Lamentations 2 - Introduction

THE PUNISHMENT OF NATIONAL SIN

In this second elegy the poet has his attention fixed on something that is beyond Chaldean and Jew. He sees, what the eyes of the world do not see, that the hand of the invisible Governor of all nations is directing both oppressor and oppressed, and is at work to show that no force and no victory, no disaster and no shame, were aimless happenings. He is to be regarded as the real agent in producing the various events referred to. His righteous judgments are not deferred to a future state: they are issued in this life against all unrighteousness of men, and from Him alone can relief and instruction be obtained. So throughout the song is heard the refrain that the Lord Jehovah is supreme over all the forces of the world, and over all that those forces seem to accomplish. In face of the great Babylonian power, boastful of its victories and material grandeur, deeming itself at liberty to harry, enslave, kill for its own selfish interests; in face of his ruined city and desecrated Temple, of starving children and slaughtered chiefs, the writer holds up the fact that these are not independent potentates fixing their own terms; that they are but messengers of the Lord, who doeth according to His will, in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and who is preparing ways for the triumph of His free mercy and unstained holiness. “This Hebrew was saved from the terrible conclusion that the selfish, cruel force, which in his day carried all before it, was the highest power in life, simply by believing righteousness to be more exalted still.” (Smith). Every nerve may tingle with pain, everything dear may be cut down, every step onward may seem to add another misery, but God’s righteous and loving will shall make all things work together for “the far-off divine” eventualities towards “which the whole creation” is impelled.

Two principal divisions mark off the poem. The first, Lamentations 2:1, describes the palpable effects of the subjugation on things and persons. Ascribing these to the Lord, he passes, in the second section, to mournful utterances over the obvious desolations—harping, as grief is prone to do, on the same note—and concludes with a call for prayer to the Lord, and the form which that prayer would take in such dire straits.