Lamentations 2

Lamentations 1, if you remember, was a kind of back-and-forth between the poet of Lamentations and the personified city of Jerusalem (Lady Zion, Daughter Zion).

The first poem in Lamentations (chapter 1) detailed the sin of the city and sin’s consequences.

At the end of the first 22-verse poem, the city of Jerusalem is speaking about her situation and she seems to fall silent. The final words she speaks are these: “My groans are many and my heart is faint.”

But in Lamentations 2, the poet speaks up. And he speaks about—wait for it—the anger of God.

Lamentations 2 is possibly the most sustained treatment of the anger of God in the entire Bible.

Lamentations 2 begins by mentioning the cloud of [the Lord’s] anger and the day of his anger (v.1), and references His wrath in verse 2, fierce anger in verse 3, His wrath in verse 4, fierce anger in verse 6, and concludes with mention of the day of the LORD’s anger in verses 21 and 22.

(It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?! Last week, sin. This week, the anger and wrath of God).

This chapter is packed with emotion and shock and horror. There’s a sense of horror at the extent of God’s anger toward His people.

But, unlike we might expect, there is no accusation against God here.

The whole work we call “Lamentations” is rooted in and steeped in faith in the sovereignty of God, the God who is, in the words of Exodus 34:6–7 “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet [this God] does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Even knowing this to be true about the LORD, it’s still striking—truly striking, shocking, and maybe even bothersome to us—that God is the subject of every verb in the first 8 verses of Lamentations 2.

Let’s read the first 8 verses. Look and listen:

Lamentations 2:1–8 NIV

1 How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. 2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob; in his wrath he has torn down the strongholds of Daughter Judah. He has brought her kingdom and its princes down to the ground in dishonor. 3 In fierce anger he has cut off every horn of Israel. He has withdrawn his right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it. 4 Like an enemy he has strung his bow; his right hand is ready. Like a foe he has slain all who were pleasing to the eye; he has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of Daughter Zion. 5 The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for Daughter Judah. 6 He has laid waste his dwelling like a garden; he has destroyed his place of meeting. The Lord has made Zion forget her appointed festivals and her Sabbaths; in his fierce anger he has spurned both king and priest. 7 The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hands of the enemy; they have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed festival. 8 The Lord determined to tear down the wall around Daughter Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withhold his hand from destroying. He made ramparts and walls lament; together they wasted away.

God is not passive.

God is acting, and reacting. And He’s doing so in His anger.

The LORD puts a halt to mercy.

He silences protection.

He refuses to respond.

He shows no pity.

The LORD abandons the temple, doing away with worship.

He offers no comfort to His people and confirms that there will be no escape from His wrath.

Like Lamentations 1, this poem begins with the Hebrew word “How” or “Alas”, revealing what had finally come to pass:

Lamentations 2:9–14 NIV

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; their bars he has broken and destroyed. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and her prophets no longer find visions from the Lord. 10 The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have sprinkled dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground. 11 My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms. 13 What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you? 14 The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies they gave you were false and misleading.

Alas, according to the poet of Lamentations, God has finally and terribly withdrawn His mercy.

He smashes the temple—the only sound in the temple is the sound of Babylonians marching through, making a mockery of the festivals that once took place there.

The LORD has broken His peoples’ connection with heaven and ground them into dirt.

God is acting against HIs people. God has obliterated all His favors.

The LORD Yahweh is angry with His people. The LORD Himself goes scorched-earth. And they find no protection.

The LORD has warned them over and over, for years and years and years, with one prophet after the other. And to no avail. They didn’t listen to the warnings.

And now it has come back to bite them.

Now—now—the terrible reality of God’s wrath, this horrible reckoning with God’s fierce anger has come upon them. And Jerusalem weeps.

Her king and her princes are taken away as exiles (v. 9). Her prophets are silent. The poet, whoever it is (we’re not told) is (v. 11) tormented and weeping, heartbroken—heart poured out on the ground.

Even the children are silent; they’ve cried themselves out.

Everything is flattened. In the face of God’s anger, there’s no false optimism about the future; any future at all is obliterated. Hope is no more.

According to my good friend, John Calvin, “God has never before thundered so tremendously against any people.”

Just when you think you’ve had a bad week or a bad year, just read a little Lamentations for some perspective.

This is bad.

The poet of Lamentations has no words of comfort to give. He kind of shrugs his shoulders and says, “What can I say for you? With what can I compare you, Daughter Jerusalem?”

He admits that he doesn’t know how to comfort her.

This is bleak. Really rough stuff.

Lamentations 2 makes it clear that God’s anger is fearsome.

And the result of being the object of God’s anger is that the people are on display for all to see.

Lamentations 2:15–16 NIV

15 All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” 16 All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it.”

There’s only mockery. Scoffing. Shaking of heads.

The anger of God finds an echo in the scorn of their enemies.

Scoffing, repeated. Scoffers and head-shakers, teeth-gnashers, all gloating at the destruction of Jerusalem.

The conclusion of all of this comes in the bold statement of verse 17:

Lamentations 2:17 NIV

17 The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his word, which he decreed long ago. He has overthrown you without pity, he has let the enemy gloat over you, he has exalted the horn of your foes.

God’s anger can’t be avoided. Or undone. There is no escape. He has even strengthened the enemies of His people (exalted the horn of your foes).

God is going to do what He has purposed. He will fulfill what He has decreed.

There’s no respite for the people.

They know God is angry with them. That is abundantly clear. There’s no missing it.

Even so, they cry out to the LORD.

Lamentations 2:18–19 NIV

18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. You walls of Daughter Zion, let your tears flow like a river day and night; give yourself no relief, your eyes no rest. 19 Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.

They cry out to the LORD, the One who has set His face against them. Why?!? Because there’s no other God to cry out to.

He’s angry. Angry with them. His anger is burning.

And yet, there is no other god to talk to.

They cry to a God who is no longer listening to them. No word from God. In the face of God’s wrath, the people have to deal with His silence.

In the silence, a voice speaks. The poet, lifts his voice and prays:

Lamentations 2:20–22 NIV

20 “Look, Lord, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 “Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and young women have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity. 22 “As you summon to a feast day, so you summoned against me terrors on every side. In the day of the Lord’s anger no one escaped or survived; those I cared for and reared my enemy has destroyed.”

This is what God has done.

God’s response? _______________________________

Let me put God’s response up on the TV for you:

See it? There it is. Nothing. Not a word. Silence.

>If you didn’t quite get it last week, perhaps you’ll start to understand this week why Lamentations is one of the most neglected books in our Bibles.

This is intense and upsetting.

There is no hope here. No hope.

Just the brutal, gut-wrenching consequences of sin and fearful reality of God’s wrath directed at His disobedient people.

The questions these chapters ask remain unanswered.

There’s no answer for these questions. For year after year, they remain open, questions awaiting some sort of closure.

All through the exile to Babylon, throughout the entire return from exile, through the Roman occupation.

Hundreds of years and there’s still a question mark at the end of each of these poems and the issues they raise.

There is no answer…

Until One comes, the One in whom God’s wrath and mercy meet.

Seems that even in the darkness of Lamentations, God has everything well in hand.

Of course He does.

All this, God had purposed. This is the fulfillment of what God intended. (It’s hard to swallow, but we must).

There’s a statement in Lamentations 2 that could easily pass us by. It’s easy to miss as we’re reading this, this one small detail in a heap of tragedy.

But look. Verse 15, the poet to the city and her inhabitants says this:

Lamentations 2:15 NIV

15 All who pass your way clap their hands at you; they scoff and shake their heads at Daughter Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?”

As Matthew describes how the Lord Jesus approaches His death, Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, picks up this verse from Lamentations 2.

This is Matthew 27:

Matthew 27:37–41 NIV

37 Above his head they placed the written charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews. 38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him.

Verse 39 is Matthew’s use of Lamentations 2:15.

Matthew very deliberately depicts Jesus as playing out the same role as Daughter Jerusalem.

Like Jerusalem, tears were on Jesus’ cheeks as He prayed alone in the garden.

Like Jerusalem, He knew betrayal as His friends left Him to suffer alone.

Like Jerusalem, Jesus was beaten, stripped naked, publically humiliated, and afflicted.

Like Jerusalem, He went from a high and lofty position to being reduced to dust.

Like Jerusalem in Lamentations 1-2, Jesus bore the divine curse for covenant disobedience (not His disobedience, but ours).

Like Jerusalem, Jesus was attacked by a pagan, occupying force.

Like Jerusalem, Jesus felt abandoned by God.

Like Jerusalem, He was mocked and despised by those who passed by, looking on His destruction.

Ultimately, these poems are in the Bible to help us appreciate all the more what Jesus has done for us.

Becoming one of us, living a sinless life for us, dying our death for us, facing God’s wrath for us.

Jesus lives out FULLY what Jerusalem tastes in diluted form in Lamentations 1-2.

You might think as you read Lamentations that what they endured is the most horrible depiction imaginable of suffering at the hand of God.

And you’d be wrong.

What Jesus faced, what Jesus endured, the cup that Jesus drank—the cup of God’s wrath, which He drank to the very dregs—that is the most horrible suffering at the hand of God there was or ever will be.

No one suffered like Jesus. What Jerusalem experienced was, comparatively, a walk in the park.

Jesus dealt with the deadly reality of our sin and the fearsome, settled wrath of God that WE deserve.

Listen to these words:

Romans 5:6–11 NIV

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is what Jesus has done for us: dying for US, saving US from God’s wrath.

There’s a verse at the end of John’s Gospel that I’ve been chewing on since Tuesday. It’s found at the end of John 3.

It goes like this.

John 3:36 NIV

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

When our faith in is in the Son of God—Jesus—we are granted eternal, everlasting life.

Apart from Christ, we remain objects of God’s wrath, the same wrath and fierce anger described in Lamentations.

Ultimately, these poems are in the Bible to help us appreciate all the more what Jesus has done for us.

Jesus takes our place. Suffers in our stead. Absorbs the wrath of God we would have experienced apart from Him.

If not for Jesus, the situation described in Lamentations 2 would be ours.

How grateful we should daily be for our Jesus!

Lamentations 1 forces us to ask: “Have we taken our sin too lightly?”

Lamentations 2 begs us to consider: “Have we underestimated the wrath of God?”

For if we have, we will not begin to grasp what God has done for us in the Lord Jesus.

If we’ve glossed over the reality of our sin and the seriousness of God’s wrath, it will stop us running to Christ and drawing on all that God has already done for us and given us in Him.

Apart from Jesus, there is only wrath. With Jesus, there is life and hope and joy unending.

Run to Him! Rest in what He has done!

I hope the message of Lamentations has gotten under your skin. I pray the images and words of Lamentations have struck you and impacted you.

The realization that Jesus has, for me and you, absorbed the wrath of God that we deserve—is too much to hold in, too much to keep to ourselves.

Let’s go and share what Jesus has done for us.