The Preacher's Homiletical Commentary
Lamentations 2:15-17
HOMILETICS
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(ם) Lamentations 2:15. Casual strangers on their travels felt glad at sight of desolated Jerusalem. They clap their hands at thee, all who pass by the way, and add scorn to gladness; they hiss and wag their head. They use sarcasm, Is this the city which they called the perfection of beauty, a joy to the whole earth? So the glorying of the Jews is turned into a reproach and shame.
(פ) Lamentations 2:16. A similar but wider view is presented than in the preceding verse. Not strangers, but all thine enemies, filled with mockery and exultation, have opened their mouth against thee. There is testimony in the Psalms as to how Orientals can belch out with their mouth. Abrupt utterances follow, and intimate how excited and impassioned they were. We have swallowed up. Hah! this is the day which we have expected, have found, have seen. Now at length we see what we sought, get what we wanted.
(ע) Lamentations 2:17. Whatever are the calamities suffered, whatever the taunts to which the people are exposed in their ruined condition, they have not come from the onslaught of ruthless foes, but from God, their own God. That was the final fact of the catastrophe which had overwhelmed them. It is not the generalisations, called “laws,” which make history what it is, but the will of “the living Lord.” He controls all existences, and His methods with them are always definite and consistent. Not one faileth. Jehovah has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word which he commanded from the days of old. Compare Leviticus 26:14 ff; Deuteronomy 28:15 ff. He keeps His word. His order has been faithfully carried out in the overthrow of Jerusalem, and, giving entire power to boasting destroyers, he has exalted the horn of thine adversaries.
THE HEARTLESS TRIUMPH OF THE SCORNER
I. Expressed in aggravated taunts (Lamentations 2:15). The conquerors heap insult upon insult on the fallen city. They employ all the familiar signs expressive of contempt and derision. They clap their hands, they hiss, they wag their heads, and with a scornful curl of the lip they ask, “Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?” Jerusalem had acquired a world-wide renown. It was the pride of the Jew, the dread of its subject tribes, the envy of surrounding nations. No city had been so signally honoured of Heaven; and now that it was prone in the dust, its foes united in a wild chorus of fiendish jubilation. How vividly does this verse remind us of the scene around the cross of the world’s Redeemer! (Matthew 27:39; Mark 15:29; Luke 23:35). It is heartless and wicked to make sport of the miseries of others, and is a cruel aggravation of those miseries. The triumph of the wicked is short. Their hollow-ringing laughter is as “the crackling of thorns under a pot.” Their taunts and gibes fall back upon themselves. Our unkind words come home to roost.
II. Savagely exults in the havoc that has been ardently desired (Lamentations 2:16). The intensity of the enemy’s exultation is shown by the heaping up of unconnected words, with each of which its own proper object must be supplied. We have found what we sought, have seen what we looked for; our hopes and longings are all fulfilled.—Speaker’s Commentary. The enemies of Zion eagerly watched for her downfall, they earnestly desired it, they maliciously helped to bring it about; and now it had come, their maddened hilarity and scorn knew no bounds. The truly brave never exult over the defeat of their worst foes. They have often been known to weep over the devastation they have themselves created. It is inhuman to chuckle over the sufferings of others. It is a depth of demoralisation reached only by the cowardly and craven-hearted.
III. The fulfilment of Divine threatenings against national unfaithfulness (Lamentations 2:17). The ruin of Jerusalem, over which her adversaries so savagely rejoiced, was no accidental or unforeseen event. It was the fulfilment of the Divine purpose, of which Israel had been so often forewarned from the days of old. It was distinctly foretold that if Israel forsook Jehovah and lapsed into idolatry, they would be punished with all the miseries of a siege, ending in national overthrow (Leviticus 26:14; Deuteronomy 28:15). The contemptuous scorn of their enemies emphasised their punishment, and testified to the exactness with which the Divine threatenings against disobedience had been fulfilled. The Divine word, whether in threat or promise, never fails. God is unchangeably faithful both in mercy and in judgment.
LESSONS.—
1. The wicked ever gloat over the downfall of the good.
2. The gibes of the scorner are a bitter ingredient in the punishment of the unfaithful.
3. The taunts of the wicked have no power to injure the truly righteous.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
16. The world’s treatment of its suffering Redeemer:
1. A wild tempest of unreasoning scorn, hatred, and exultation.
2. A mournful evidence of the intense acrimony of sin.
3. Does not prevent the unselfish working out of its sublime redemption.
Lamentations 2:17. The Divine threatenings of judgment: I. Unaffected by the lapse of time. “He hath fulfilled His word that He had commanded in the days of old.” II. Are carried out with relentless certainty. “He hath thrown down and hath not pitied.” III. Always finds agents willing to execute them. “He hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; He hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.”
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Triumph premature. During the reign of Henry VIII., the Pope, angry at the English monarch’s resistance, called a council in Rome, at which it was resolved that the Emperor of Germany should invade England, and that Henry should be deposed. So rejoiced was the Papal party, that they illuminated Rome; cannons were fired, bonfires lighted, and great bodies of men paraded the streets shouting, “The Empire and Spain.” Already, in their eager expectation, England was a second Netherlands, a captured province under the regency of Catherine or Mary. How bitterly these expectations were overthrown history too well declares.
Scorn, not to be dreaded.
“Ridicule is a weak weapon when levelled at a strong mind;
But common men are cowards, and dread an empty laugh.
Betray mean terror of ridicule, thou shalt find fools enough to mock thee;
But answer thou their laughter with contempt,
And the scoffers will lick thy feet.”
—Tupper.
A scoffer non-plussed. On a certain occasion, in the presence of a vast and brilliant assemblage, a person more noted for his self-esteem than for his learning was speaking against the Christian religion in terms of the severest scorn and derision. The celebrated Dr. Belknap, overhearing the orator, stepped up to him and asked, “Well, sir, have you found a religion that is better?” The scoffer, considerably abashed by this unlooked-for question, was forced to acknowledge that thus far he had not. “Well,” responded the Doctor, “when you have, let me know, and I will join you in adopting it.” The rebuke was as wise as it was just.
Sarcasm destroys friendship. Life is full of paradoxes. There are some slight causes which will destroy the strongest friendship. Great causes will not always impair it. A sarcastic and disparaging speech made by a friend concerning his friend in his absence, and repeated by some mischief-maker, will invariably disturb friendship; while an angry altercation, or some injury to person or to property, will often leave friendship unharmed. When alienation begins, it increases at a very rapid rate. The rust spot multiplies apace. The mildew spreads quickly. The rift in the lute becomes longer and longer.—S. Martin.
The Redeemer’s sufferings unique. Did Christ then merely suffer as any other man has done? Suffering is a question of nature. The educated man suffers more than the uneducated man; the poet probably suffers more than the mathematician; the commanding officer suffers more in a defeat than the common soldier. The more life the more suffering, the billows of sorrow being in proportion to the volume of our manhood. Now Jesus Christ was not merely a man. He was man, and by the very compass of His manhood He suffered more than any mortal can endure. The storm may pass as fiercely over the shallow lake as over the Atlantic, but by its very volume the latter is more terribly shaken. No other man had come with Christ’s ideas; in no other man was the element of self so entirely abnegated; no other man had offered such opposition to diabolical rule. All these circumstances combine to render Christ’s sufferings unique, yet not one of them puts Christ so far away as to prevent us finding in His suffering unfailing solace and strength.—Dr. Parker.
Divine punishment certain. Those who made light of the invitation to the supper mentioned in the Gospel were shut out. The sceptical Pilate ended a miserable, hopeless life by suicide. The rich man went on living splendidly, giving banquets, pampering his body, until one day he died and was buried, and awoke in torment to know its reality at last. The people in Noah’s days lived securely and indifferent, “until the flood came and took them all away.” On the inhabitants of Sodom the sun was shining when Lot went out of the city; but the same day it rained fire and brimstone, and destroyed them all.