who suffered and died for the whole race.The Scottish Pulpit.
Divine punishment and pessimism. Noah was a pessimist to the antediluvian world; Moses was a pessimist to Pharaoh in Egypt; Samuel was a pessimist, and his very first prediction foretold the downfall of the aged Eli and his godless family. Jeremiah was a pessimist, constantly foretelling evil and danger; Jonah was a pessimist, who disturbed the peace of the city, crying, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Nahum was a pessimist, crying, Woe to the bloody city! Micaiah was a pessimist when he foretold the overthrow of Ahab, the guilty king, who complained that he never prophesied any good of him. The Saviour was a pessimist, for He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the calamities that were to come upon the world. The Apostles Peter, James, John, Jude were all pessimists, for they were continually foretelling perilous times, departure from the faith, and the coming judgment upon the godless world. The great preachers and poets of the ages have been pessimists, for they were ever warning men of present evil and coming wrath, of predicted calamities and judgments overhanging the godless and profane.Christian Repository.
Sin a slavery.
There is a bondage which is worse to bear
Than his who breathes, by roof and floor and wall
Pent in, a tyrants solitary thrall:
Tis his who walks about in the open air,
One of a nation who henceforth must wear
Their fetters in their souls.
Wordsworth.
Discovery of the destructive work of sin. The steeple of the Church of St. Bride, London, originally built by Christopher Wren, was struck by lightning in 1764, and the upper part had to be rebuilt, when it was lowered eight feet. It was then discovered that an old hawk had inhabited the two upper circles, the open arcades of which were filled with masses of birds bones, chiefly those of the city pigeons upon which it had preyed. It would be well if more frequent discovery could be made of those wily hawks of society who prey with such merciless and ingenious greed upon the simple and unsuspecting. Their discovery is all the more difficult when they make the Church of Christ their hiding-place, and the clean-picked relics of their numerous victims are all the more sad to contemplate when one at length finds out that the work of plunder has been carried on under the sacred garb of religion.
The misery of the penitent; how cured. Five persons were studying what were the best means for mortifying sin. One said, to meditate on death; the second, to meditate on judgment; the third, to meditate on the joys of heaven; the fourth, to meditate on the torments of hell; the fifth, to meditate on the blood and sufferings of Christ; and certainly the last is the choicest and strongest motive of all. If ever we would cast off our despairing thoughts, we must dwell and muse much upon and apply this precious blood to our own souls; so shall sorrow and mourning flee away.Brooks.
Remorse. Remorse may disturb the slumbers of a man who is dabbling with his first experiences of wrong; and when the pleasure has been tasted and is gone, and nothing is left of the crime but the ruin which it has wrought, then the Furies take their seats upon the midnight pillow. But the meridian of evil is for the most part left unvexed; and when a man has chosen his road, he is left alone to follow it to the end.Froude.
Inglorious defeatThe retreat from Moscow. The annals of ancient and modern warfare, in the vast catalogue of woes which they record, do not present a parallel to the sufferings of the French on the retreat from Moscowsufferings neither cheered by hope nor mitigated by the slightest relief. The army in its retreat had to encamp on the bare snow in the midst of the severest winter that even Russia ever experienced. The soldiers, without shoes and almost without clothes, were enfeebled by fatigue and famine. Sitting on their knapsacks, the cold buried some in a temporary, but more in an eternal sleep. Those who were able to rise from this benumbing posture, only did it to broil some slices of horse-flesh, perhaps cut from their favourite charger, or to melt a few morsels of ice. In the march it was impossible to keep them in order, as imperious hunger seduced them from their colours, and threw their columns into confusion. Many of the French women accompanied the army on foot, with shoes of stuff little calculated to defend them from the frozen snow, and clad in old robes of silk or the thinnest muslin; and they were glad to cover themselves with tattered pieces of military cloaks, torn from the dead bodies of the soldiers. The cold was so severe that men were frozen to death in the ranks, and at every step were seen the dead bodies of the soldiers stretched on the snow. Of four hundred thousand warriors who had crossed the Niemen at the opening of the campaign, scarcely twenty thousand repassed it. Such was the dreadful havoc which a Russian winter caused to the finest, best-appointed, and most powerful army that ever took the field.
Christianity addresses the despairing. Throughout all the ages which have followed Christs word, Christs message has rung in with power upon mens lives just in proportion to their dejection and despair. One of the earliest attacks upon Christianity was the censure that it was a word to the miserable. Such indeed it is. If it is censurable to move among men when they are dispirited, when they have come to the end of a civilisation, when nothing but blank hopelessness and no remedy lies in front of them, then Christianity is censurable, Christs message is open to reproach. If that be a fault, it is not faultless. It stands condemned. If too you deem it blameworthy to go to the individual when he has sinned, when he has flung away his life madly, wickedly, passionately, to stand beside him, nay, to bend over him with affectionate interest, when he is lying ragged, beaten, hungry, and filthy in the far country into which he has gone, then neither Christianity nor Christ can escape your blame. They stand convicted of the crime of receiving sinners and eating with them, of laying their hands on lepers who are unclean, of seeking the society of the demented and insane.Rev. H. Ross.
Crying to God. Several children of a family were once playing in a garden when one fell into a tank. When the father heard of it, he asked what means they thought of to rescue their brother from his perilous situation. Inquiring of the youngest, he said, John, what did you do to rescue your brother? The boy answered, Father, what should I do? I am so young that I could not do anything, but I stood and cried as loud as I could. If we cannot bring a ladder or rope, all can cry, all can plead with God.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
II. A LAMENT BY THE CITY Lam. 1:12-22
In Lam. 1:12-22 the lonely, tearful widow takes up her lament. She appeals to passers-by to take note of the incomparable agony of Zion (Lam. 1:12-16). She appeals to neighboring nations to help her in her hour of need (Lam. 1:17-19). She then appeals to God to execute His vengeance upon the mocking enemies (Lam. 1:20-22).
A. The Appeal to Passers-by Lam. 1:12-16
TRANSLATION
(12) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there exists any sorrow comparable to that which has been brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted upon me in the day of his fierce anger. (13) From on high he has sent forth fire into my bones and it prevailed over them; He spread a net for my feet making me turn back; He has made me astonished with sorrow all the day. (14) The yoke of my transgression was bound by His hand; they were fastened together, placed upon my neck. He caused my strength to fail! The Lord gave me into the hands of those whom I cannot resist. (15) The Lord has despised all my mighty men in the midst of me; He convoked a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden as a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. (16) Because of these things I weep, my eye, my eye flows with tears; for a comforter who can refresh my soul is far from me! My children are astonished because the enemy has prevailed.
COMMENTS
Unable to bear any longer the weight of her misery Zion cries out in desperation to the caravaneers and travelers who walk the busy trade routes near Jerusalem, IS it nothing to you? Do you not care what has happened to me? Have you no sympathy to offer me? Zion challenges the passers-by to name one city which they have observed in their wide travels whose sufferings are comparable to that of Jerusalem. Zion apparently feels that her suffering is unique and unparalleled. After all it is the Lord, Zions God, who has administered the painful and fatal stroke in the day of His fierce anger (Lam. 1:12). The Lord has sent the fiery bolts of His wrath upon them from heaven. The very bones of their body seem to burn within them. Perhaps the citys misery is here being compared to a burning fever. The Lord has also spread nets for the feet of Zion causing them to fall into the hands of her enemies. Her sorrow is so great that she is astonished i.e., has entered into a state of stupefaction (Lam. 1:13). God had taken all of their unforgiven sins and had woven them together in a yoke which was so heavy that the strength of the nation was dissipated in trying to bear it. Weak and weary from trying to bear the yoke of accumulated sins Judah was easy prey for her enemies (Lam. 1:14). At the appointed time the Lord had convoked a solemn assembly of foreign powers for the purpose of fighting against and destroying Jerusalem. Zions mighty men as well as the flower of her youth were cast into the winepress of Gods wrath.
The once pure and undefiled virgin daughter who had been loved and treated so tenderly in the past now was trampled under foot by the Almighty (Lam. 1:15). Because of these terrible blows Zion weeps with inconsolable sorrow. No one would even attempt to comfort her. Zions children, her inhabitants, have been thrown into a state of complete shock because the Chaldean enemy has prevailed over them (Lam. 1:16).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(12) Is it nothing to you . . .Literally, Not to you, ye passers by, which the Authorised version takes as a question. The LXX. and Vulg., however, seem to have taken the adverb as an interjection: O all ye that pass by . . . And some interpreters have taken the negative but not the question, Nor to you . . . (do I say this). The Authorised version, however, has most to commend it. What the mourning city felt most keenly was that her unparalleled sufferings were met with an unparalleled indifference.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
LAMENTATIONS IN VIEW OF PRESENT MISERIES, Lam 1:12-22.
12. Thus far the misery of Jerusalem is predicted. With consummate art the writer now makes us hear the lamentations of this widow sitting in the solitude of her deep and bitter grief. Is it nothing to you, etc. Literally, not to you, all ye wayfarers. The fact that the Hebrew often dispenses with the use of the interrogative particle makes this passage capable of some variety of interpretation, and this is reflected in the Versions. The Vulgate, Targum, and probably the Septuagint, depart from the Masoretic pointing, and render substantially, “I adjure you, all ye that pass by, turn aside and see, etc. But the rendering of the English Version is by all means to be preferred. The pathos of this verse is touching indeed.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jerusalem Calls On The World To Behold Her Pitiable State ( Lam 1:12-19 ).
Lam 1:12
(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Behold, and see,
If there be any sorrow like to my sorrow,
Which is brought upon me,
With which YHWH has afflicted,
In the day of his fierce anger.
In words that have moved the hearts of people in many generations Jerusalem calls on the world to pause as they pass by the ruined city and behold her sorrows and afflictions. And then he explains their cause. They are due to the fact that YHWH has afflicted them because He is severely angry with them. YHWH’s anger is not of course to be seen as like our anger. It is rather descriptive of His antipathy to sin, and His reaction against it. God’s holiness results in God’s wrath against sin. Note that this was ‘the day of His fierce anger’, one of many ‘days of YHWH’.
The words remind us of Another Who hung on a cross as our representative and substitute, bearing for us the wrath of God against sin. He too could say to those who passed by, ‘Is it nothing to you all you who pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow — with which God has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.’ It reminds us that we can be spared the wrath of God because He bore it in our place, being made sin for us, and taking on Himself ‘the wrath of God’ (the necessity in God, because of what He is, to justly punish sin).
Lam 1:13
(Mem) From on high has he sent fire into my bones,
And it prevails against them,
He has spread a net for my feet,
He has turned me back,
He has made me desolate ,
And faint all the day.
Jerusalem then speaks of three ways in which YHWH has dealt with her:
He has sent the destructive fire that had come from on high which has burned her to her very bones. That fire was figurative, descriptive of God’s wrath, but it resulted in real fires as the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, systematically burning it.
He has ensnared them in a net spread in order to catch their feet in it. Note the implication that YHWH had intended to ensnare them, it was, however, only because they were walking in rejection of Him. And in the end it was an act of love, for He intended to restore them if and when they repented and came back to Him. The ‘turning back’ may refer to the hunter’s ploy by which he ensures that his trap is filled, turning the frightened animals back so that they are caught in his net. In other words Jerusalem was like an animal driven towards a trap, caught in the snare and awaiting its fate.
He has made them desolate and faint. The idea is of the desolation of their hearts in the face of what has happened to them, and of the faintness that resulted from lack of food. All their sufferings are to be seen as at the hand of YHWH.
All this is a reminder to us that God is Light (1Jn 1:5) as well as Love (1Jn 4:8). Though He may bear long with us He will not allow sin unrepented of to go unpunished in the end.
We need not think that we are exempt. We too may be called on to experience His destructive fire, to be caught in His snare, and to end up in a state of desolation at what is happening to us, as many an individual has discovered, and as the church has often experienced through the centuries when it has been unfaithful to Him. Paradoxical though it may seem it is often a sign of His love. It is His way of bringing back to Himself those who are truly His, and yet have strayed for a while, and punishing those whose profession is merely formal.
Lam 1:14
(Nun) The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand,
They are knit together,
They are come up on my neck,
He has made my strength to fail,
The Lord has delivered me into their hands,
Against whom I am not able to stand.
Under the guidance of the prophets they recognise that YHWH has taken their transgressions and woven them together to make a heavy yoke on their necks, similar to the wooden yoke that oxen wore over their necks when they pulled the plough. And under that heavy yoke their strength fails, and they are not able to stand. For that heavy yoke is the victorious enemy who have come against them, against whom they have no hope. It is a cry of despair, a cry of recognition of deserved judgment, and yet it is also in the end a cry of hope. For the very reason for making this lament is the hope that God will hear and respond to their cry, as history reveals that He does. It will, however, only be through a hard and difficult path.
Note the change from ‘YHWH’ to ‘the Lord (adonai)’. It is the sovereign Judge Who is now acting.
Lam 1:15
(Samek) The Lord has made as nothing,
All my mighty men (warriors) in the midst of me,
He has called a solemn gathering against me,
To crush my young men,
As in a winepress the Lord has trodden,
The virgin daughter of Judah.
‘The Sovereign Lord’ continues to act. He has rendered powerless the warriors of Judah/Israel, He has made them ‘as nothing’ (to be treated with contempt), by the very size and ferocity of the forces that have come against them.
The idea of ‘calling a solemn assembly’ usually has worship and joy in mind. So the gathering here is seen by God as for a religious purpose. But the joy will be that of the conquerors, not of Judah. For here the religious purpose is the judgment of Jerusalem. It is seeing what happens as something which has religious intent and contributes to the praise of YHWH, because Judah/Israel are getting their deserts.
All who read these words would be familiar with the pits in which the grapes were placed and then trodden down by the workforce until they were squeezed dry of all their juice which would be channelled off and collected in wineskins. Here the winepress is the Lord’s, and the treaders are the Babylonians, whilst the squeezed grapes are the Judeans. The blood-red juice was a solemn reminder of the blood that had run so freely in the streets of Jerusalem. Compare the vivid picture in Isa 63:1-6 speaking of God’s similar judgment on Edom. See also Rev 14:19; Rev 19:15 where the world will experience the same.
‘The virgin daughter of Judah.’ Compare Lam 2:13; Isa 47:1 (of Babylon); Jer 6:2; Jer 8:11; Jer 8:19; Jer 14:17). The idea is of one who had once been pure, but is now helpless, and brought down to shame. The virgin has been raped.
Lam 1:16
(Ayin) For these things I weep,
My eye, my eye runs down with water,
Because the comforter who should refresh my soul,
Is far from me,
My children are desolate,
Because the enemy has prevailed.
The destruction of the Temple had been a shattering blow for Israel, and for their faith. Up to that point they had believed that YHWH’s hand would protect it, that somehow He would not deal so severely with His people (compare Jer 7:2-14). Now they had been proved wrong, and the ruins of the Temple indicated to them that YHWH had in a sense deserted them, that He was ‘far from them’. The One Who alone could have comforted them and refreshed their souls was no longer near. Or at least that was how it appeared to them at that moment. (In their exiles the prophets would encourage them in order to demonstrate that YHWH still had a purpose for them. But that was not how they saw it at this moment).
So ‘Jerusalem’ wept copious tears, tears streaming down the faces of her people. For as they looked at the total desolation, and the victorious enemy, they were aware that they had no one to turn to. The repetition of ‘my eye’ emphasises the point. They felt utterly forsaken.
Many of us experience times in our lives when we feel that God has forsaken us because we cannot understand what is happening to us. For His ways are not our ways, and sometimes He leads us through the valley of thick darkness. But we should comfort ourselves with the thought that it is in the end so that we might be purified, as Israel was being purified.
Lam 1:17
(Pe) Zion spreads forth her hands,
There is none to comfort her,
YHWH has commanded concerning Jacob,
That those who are round about him should be his adversaries,
Jerusalem is among them,
As an unclean thing.
Zion is here the equivalent of Jerusalem. Here she cries out in her sad condition. The spreading forth of the hands while standing up to pray was a common method of praying. Thus here Jerusalem is depicted as calling on God to hear her in her distress. But it appears to her to be in vain. No one acts on her behalf. No one comforts her. The One Who would have been her Comforter has turned against her because of her many sins, and even her erstwhile allies have become her enemies because they now see her as ‘unclean’, deserted by the gods and by men. And Jerusalem recognises that this also is due to the hand of YHWH. It is He Who has commanded it. Here people have been brought to a full stop in order that they may face up to how much they have offended God.
There is a reminder to us here that if our trust is in the world it will always let us down in the end. And a reminder that we should treat our sin more seriously.
Lam 1:18
(Tsade) YHWH is righteous,
For I have rebelled against his commandment,
Hear, I pray you, all you peoples,
And behold my sorrow,
My virgins and my young men,
Are gone into captivity.
Jerusalem acknowledges the fact that what has happened has not called into question the righteousness of YHWH. Rather it has underlined it. For it has happened precisely because her people had rebelled against the commandments of the Righteous One. This was initially, of course, the prophet’s viewpoint speaking on behalf of Jerusalem, but it would gradually become a part of the thinking of the whole people as a result of the prophetic endeavours, and this lament.
Then Jerusalem calls on ‘all you peoples’ to behold her sorrow, in that the prime of her youth, her virgins and young men, have gone into captivity.
For ‘YHWH is Righteous’ compare 2Ch 12:6; Isa 24:16 (translated ‘glory to the Righteous One’); Jer 12:1. Note the return to ‘YHWH’ rather than ‘Lord’. They are recognising that He is their covenant God against Whom they have rebelled.
Lam 1:19
(Qoph) I called for my lovers,
They deceived me,
My priests and my elders,
Yielded up the spirit in the city,
While they sought food for themselves,
To refresh their own beings.
Jerusalem admits that she has been failed by both her allies, and by her own leadership. Her ‘lovers’ are those that she has cosied up to among the neighbouring countries. But when called on to fulfil their promises they had deceived her. Egypt, for example, on whom she had greatly relied, had made great promises, but had been unable to live up to them). And in some cases her neighbours had rather assisted her enemies (although sometimes having no alternative). Meanwhile her own leadership, the priests and elders (secular statesmen) whom she had looked up to, and on whom she had depended, had given up any effort to help the people because they had been too involved in their own self-preservation. Indeed many of them had actually perished as they searched for food.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jerusalem Calls On The World, And Then On YHWH, To Behold Her Condition And Cries To Him For Vengeance ( Lam 1:12-22 ).
This passage can be divided up into two parts, the first in which Jerusalem calls on the world to behold her pitiable state (Lam 1:12-19), and the second in which she calls on YHWH to do the same and to avenge her in accordance with what He has promised (Lam 1:20-22). The cry for retribution has in mind YHWH’s declaration of His intentions as described, for example, in Jer 50:15; Jer 50:29; Jer 51:6; Jer 51:11. Initially of course it describes the prophet’s viewpoint speaking on behalf of Jerusalem, but the aim was that by participation in his thoughts through reading and reciting his words God’s wayward people too might enter into a similar experience.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Lament of the City and the Answer of the Lord
v. 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? v. 13. From above hath He sent fire into my bones, v. 14. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand, v. 15. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me, v. 16. For these things I weep, v. 17. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, v. 18. The Lord is righteous, v. 19. I called for my lovers, v. 20. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, v. 21. They have heard that I sigh, v. 22. Let all their wickedness come before Thee,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Lam 1:12. Is it nothing to you Come unto me all ye that pass by. Houbigant. Michaelis would render it, Not unto you that pass by, [namely, do I call]. The preceding verse ended thus, See, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile; and then immediately follows, “Not unto you who pass by do I cry, Behold, and see,” &c. that is, “I do not make this address to you who pass by; I do not call you who have heard this my complaint, as spectators and witnesses of my grief; ye are unable to condole with me; for what sorrow can be equal unto my sorrow, &c.?” The sense given in our version appears to me the most expressive and emphatical. The last words are read by Schultens, Sorrow, whereby the Lord hath exhausted me, or, hath altogether tortured me, in the day, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? 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? Lam 1:12
This need not be put as a question, but may be read literally thus “Not to you, ye passers by.” Sometimes the expression has been taken as an interjection “Oh, all ye that pass by.” Zion does not speak to those who are merely passing on; to them she has nothing to say which they can understand. On the other hand, it may be imagined that Zion is complaining because of the indifference with which the world regards her. She is amazed that sorrow like hers can be in the world, and that men can pass by without paying any attention to it. We must beware of unduly magnifying sorrow, and yet we must be equally on our guard against lessening it, and taking out of it the suggestions of its greatness and dignity. Brooding over our sorrow, it may become disproportionately important: neglecting it, or trifling with it, we may lose all its most solemn and tender lessons. He is the wise man who measures his sorrow by right standards, and who asks God to reveal to him its scope and purpose, in order that through his sorrow he may form a truer estimate of his sins. God does not allot punishment to us according to our own estimate of sin, but according to the sin as it appears to him. If there is aught of clemency mingled with judgment it is because of the frailty of our frame, and our simple inability to encounter the judgment which is due even to what we may call our smallest transgressions. Some men have not scrupled to apply these words to Jesus Christ himself, as he was stretched upon the Cross, bearing such agony as neper before tormented the human soul, or rent the human body. According to these interpreters, Jesus Christ is represented as saying, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, that I should be thus crucified? Do ye not understand this agony? Is it not apparent to you that, if I suffer thus for your sin, your sin must have been of infinite hatefulness in the sight of God? Thus Jesus Christ is represented as drawing sympathy towards himself by reason of his sufferings, and is thus indirectly magnifying the grace and love of God in human redemption. Whether this be a legitimate interpretation or not, it is certain that no suffering was like the suffering of Christ; he poured out his soul unto death; he did not suffer for his own sins, but for the sins of others; he was wounded for our transgressions.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Lam 1:12
Ver. 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by the way? ] Siste viator. Stay, passenger, hast not a tear to shed? &c. Sanchez thinks that this is Jerusalem’s epitaph, made by herself, as to be engraven on her tomb to move compassion. The Septuagint have , Hei, id vos subaudite, clamo, Woe and alas, cry I to you; make ye nothing of my misery? I wish the like may never befall you – Ne sit super vos – for so some render the words.
Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
Wherein the Lord hath afflicted me.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
behold = look attentively. Not the same word as in verses: Lam 1:9, Lam 1:18, Lam 1:20.
be = exists. Hebrew. yesh. See Gen 18:24. Pro 8:21; Pro 18:24, &c.
sorrow = pain.
done unto me. Compare Lam 1:22; Lam 3:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Lam 1:12-22
Sorrows of captive Zion (Lam 1:12-22)
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted [me] in the day of his fierce anger. From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them; He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; They are knit together, they are come up upon my neck; He hath made my strength to fail: The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand (Lam 1:12-14).
Jerusalem called out for sympathy to those who passed by and hissed at the sight of her shame. Jerusalem wore the yoke of affliction as a consequence of her sins tightly upon her neck. These verses are indicative that Judah recognized that her suffering was of her own sinful doing.
The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me; He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, becausethe enemy hath prevailed (Lam 1:15-16).
God s wrath against the ungodly is often depicted in the scriptures as a winepress that mashed the grapes under foot as the blood of the grapes flow (cf. Rev 14:19-20).
The one in whom Judah ought to have had comfort, God, was far fromthem. The punishment and solitude of life without Jehovah God drove the prophet to exclaim, I weep; mine eye, mine eye runs down with water. Tears of deep anguish and sorrow describe the state of Judah. Though Jeremiah was writing this, it is apparent that this is the cry of Judah s people. They recognized their sins and the consequences thereof and therefore cried. This was precisely the state of mind Jehovah had determined to drive the people due to their sins (cf. Jer 30:11; Jer 31:17-20; Jer 46:28).
Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing. Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young
men are gone into captivity. I called for my lovers, [but] they deceived me: My priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, While they sought them food to refresh their souls (Lam 1:17-19).
The Lord had driven Judah to repentance in the most grueling circumstances. The prophet had foretold of the grievous deaths (Jer 16:3-4), the taking of their riches (Jer 20:5), the removal of all happiness (Jer 25:10), that their cities would be left desolate and uninhabited (Jer 34:22), and that they would spend seventy years in captivity for their sinful deeds (Jer 25:11). All had come to pass, and the people of Judah knew assuredly that Jehovah had brought them through these terrible days because of their sin. There was none to come to their aid. All had been destroyed by the Chaldeans.
Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; And do unto them,as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint (Lam 1:20-22).
The distress and trouble of heart because of the current affliction was recognized as being the result of Judah s grievous rebellion against Jehovah s commandments.
Again, the enemies of Judah were seen as rejoicing over her fall. Judah saw their happiness and prayed to Jehovah. Her prayer revealed their acknowledgment of sin. Jeremiah had spoken for God saying, Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God… (Jer 3:13), yet they said, We will not walk therein… (Jer 6:16).
Now that Jehovah had chastened them with a battle axe of Babylon (cf. Jer 51:20), they had humbled themselves. Their pride had turned into shame and depression due to their sins (cf. Jer 6:16; Jer 26:10-11).
Jeremiah Mourns for Jerusalem
Questions on Lam 1:1-22
Open It
1. How do you handle rejection?
2. What city would you least like to visit? Why?
3. What do you do when you know you need help?
Explore It
4. How did the writer describe the city? (Lam 1:1-2)
5. What happened to Judah? (Lam 1:3)
6. What did the empty roads to Zion depict? (Lam 1:4-6)
7. What did Jerusalem recall? (Lam 1:7)
8. How had the city become ruined? (Lam 1:8-11)
9. Who punished Jerusalem? (Lam 1:12)
10. How had the daughter of Judah suffered? (Lam 1:13-16)
11. Why were Zions pleas for help ignored? (Lam 1:17-19)
12. What price did Zion pay for her rebellion? (Lam 1:18-19)
13. How did devastated Jerusalem describe her condition? (Lam 1:20-22)
14. What was Zions prayer for her enemies? (Lam 1:21-22)
Get It
15. What do you consider to be the worst change in your community during the past year?
16. From your point of view, how much leadership, respect, and authority is given to God by our nation?
17. How do you think God deals with the sins of our society?
18. If God were to lament publicly over our society, what do you think He would say?
19. What social sins most trouble you?
20. How has suffering and humiliation moved you to action?
21. When have you felt ignored by God?
22. When have you felt in desperate need of Gods help?
23. What do you need to safeguard most in your relationship with God?
Apply It
24. When could you spend five minutes every day this week praying for the needs of a big city?
25. What action can you take to challenge a sinful social policy or practice in your community?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Perfection of Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me.Lam 1:12.
1. These words take us back to a time nearly six hundred years before Christ, when Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the conquering Chaldans. There is no ode or elegy in literature more pathetic or more tragic than this Hebrew poets wail over his desolate city. It gives expression to feelings which must have stirred many a patriotic Hebrew heart in those dark and troubled days. Solitary lieth the city, she that was full of people, she that was great among the nations, a princess among provinces. Zions ways do languish, her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, all her friends have betrayed her and she is in bitterness. In the text Jerusalem herself is represented as plunged in the lowest depths of despair and as appealing for sympathy and help. She appeals first to passing travellers, then to the larger circle of the surrounding nations, and lastly to her God. Already the suffering city has spoken once or twice in brief interruptions of the poets descriptions of her miseries, and now she seems to be too impatient to permit herself to be represented any longer even by this friendly advocate; she must come forward in person and present her case in her own words, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me.
2. The appeal to all who pass by is most familiar to us in its later association with our Lords sufferings on the cross. But this is not in any sense a Messianic passage; it is confined in its purpose to the miseries of Jerusalem. Of course there can be no objection to illustrating the grief and pain of the Man of Sorrows by using the classic language of an ancient lament if we note that this is only an illustration. There is a kinship in all suffering, and it is right to consider that He who was tried in all points as we are tried passed through sorrows which absorbed all the bitterness even of such a cup of woe as that which was drunk by Jerusalem in the extremity of her misfortunes. If never before there had been sorrow like unto her sorrow, at length that was matched, nay, surpassed, at Gethsemane and Golgotha. When He who was holy, undefiled, and separate from sinners came into direct relation with sin, He suffered as it is not possible for us to realize. To our Lord, the sin around Him was that from which His nature, and His intense loyalty to His Father in heaven, shrank with unspeakable pain. In its climax we can even see how it led to an actual sense of separation from God; for when sin, in its hate of Him, hung Him up as a cursed thing upon the cross, as malefactor, outlaw, and outcast, it pictured forth its own deadly power to kill the representative of the race, sinless though He was. And the silent heaven seemed to the breaking heart of the Christ as the hiding away of the Face of Eternal Love, who in that dark hour knew a grief which we understand not, while he spared not his own Son.
In one of the best and most widely known hymns on the crucifixion of JesusIsaac Watts When I survey the wondrous Crossattention is concentrated upon that pitiful spectacle of suffering, and a challenge is thrown out. The verse reads
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did eer such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Those were almost the last words of Matthew Arnold, who died suddenly in Liverpool of heart failure on Sunday, April 15, 1888, when on his way to the Landing Stage to meet his daughter returning from America. He had attended Ian Maclarens church in the morning, and after service he was heard repeating to himself the words of the hymn which had been sung by the congregation. The hymn had evidently impressed himand yet, Hellenist as he was, and typical man of culture, he felt the spell and the power of that awful tragedy in comparison with which all other tragedies pale.1 [Note: Thomas Sanderson, Unfulfilled Designs, 72.]
I know as I know my life,
I know as I know my pain,
That there is no lonely strife,
That he is mad who would gain
A separate balm for his woe,
A single pity and cover;
The one great God I know
Hears the same prayer over and over.
I know it, because at the portal
Of heaven, I bowed and cried,
And I said: Was ever a mortal
Thus crowned and crucified!
My praise thou hast made my blame;
My best thou hast made my worst;
My good thou hast turned to shame;
My drink is a flaming thirst.
But scarce my prayer was said
Ere from that place I turned;
I trembled, I hung my head,
My cheek, shame-smitten, burned;
For there where I bowed down
In my boastful agony,
I thought of Thy cross and crown
O Christ, I remembered Thee.1 [Note: R. W. Gilder, Five Books of Song.]
I
1. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This title, from the well-known, marvellous fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which tells of the suffering Servant of Jehovah, has been applied by universal consent of the Christian ages to the Son of Godthe Christ who lived on this earth for men, and died broken-hearted through their sin. When did our Lord begin to realize that His earthly career was to be one of sorrow? We do not know. We should certainly like to think of His childhood as having been happy. Indeed it must have been so: for they alone are happy who are innocent, and the childhood of Jesus was altogether sinless. His very presence in that humble home at Nazareth must have made it happy; and when He Himself looked back afterwards upon His childhood, that season of His life must have seemed to Him like a dream of peace and love. Although we cannot tell at what period our blessed Lord had His first experience of heavy sorrow, or His earliest prevision of the cross, we know that when He was only twelve years of age He had already become alive to the singularity of His relationship to God. And we have evidence also that almost at the very beginning of His public ministry He knew that He was to be crucified for the worlds sin; for He spoke of that to Nicodemus and He had referred to it even earlier (Joh 2:19; Joh 3:14). The solemn event must have been foreknown to Him before His ministry began, even before He had left the home of His youth at Nazareth.
The answer of Jesus (Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business?) to the reproachful question of His mother (in Luk 2:48) lays bare His childhoods mind, and for a moment affords a wide glance over the thoughts which used to engross Him in the fields of Nazareth. It shows that already, though so young, He had risen above the great mass of men, who drift on through life without once inquiring what may be its meaning and its end. He was aware that He had a God-appointed life-work to do, which it was the one business of His existence to accomplish. It was the passionate thought of all His after-life. It ought to be the first and last thought of every life. It recurred again and again in His later sayings, and pealed itself finally forth in the word with which He closed His careerIt is finished!
It has often been asked whether Jesus knew all along that He was the Messiah, and, if not, when and how the knowledge dawned upon Himwhether it was suggested by hearing from His mother the story of His birth or announced to Him from within. Did it dawn upon Him all at once, or gradually? When did the plan of His career, which He carried out so unhesitatingly from the beginning of His ministry, shape itself in His mind? Was it the slow result of years of reflection, or did it come to Him at once? These questions have occupied the greatest Christian minds and received very various answers. I will not venture to answer them, and especially with His reply to His mother before me, I cannot trust myself even to think of a time when He did not know what His work in this world was to be.1 [Note: J. Stalker, The Life of Jesus Christ, 23.]
2. What did the sorrow of Christ consist in? Physical pain formed one of its ingredients; but we should not allow our minds to dwell too much upon that. It is a stupendous mistake to enlarge so much as some poets and painters and emotional pulpit rhetoricians have done upon the mere physical accompaniments of the death of Jesus Christthe crown of thorns, the Roman scourging, the pierced hands and feet. It is true that the Roman scourging (which, it will be remembered, was inflicted more than once upon the Apostle Paul) was one of the most terrible tortures ever invented by the cruelty of man; and crucifixion was a most agonizing and lingering method of killing. The agony in the garden was appalling; but we have our Lords own testimony when He was enduring it that it was not merely or chiefly physical pain that bowed Him to the ground. His words were, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. And we cannot believe that His mind and heart were overwhelmed simply by the fear of crucifixion. Peter and others of the disciples of our Lord have been crucified, and have suffered greater physical torture, in the form of punishment, than the Blessed One Himself; for in His case the end came sooner than usual, and the authorities were astonished to discover that He was so soon dead. We know that Socrates, the Athenian philosopher, faced his martyrdom with perfect composure, and declined to avail himself of the escape from prison which his friends had planned. We know also that a multitude of Christian martyrs have with sublime fortitude given their bodies to be burned, and have confessed, amidst their dying agonies, that they received from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself the strength which enabled them to endure. No one of the four Evangelists lays any emphasis upon the bodily sufferings of Jesus. They say little of the physical pains of Christ; and Nature drew a veil over the face of the sun during His last agony. How irreverent it is of any man to try to snatch that veil away and let in the vulgar glare of day upon the agony of Christ! To dwell upon the details of His physical sufferings is to divert the thoughts of men from the main source and character of His sufferings.
Every suggestion of the unseen is precious, every door opening into it. And ah! Protestant as I am, even image-worship does appeal to a part of mans nature. There is an old stone of granite by the roadside, as you wind up the hill at old Buda, upon which a worn and defaced image of our Saviour is cut, which I used often to pass. Below the granite block are the words (from the Vulgate version of Lam 1:12)O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte si est ullus dolor sicut dolor meus. The through woe-begoneness of that image used to haunt me long: that old bit of granitethe beau-ideal of human sorrow, weakness, and woe-begoneness. To this day it will come back upon me, and always with that dumb gaze of perfect calmnessno complainingthe picture of meek and mute suffering. The memory of it comes up fresh as when I first looked upon it.1 [Note: Rabbi Duncan, in Colloquia Peripatetica, 41.]
II
1. The necessity of sorrow in the life of Christ came from the spiritual character of His work. From the point of view of the disciples, and the popular conception of the Messiah, a certain amount of conflict and hardship could readily be allowed for. The Roman could not be expected to yield without a blow; and as it became clear that opposition from within His own nation was to be expected, temporary disappointments and misunderstandings would fall within the disciples scheme of the future. They were ready for the hardships of an earthly struggle, i.e., to drink His cup as they understood it. They were not prepared for the cross, because they had not a deep enough conception of His work. Not Roman or Sadducee, but sin, was the enemy; Christs aim was the establishment of a spiritual and universal empire. The national mission of the Son of David had passed into the world-wide mission of the Servant of Jehovah, and the means which might have sufficed for the one would no longer serve the other. His work moved on a higher plane, and the weapons of His warfare must be more mysterious and spiritual than any outward miracle. These weapons were the attractive and atoning power of service and sorrow. The cross, the life of service, and all it implied of sorrow and suffering, were necessary because He had come to give His life a ransom for many.
It was with a great rush of emotion that Jesus first announced the coming of the kingdom. His message was emphatically the Gospel of the kingdom of God. He commenced, like John, with announcing simply that the kingdom was at hand; and there is no reason to doubt that there existed in the public mind a sufficient amount of Messianic sentiment to make this announcement attract attention and excite enthusiasm. At first everyone would interpret it according to his own ideas of the expected kingdom; and so the rumour of the preaching of John and Jesus rang through the land, and all men were in expectation as to the shape in which the promised kingdom would appear.
As soon, however, as Jesus began to explain Himself, it became manifest that the majority of His countrymen and He were expecting the fulfilment of the promise in totally different forms. Both employed the same phrasethe kingdom of Godbut His countrymen laid the emphasis on the first half of itthe kingdomwhile He laid it on the secondof God. They were thinking of the external benefits and glories of a kingdom, such as political emancipation, a throne, a court, a capital and tributary provinces, while He was thinking of the character of the subjects of the anticipated realm and of the doing in it of the will of God as it is done in heaven.
Browning, in the opening pages of The Ring and the Book, compares the poets art to that of the goldsmith, who, when he is working with the finest gold, has to make use of an alloy, in order to give the precious metal sufficient consistency to enable it to stand the action of his tools and assume the shapes which he desires. But, when the form is complete, he applies an acid, which evaporates the alloy and leaves nothing but the pure gold of the perfect ring. The popular conception of the kingdom of God was the alloy with which Jesus had to mix His teaching, in order to make it fit to mingle with the actual life of the world of His day. Without it His thought would have been too ethereal and too remote from the living hopes of men. He had to take men where He found them, and lead them step by step to the full appreciation of His sublime purpose for the world. He was not to be the king of the Jews, but King of an infinitely diviner realm; yet it was by aiming at the throne which He missed that He reached the throne which He now occupies.1 [Note: J. Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, 146, 163.]
2. Again, His sorrow was the clue to His loneliness. See Him looking from afar over the city of David, the home of His race, the centre of its history and of its religion, the city and the temple that He loved. His soul is melted to tears, as He thinks of her bygone works and of the destiny that awaits her. How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Rejected in Galilee, despised in Jerusalem, He stands of all men the Man of Sorrows. He had friends and followers, it is true, who had left all to be His disciples. Yet even here He knew the sorrow of contact with egotism, self-interest, perversity of understanding, unbelief, even treachery. How many of those who thronged Him sought Him not for His own sake, not for love of Him, but for the loaves and the fishes! And He knew it. His closest companions were occupied with hopes and ambitions which centred in an earthly and visible kingdom. Yet these were the men to whom His soul turned at a time when many forsook Him, yearning for the solace of human sympathy, with the pathetic appeal: Will ye also go away? At last, the time came when all forsook Him and fled. Alone, hated of men, forsaken and betrayed, He went to His bitter passion and death, the death of the cross. Over much of His life that cross had cast its dark shadow. He knew that the path He was treading led to Calvary, and he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. Even in the hour of that mystic glorifying, when He talked on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, what He spoke of was his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. That certainty was all along present to His mind. And then the anticipated hour came at last, the hour of darkness and of the transient triumph of the powers of evil, the hour of betrayal, of mocking, of torture, of bodily exhaustion, of spiritual depression, when God Himself seemed to have forsaken Him, the hour of supreme anguish and of death.
The severest of all the limitations of Jesus lay in the isolation of His life, both actual and spiritual. It is recorded that He was homeless, but the absence of a dwelling-placesufficient privation in itselfwas a symbol of an intellectual, moral, and spiritual homelessness such as, in its last rigours, passes our comprehension. No man has ever been so lonely as was Jesus. None has ever experienced so entire a disappointment of the social instinct. It is true that He had the attachment of His disciples, but these men were inaccessible to the ideas and motives which formed His constant theme. With infinite patience He strove to make them partakers of what was the inspiration of His own life, but to the close they misunderstood Him.
However deeply personal misunderstanding wounded Him, there is no trace of scar in the Man as we behold Him; it was when the kingdom was misunderstood, when the spiritual was exploited in interests political or legal, when human life was cheapened, when the Magdalens gift or the publicans hospitality was misconstrued, it was then that the wound was inflicted, that the isolation became anguish. This is something so altogether beyond the experience of ordinary life that many men and women must live and die without so much as a glimpse of the lonely regions Jesus trod.1 [Note: T. J. Hardy, The Gospel of Pain.]
3. But the real sorrow of Christ was the travail of his soul in bearing the burden of our sin. In some mysterious manner He became identified with the guiltiness and sinfulness of our poor human nature. He was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin. The sting of death is sin; and it was necessary that He should receive that sting into His own bosom. In Gethsemane He trembled under the fearful oppression of the touch of sin; but the trembling at length passed away, and He braced Himself to endure the cross, and be made a curse for us. He reached the climax of His unspeakable anguishthe darkness, blacker than midnight, which for a space rested on His soulwhen He cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? To be forsaken of God is the last consequence of sinthe very hell of hell. The Redeemer had to endure for a season the awful sense of Divine rejection and desertion, in order that we sinful men might be readily reconciled to God, and become partakers of eternal life.
The Son of God could not identify Himself absolutely with the human race without mysteriously realizing the last consequence of sin. From that even He shrank: but it was inevitable. He drank the bitter cup to the dregs, and it killed Him. As a distinguished physician has pointed out, all the physical symptoms indicated that Christ died literally of a broken heart. He did not die of crucifixion. In the ordinary course of nature He would have lingered for many hours. But when God mysteriously forsook Him, it was more than He could endure and live. It broke His heart literally and metaphorically. Body and soul alike were crushed by the awful experience, and, with a loud cry, He yielded up His spirit to God. He was a willing victim. No man took His life from Him. He laid it down of His own accord; and by so doing He paid such unparalleled homage to His own justice and His own righteousness that henceforward He could consistently be both just and the justifier of sinful man.
St. Johns record of the Passion is from the beginning to the end a revelation of majesty. No voice of suffering, no horror of thick darkness, find a place in it. Every indignity is so accepted by the Lord as to become part of a gracious and willing sacrifice. The words with which He goes forth to die are a declaration of a victory which has been already achieved: I have overcome the world. The words which precede His voluntary death are the ratification of a work perfectly accomplished: It is finished. The betrayal is fruitless till He places Himself in the hands of His enemies. He is Himself the Judge of His judges. Hanging upon the cross the Lord discharged with calm and tender authority the last offices of personal affection, the last requirements of the Scripture which He came to fulfil. He gave up His Spirit; and still He lived through death.1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Victory of the Cross, 95.]
4. Christs sorrow was wholly vicarious,that is, it was pure sympathy, as pure as the rain which drops from the clouds, before it has become defiled by contact with the earth. It was the faithful reflection of the Divine sorrow. It was the sorrow of one who Himself knew no sin, but who sorrowed for those who did. All the weight of sorrow which He bore was, strictly speaking, ours and not His. He had not known sorrow if He had not known us. It is a very common mistake to regard vicarious suffering as being an institution of religion and as such needing apology; whereas, so far from being in conflict with our highest ideas of justice and morality, it is an inevitable part of all deep moral experience, and has operated throughout the history of the race as a powerful redemptive force. No one has ever tried to serve others without having had to face the necessity of suffering on their behalf. Suffering is the experience in which men feel their oneness with their kind. Christ, too, by suffering felt His oneness with men; but largely in order to assert a singularity beyond. Through suffering He became like unto men, but only that He might effect through suffering a lonely and a singular service for them. We know from common human experience that there is no real sympathy with suffering save in the breasts of those who have themselves suffered. In the school of pain men learn lessons that can be taught them nowhere else. And we can hardly conceive a Saviour who could be equal to our deepest need unless He were also one who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And when we take sin into account the same thing appears more clearly. We may dupe and deceive ourselves for a time, but it thrusts itself upon our attention, and the consciousness of it cannot be gainsaid. Because it is the burden of our life, therefore it was the burden of Christs. He had to face it if ever He was to become the Redeemer of the world; and it was no light and easy task. He can speak to the soul in the anguish of penitence as no other can, because He has Himself done battle with the enemy, has faced the worst that evil can do and come out in the end victorious. The cross of Jesus confronts us with the perfection of sorrow, which is the perfection of sympathy, and out of this assured sympathy spring redemption and reconciliation and pardon and peace and everlasting life.
John Richard Green, before he began to write his history of England, was a curate in the East End of London, and he bore the burden of the East End upon his heart. He tells in one of his letters how he tried to reclaim some of the fallen, and he says that the appalling thing to him was thisto find that they were where they were simply because of their indifferent attitude. He said to them it was such a little thing to step down there, and now he could not get them to realize that it was a big thing to step from down there up here into the life of purity. It was all indifference that was responsible for that. The sorrows of humanity and its sins broke the heart of One whose cry is to the end of time, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? If I could, I would take every one of you where you could see it, the Face that was marred more than any mans and the form more than the sons of men. If you asked me why, I should say, The consequences of your guilt, the curse of your sin, rested upon Him, the innocent for the guilty, that He might wake your soul and bring you to God, and help you to save the world. Is it nothing to you, nothing? Is that your final answer? Have you nothing more to say than that Jesus Christ and His Passion are nothing to you? Oh, no, you say; No, we do not say that; we do feel something, and think something. What is your practical answer? That is the only thing that matters. What is your practical answer to Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Is it nothing, or rather does it pledge you once again to give your youth, your powers, and all you have, in glorious self-abandonment for the service of God, and for the good of humanity?1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
III
1. To Jesus the suffering He was called on to endure was not aimless, and gave Him no reason to doubt the goodness and mercy of His Father. He saw, as we often do not and cannot, behind the veil. He realized that there was a purpose in it all, and the joy that was set before Him became as a blessed anodyne that helped Him to endure the shame. His lowly service and suffering were such integral parts of the work He had come into the world to do that He took them quietly and almost as a matter of course. And His example teaches us at least this, that we may look for the silver lining to the clouds above our heads. In much of what we are called to endure there is a gracious and fruitful discipline, and happy are they who can see it and whose faith can help them to be still and open not their mouths. There is not one who sorrows now, no matter what his grief and gloom, who cannot find his pain met, and overwhelmed, and swallowed up in the sea of eternal suffering love that presents itself in Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus Christ take the problem of sorrow for granted. It is there before them. But in Christ they find its practical solution. Behold the Man of Sorrows, the One who is acquainted with grief. His experience gives us the power by which we accept sorrow. If in an evil world He knew sorrow as He did, by the same token He says to us, Ye now therefore have sorrow. And we are bidden accordingly to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. Through His sorrow we may surely see something of the purpose of sorrow, as a privilege peculiar to man. It lifts him forward and upward to a destiny not vouchsafed to nature below him. If man is to rise in the struggle which must be and is against sin in an imperfect world, sorrow is a necessary condition and a purifying element.
One of the characteristic paradoxes of Christianity is that its sorrow and happiness co-exist. Christ is the Man of Sorrows, yet we cannot think of Him for a moment as an unhappy man. He rather gives us the picture of serene and unclouded happiness. Beneath not merely the outward suffering, but the profound sorrow of heart, there is deeper still a continual joy, derived from the realized presence of His Father and the consciousness that He is doing His work. Unless this is remembered, the idea of the Man of Sorrows is sentimentalized and exaggerated.1 [Note: C. W. Emmet.]
2. The sorrow of Christ has been a blessedly fruitful sorrow. All sorrow yields fruit according to its kind; but it is not possible to measure the fruitfulness of the atoning death of the Redeemer. His sorrow on earth was the path to His eternal reward in heaven; and the depth of His sufferings is the measure of the height of His mediatorial exaltation. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Because He was the Man of Sorrows He is now the King of Glory. And who can tell how fruitful of blessing the Redeemers sorrow has been to His people? Jesus wept that He might one day wipe away all tears from the eyes of millions. He sorrowed that multitudes might rejoice. He shed His blood that many a bleeding heart might be healed. He tasted death that a new life might be breathed into the souls of men. He was made perfect through sufferings that He might bring many sons unto glory. Every believer can testify of the Redeemer, as Bunyans pilgrim did: He hath given me joy by His sorrow, and life by His death. Christs cross is His throne, and it is by His death that He has ruled the ages. Yet we must not understand this as if His power was only or mostly shown in binding men, by gratitude for the salvation He won them, to own Him for their King. His power has been even more conspicuously proved in making His fashion of service the most fruitful and the most honoured among men. If men have ceased to turn from sickness with aversion or from weakness with contempt; if they have learned to see in all pain some law of God, and in vicarious suffering Gods most holy service; if patience and self-sacrifice have come in any way to be a habit of human life,the power in this change has been Christ. But because these twoto say, Thy will be done, and to sacrifice selfare for us men the hardest and the most unnatural of things to do, Jesus Christ, in making these a conscience and a habit upon earth, has indeed performed the very highest service for man of which man can conceive.
A little book, entitled The Man of No Sorrows, which presents a counterfeit Christ as the real friend of the modern advancing age, startles at first by its apparent audacious blasphemy; until we perceive how in the end the real Christ comes back, at the call of the agony of the world which banished Himthe world which has fallen from the pinnacle of selfish luxury and callous enjoyment to the very depths of hideous anarchy and despair. In repentance and horror the false Messiah cries aloud in agony to the Man of Sorrows, who returns in tender mercy to a world in the very throes of death, and casts across it the colossal shadow of His rejected cross, which shall heal its sin, and its violence and its woes.1 [Note: E. Hicks, Our Life Here, 42.]
One Sunday evening in December, Thackeray was walking with two friends along the Dean Road, to the west of Edinburghone of the noblest outlets to any city. It was a lovely eveningsuch a sunset as one never forgets; a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip colour, lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every object standing out as if etched upon the sky. The north-west end of Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance, and there a wooden crane, used in the quarry below, was so placed as to assume the figure of a cross; there it was, unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at it silently. As they gazed, he gave utterance in a tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice, to what all were feeling, in the word Calvary! The friends walked on in silence, and then turned to other things. All that evening he was very gentle and serious, speaking, as he seldom did, of divine things,of death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation; expressing his simple faith in God and in his Saviour.2 [Note: Dr. John Brown, Hor Subseciv, iii. 189.]
The Perfection of Sorrow
Literature
Adeney (W. F.), Canticles and Lamentations (Expositors Bible), 120.
Belfrage (H.), Sacramental Addresses, 81.
Foxell (W. J.), A Mirror of Divine Comfort, 100.
Hickey (E. P.), Short Sermons, ii. 83.
Hunt (A. N.), Sermons for the Christian Year, i. 173.
Hunter (J.), God and Life, 277.
Jerdan (C.), For the Lords Table, 163.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Holy Week, 183.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, i. 288.
Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, vii. 377.
Sanderson (T.), Unfulfilled Designs, 72.
Segneri (P. P.), Quaresimale (tr. J. Ford), iii. 194.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), No. 1620; lix. (1913), No. 3360.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xi. (1874), No. 879.
Williams (I.), Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, iii. 124.
Christian World Pulpit, lxviii. 273 (J. Hunter); lxx. 360 (C. S. Horne).
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1909, p. 83; 1910, p. 53.
Churchmans Pulpit: Holy Week, vi. 370 (S. W. Skeffington).
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ii. 665 (C. W. Emmet).
Literary Churchman, xxi. (1875) 74; xxxii. (1886) 156 (F. Foster).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
Is it nothing: or, It is nothing
pass by: Heb. pass by the way
if: The church in distress here magnifies her affliction; and yet no more than there was cause for her groaning was not heavier than her strokes. She appeals to all spectators – see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. This might truly be said of the griefs which were suffered in Jerusalem of old; but Christians are apt to apply these words too sensibly and sensitively to themselves, when they are in trouble, and sometimes more than there is reasonable cause to warrant. All men feel most from their own burden, and cannot be persuaded to reconcile themselves to it; how often do thy cry out in the words we are illustrating! whereas, if their troubles were to be thrown into a common stock with those of others, and then an equal dividend made, share and share alike, rather than approve such an arrangement, each would be ready to say, “Pray give me my own again.” – Henry. Lam 2:13, Lam 4:6-11, Dan 9:12, Mat 24:21, Luk 21:22, Luk 21:23, Luk 23:28-31
Reciprocal: Deu 28:59 – General 2Ch 35:13 – roasted Job 1:18 – there came Job 19:6 – compassed Isa 13:13 – in the wrath Isa 30:27 – burning Isa 51:19 – who shall Jer 10:19 – Woe Jer 15:5 – For who Jer 17:4 – for Jer 20:18 – to see Jer 30:7 – so Lam 1:4 – her priests Lam 1:18 – hear Lam 1:21 – have heard that Lam 3:1 – the man Eze 27:32 – What city Zec 1:2 – Lord Mat 27:39 – reviled Mat 27:46 – Eli Mar 13:19 – in those Mar 14:34 – My soul Mar 15:29 – they Mar 15:34 – why Luk 22:44 – being Joh 19:5 – Behold Rom 9:2 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE UNHEEDED SORROWS OF JESUS
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
Lam 1:12
Where is the difference between the Church and the world? The world looks on; the Church participates in the sufferings of Jesus.
I. Now the first thing is, What is the fact?What are these strange things which are being enacted herein the garden, and in the court, and on the hill?
That Central Figureit is the Son of God! He is come to this earth, a Man, a simple Man.
And now His sufferingswhich have been all along very deep, and His patience eloquentare reaching the lowest point, and far below the lowest point of human endurance!
And this Man is the Eternal Son of God!
If this be true, there must be something more than meets the eye.
II. What is the solution of this great mysteryGods own dear Child sent through such a travail as that?What is the underlying secret? Twofold.
(1) First, it is Gods abhorrence of sin. Sin was as heavy as the world, but Christ was weightier than the world, therefore Christ outweighed the sin. Nothing but the Passion of Jesus could ever make it a just thing for God to forgive man.
(2) The other secret is love. The whole Trinity loves the sinnerso loves, that at any cost whatever, they resolve to restore him to the lost peace, the lost image, and the lost heaven.
III. Now see your part.Where were you in the Passion? Understand this, that if you were the only person that ever livedthe only person that ever did wrong, if you had only done one wrong action, or thought one wrong thoughtyet, all that Christ did and suffered would have been as much required to save you as it is required to save millions upon millions.
Then you did it. You did it!
That is the waywhen you are tempted to a sinto look at it:Can I do this sin, and crucify Christ?
That is the way to look at a sin when you have done it:It is red with the blood of Jesus Christ!
IV. But fourthly, no less for comfort and for joy.It was all for me; for me, pointedly, decidedly, individually, for me!
Were your sins multiplied into all the drops of ocean, and all the stars of both hemispheres one tear of those eyesone drop of that dear Saviours life-blood is sufficient to wash it all out!
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
I speak to those who play with religion. Do you know that your souls eternity hangs upon the question of what that Suffering One is to you? Have you no sins to confess? Have you no guilt to cancel? Have you no cravings to satisfy? Will you pass on, and go along your easy journey of life, and leave that dear Lord, and His Cross, an unnoticed and uncared thing?
If that be nothing, what is anything?
Rev. Jas. Vaughan.
Illustration
This Book is remarkable for its great variety of touching images and plaintive laments, all expressing the deepest sorrow. The prophet seems to be passing to and fro amid the ruins of the city and Temple, burned with fire, strewn with the bodies of the slaughtered soldiers and people. He sets himself to turn the people in penitence and faith to the God of their fathers, Whose commands they had so deeply disobeyed. The widowed city is depicted as weeping sore, her cheeks covered with tears, deserted by her former lovers, and overtaken in the narrow mountain passes by her foes. The very roads cry out for the pilgrim feet which no longer traverse them. The departure of her beauty, the sad memory of happier days, the shamelessness of the peoples sin, the violation of the holy place by Gentile feet, the extremity of famine, the unutterableness of her sorrow, the twisted yoke of her sins, the treading of her fruit as in the winepress beneath the feet of Him Who desired to be her Lover and Saviourall these are depicted in graphic colours. And, finally, the city herself (Lam 1:18, etc.) is introduced, lifting up her voice in the bitterest grief, and crying in the ear of God.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Lam 1:12. Jeremiah’s personal afflic-tion refers to the sympathy he has for hla beloved people, therefore the language of the verse is a reflection of patriotism.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Lam 1:12. Is it nothing to you? &c. The Vulgate reads this clause without an interrogation, thus: O vos omnes qui transitis per viam attendite, videte, &c. O all ye, who pass by the way, observe, see, &c. Lowth also and Blaney prefer reading it in a similar way; the former thus: O all ye that pass by; or, O! I appeal to all you that pass by: and the latter, O that among you, all ye that pass by the way, ye would look and see, &c. Our translation, however, is more agreeable to the Hebrew, and certainly more expressive and emphatical. The prophet speaks in the name of Jerusalem, or of the Jewish Church, still represented as a woman in misery, sitting by the way-side, and calling to travellers that passed by to have compassion on her, suggesting to them that hers was no ordinary affliction, nor the visitation of a common and ordinary providence, but the effect of the Lords fierce anger, a most severe though just chastisement. The intention of the passage is to show that the calamities brought on the Jews, as the punishment of their idolatries and other crimes, ought to be observed and maturely considered by people of all nations, that from their miseries they might learn how dangerous it was to provoke the God of Israel by such practices; which he would not overlook in any people, not even in those that stood in the nearest relation to him, but would assuredly punish them: and to signify to the Babylonians themselves in what danger they stood by despising and setting at naught this only living and true God. But the prophet does not address them by name, nor speak more pointedly, lest he should irritate them still more against his already too miserable countrymen. These words are often quoted in speaking of our Lords sufferings, and they are capable of a striking accommodation thereto: but it should be recollected that this is only an accommodation, and not the real meaning of the sacred writer. Mr. Scott: who adds, The address is so exquisitely pathetical, that no comment can possibly do justice to it.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1:12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there is any {n} sorrow like my sorrow, which hath fallen upon me, with which the LORD hath afflicted [me] in the day of his fierce anger.
(n) Thus Jerusalem laments moving others to pity her and to learn by her example.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
B. Jerusalem’s sorrow over her own condition 1:12-22
In contrast to the first half of the lament, these verses present the picture of an inside observer looking out. Lam 1:12-19 record Jerusalem’s call to people who had observed her desolation, and Lam 1:20-22 contain her call to the Lord.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. Jerusalem’s call to onlookers 1:12-19
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Jerusalem bewailed the lack of concern that her desolate condition drew from onlookers in this classic expression of grief. Her pain was uniquely great because the Lord had poured out His wrath on her.
". . . real goodness is not indulgent of evil." [Note: Price, p. 697.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
ZIONS APPEAL
Lam 1:12-22
IN the latter part of the second elegy Jerusalem appears as the speaker, appealing for sympathy, first to stray, passing travellers, then to the larger circle of the surrounding nations, and lastly to her God. Already the suffering city has spoken once or twice in brief interruptions of the poets descriptions of her miseries, and now she seems to be too impatient to permit herself to be represented any longer even by this friendly advocate; she must come forward in person and present her case in her own words.
There is much difference of opinion among commentators about the rendering of the phrase with which the appeal begins. The Revisers have followed the Authorised Version in taking it as a question-“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” {Lam 1:12} But it may be treated as a direct negative-“It is nothing,” etc., or, by a slightly different reading of the Hebrew text, as a simple call for attention-“O all ye that pass by,” etc., as in the Vulgate “O vos,” etc. The usual rendering is the finest in literary feeling, and it is in accordance with a common usage. Although the sign of an interrogation, which would set this meaning beyond dispute, is absent, there does not seem to be sufficient reason for rejecting it in favour of one of the proposed alternatives. But in any case the whole passage evidently expresses a deep yearning for sympathy. Mere strangers, roving Bedouin, any people who may chance to be passing by Jerusalem, are implored to behold her incomparable woes. The wounded animal creeps into a corner to suffer and die in secret, perhaps on account of the habit of herds, in tormenting a suffering mate. But among mankind the instinct of a sufferer is to crave sympathy, from a friend, if possible; hut if such be not available, then even from a stranger. Now although where it is possible to give effectual aid, merely to cast a pitying look and pass by on the other side, like the priest and the Levite in the parable, is a mockery and a cruelty, although unpretentious indifference is better than that hypocrisy, it would be a great mistake to suppose that in those cases for which no direct relief can be given sympathy is of no value. This sympathy, if it is real, would help if it could; and under all circumstances it is the reality of the sympathy that is most prized, not its issues.
It should be remembered, further, that the first condition of active aid is a genuine sense of compassion, which can only be awakened by means of knowledge and the impressions which a contemplation of suffering produces. Evil is wrought not only from want of thought, but also from lack of knowledge; and good-doing is withheld for the same reason. Therefore the first requisite is to arrest attention. A royal commission is the reasonable precursor of a state remedy for some public wrong. Misery is permitted to flourish in the dark because people are too indolent to search it out. No doubt the knowledge of sufferings which we might remedy implies a grave responsibility; but we cannot escape our obligations by simply closing our eyes to what we do not wish to see. We are responsible for our ignorance and its consequences wherever the opportunity of knowledge is within our reach.
The appeal to all who pass by is most familiar to us in its later association with our Lords sufferings on the cross. But this is not in any sense a Messianic passage; it is confined in its purpose to the miseries of Jerusalem. Of course there can be no objection to illustrating the grief and pain of the Man of Sorrows by using the classic language of an ancient lament if we note that this is only an illustration. There is a kinship in all suffering, and it is right to consider that He who was tried in all points as we are tried passed through sorrows which absorbed all the bitterness even of such a cup of woe as that which was drunk by Jerusalem in the extremity of her misfortunes. If never before there had been sorrow like unto her sorrow, at length that was matched, nay, surpassed at Gethsemane and Golgotha. Still it would be a mistake to confine these words to their secondary application-not only an exegetical mistake, but one of deeper significance. Jesus Christ restrained the wailing of the women who offered Him their compassion on His way to the cross, bidding them weep not for Him, but for themselves and their children. {Luk 23:28} Much more when His passion is long past and He is reigning in glory must it be displeasing to Him for His friends to be wasting idle tears over the sufferings of His earthly life. The morbid sentimentality which broods over the ancient wounds of Christ, the nail prints and the spear thrust, but ignores the present wounds of society-the wounds of the world for which He bled and died, or the wounds of the Church which is His body now, must be wrong in His sight. He would rather we gave a cup of cold water to one of His brethren than an ocean of tears to the memory of Calvary. If then we would make use of the ruined citys appeal for sympathy by applying it to some later object it would be more in agreement with the mind of Christ to think of the miseries of mankind in our own day, and to consider how a sympathetic regard for them may point to some ministry of alleviation.
In order to impress the magnitude of her miseries on the minds of the strangers whose attention she would arrest, the city, now personified as a suppliant, describes her dreadful condition in a series of brief, pointed metaphors. Thus the imagination is excited; and the imagination is one of the roads to the heart. It is not enough that people know the bald facts of a calamity as these may be scheduled in an inspectors report. Although this preliminary information is most important, if we go no further the report will be replaced in its pigeonhole, and lie there till it is forgotten. Ii it is to do something better than gather the dust of years it must be used as a foundation for the imagination to work upon. This does not imply any departure from truth, any false colouring or exaggeration; on the contrary, the process only brings out the truth which is not really seen until it is imagined. Let us look at the various images under which the distress of Jerusalem is here presented.
It is like a fire in the bones. {Lam 1:13} It burns, consumes, pains with intolerable torment; it is no skin-deep trouble, it penetrates to the very marrow. This fire is overmastering; it is not to be quenched, neither does it die out; it “prevaileth” against the bones. There is no getting such a fire under.
It is like a net. {Lam 1:13} The image is changed. We see a wild creature caught in the bush, or perhaps a fugitive arrested in his flight and flung down by hidden snares at his feet. Here is the shock of surprise, the humiliation of deceit, the vexation of being thwarted. The result is a baffled, bewildered, helpless condition.
It is like faintness. {Lam 1:13} The desolate sufferer is ill. It is bad enough to have to bear calamities in the strength of health. Jerusalem is made sick and kept faint “all the day”-with a faintness that is not a momentary collapse, but a continuous condition of failure.
It is like a yoke {Lam 1:14} which is wreathed upon the neck – fixed on, as with twisted withes. The poet is here more definite. The yoke is made out of the transgressions of Jerusalem. The sense of guilt does not lighten its weight; the band that holds it most closely is the feeling that it is deserved. It is natural that the sinful sufferer should exclaim that God, who has bound this terrible yoke upon her, has made her strength to fail. As there is nothing so invigorating as the assurance that one is suffering for a righteous cause, so there is nothing so wretchedly depressing as the consciousness of guilt.
Lastly, it is like a winepress. {Lam 1:15} This image is elaborated with more detail, although at the expense of unity of design. God is said to have called a “solemn assembly” to oppress the Jews, by an ironical reversal of the common notion of such an assembly. The language recalls the idea of one of the great national festivals of Israel. But now instead of the favoured people their enemies are summoned, and the object is not the glad praise of God for His bounties in harvest or vintage, but the crushing of the Jews. They are to be victims, not guests as of old. They are themselves the harvest of judgment, the vintage of wrath. The wine is to be made, but the grapes crushed to produce it are the people who were accustomed to feast and drink of the fruits of Gods bounty in the happy days of their prosperity. So the mighty men are set at nought, their prowess counting as nothing against the brutal rush of the enemy; and the young men are crushed, their spirit and vigour failing them in the great destruction.
The most terrible trait in these pictures, one that is common to all of them, is the Divine origin of the troubles. It was God who sent fire into the bones, spread the net, made the sufferer desolate and faint. The yoke was bound by His hands. It was He who set at nought the mighty men, and summoned the assembly of foes to crush His people. The poet even goes so far as to make the daring statement that it was the Lord Himself who trod the virgin daughter of Judah as in a winepress. It is a ghastly picture – a dainty maiden trampled to death by Jehovah as grapes are trampled to squeeze out their juice! This horrible thing is ascribed to God! Yet there is no complaint of barbarity, no idea that the Judge of all the earth is not doing right. The miserable city does not bring any railing accusation against her Lord; she takes all the blame upon herself. We must be careful to bear in mind the distinction between poetic imagery and prosaic narrative. Still it remains true that Jerusalem here attributes her troubles to the will and action of God. This is vital to the Hebrew faith. To explain it away is to impoverish the religion of Israel, and with it the Old Testament revelation. That revelation shews us the absolute sovereignty of God, and at the same time it brings out the guilt of man, so that no room is allowed for complaints against the Divine justice. The grief is all the greater because there is no thought of rebellion. The daring doubts that struggle into expression in Job never obtrude themselves here to check the even flow of tears. The melancholy is profound, but comparatively calm, since it does not once give place to anger. It is natural that the succession of images of misery conceived in this spirit should be followed by a burst of tears. Zion weeps because the comforter who should refresh her soul is far away, and she is left utterly desolate. {Lam 1:16}
Here the supposed utterance of Jerusalem is broken for the poet to insert a description of the suppliant making her piteous appeal. {Lam 1:17} He shews us Zion spreading out her hands, that is to say, in the well-known attitude of prayer. She is comfortless, oppressed by her neighbours in accordance with the will of her God, and treated as an unclean thing; she who had despised the idolatrous Gentiles in her pride of superior sanctity has now become foul and despicable in their eyes!
The semi-dramatic form of the elegy is seen in the reappearance of Jerusalem as speaker without any formula of introduction. After the poets brief interjection describing the suppliant, the personified city continues her plaintive appeal, but with a considerable enlargement of its scope. She makes the most distinct acknowledgment of the two vital elements of the case-Gods righteousness and her own rebellion. {Lam 1:18} These carry us beneath the visible scenes of trouble so graphically illustrated earlier, and fix our attention on deep-seated principles. It cannot be supposed that the faith and penitence unreservedly confessed in the elegy were truly experienced by all the fugitive citizens of Jerusalem, though they were found in the devout “remnant” among whom the author of the poem must be reckoned. But the reasonable interpretation of these utterances is that which accepts them as the inspired expressions of the thoughts and feelings which Jerusalem ought to possess, as ideal expressions, suitable to those who rightly appreciate the whole situation. This fact gives them a wide applicability. The ideal approaches the universal. Although it cannot be said that all trouble is the direct punishment of sin, and although it is manifestly insincere to make confession of guilt one does not inwardly admit, to be firmly settled in the conviction that God is right in what He does even when it all looks most wrong, that if there is a fault it must be on mans side, is to have reached the centre of truth. This is very different from the admission that God has the right of an absolute sovereign to do whatever He chooses, like mad Caligula when intoxicated with his own divinity; it even implies a denial of that supposed right, for it asserts that He acts in accordance with something other than His will, viz., righteousness.
Enlarging the area of her appeal, no longer content to snatch at the casual pity of individual travellers on the road, Jerusalem now calls upon all the “peoples”-i.e., all neighbouring tribes-to hear the tale of her woes. {Lam 1:18} This is too huge a tragedy to be confined to private spectators; it is of national proportions, and it claims the attention of whole nations. It is curious to observe that foreigners, whom the strict Jews sternly exclude from their privileges, are nevertheless besought to compassionate their distresses. These uncircumcised heathen are not now thrust contemptuously aside; they are even appealed to as sympathisers. Perhaps this is meant to indicate the vastness of the misery of Jerusalem by the suggestion that even aliens should be affected by it; when the waves spread far in all directions there must have been a most terrible storm at the centre of disturbance. Still it is possible to find in this widening outlook of the poet a sign of the softening and enlarging effects of trouble. The very need of much sympathy breaks down the barriers of proud exclusiveness, and prepares one to look for gracious qualities among people who have been previously treated with churlish indifference or positive animosity. Floods and earthquakes tame savage beasts. On the battlefield wounded men gratefully accept relief from their mortal enemies. Conduct of this sort may be self-regarding, perhaps weak and cowardly; still it is an outcome of the natural brotherhood of all mankind, any confession of which, however reluctant, is a welcome thing.
The appeal to the nations contains three particulars. It deplores the captivity of the virgins and young men; the treachery of allies-“lovers” who have been called upon for assistance, but in vain; and the awful fact that men of such consequence as the elders and priests, the very aristocracy of Jerusalem, had died of starvation after an ineffectual search for food-a lurid picture of the horrors of the siege. {Lam 1:18-19} The details repeat themselves with but very slight variations.
It is natural for a great sufferer to revolve his bitter morsel continuously. The action is a sign of its bitterness. The monotony of the dirge is a sure indication of the depth of the trouble that occasions it. The theme is only too interesting to the mourner, however wearisome it may become to the listener.
In drawing to a close the appeal goes further, and, rising altogether above man, seeks the attention of God. {Lam 1:20-22} It is not enough that every passing traveller is arrested, nor even that the notice of all the neighbouring nations is sought; this trouble is too great for human shoulders to bear. It will absorb the largest mass of sympathy, and yet thirst for more. Twice before in the first part of the elegy the language of the poet speaking in his own person was interrupted by an outcry of Jerusalem to God. {Lam 1:9; Lam 1:11} Now the elegy closes with a fuller appeal to Heaven. This is an utterance of faith where faith is tried to the uttermost. It is distinctly recognised that the calamities bewailed have been sent by God; and yet the stricken city turns to God for consolation. And the appeal is not at all in the form of a cry to a tormentor for mercy; it seeks friendly sympathy and avenging actions. Nothing could more clearly prove the consciousness that God is not doing any wrong to His people. Not only is there no complaint against the justice of His acts; in spite of them all He is still regarded as the greatest Friend and Helper of the victims of His wrath.
This apparently paradoxical position issues in what might otherwise be a contradiction of thought. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the righteous judgment of God, against which no shadow of complaint is raised; and yet God is asked to pour vengeance on the heads of the human agents of His wrath! These people have been acting from their own evil, or at all events their own inimical motives. Therefore it is not held that they deserve punishment for their conduct any the less on account of the fact that they have been the unconscious instruments of Providence. The vengeance here sought for cannot be brought into line with Christian principles; but the poet had never heard the Sermon on the Mount. It would not have occurred to him that the spirit of revenge was not right, any more than it occurred to the writers of maledictory Psalms.
There is one more point in this final appeal to God which should be noticed, because it is very characteristic of the elegy throughout. Zion bewails her friendless condition, declaring, “there is none to comfort me.” {Lam 1:21} This is the fifth reference to the absence of a comforter. {See Lam 1:2; Lam 1:9; Lam 1:16-17; Lam 1:21} The idea may be merely introduced in order to accentuate the description of utter desolation. And yet when we compare the several allusions to it, the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that the poet has a more specific intention. In some cases, at least, he seems to have one particular comforter in mind, as, for example, when he says, “The comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me.” {Lam 1:16} Our thoughts instinctively turn to the Paraclete of St. Johns Gospel. It would not be reasonable to suppose that the elegist had attained to any definite conception of the Holy Spirit such as that of the ripe Christian revelation.
But we have his own words to witness that God is to him the supreme Comforter, is the Lord and Giver of life who refreshes his soul. It would seem, then, that the poets thought is like that of the author of the twenty-second Psalm, which was echoed in our Lords cry of despair on the cross. {Mar 15:34} When God our Comforter hides the light of His countenance the night is most dark. Yet the darkness is not always perceived, or its cause recognised. Then to miss the consolations of God consciously, with pain, is the first step towards recovering them.