TODAY'S BIBLE TWEET

Introduction: The five chapters of Lamentations are five dirges or funeral songs written by the Prophet Jeremiah in his lamentation over the destruction of his beloved city, Jerusalem. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 are arranged in an acrostic pattern.  The twenty-two verses of chapters 1, 2, and 4 begin with the consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. However, chapter 3, which contains sixty-six verses rather than twenty-two, is written in a triple acrostic pattern, with each consecutive three verses beginning with a consecutive  letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 5, unlike the rest of the book, is not written in an acrostic pattern, despite containing twenty-two verses, just like chapters 1, 2, and 4.

Lamentations gets its name from the first word in its first verse, which in Hebrew means “laments” or “dirges.” Interestingly, it can also be translated, “how,” which was undoubtedly the question asked when the people of God were slain and enslaved, the city of God sieged and conquered, and the temple of God burned down and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. 

The parallels between Deuteronomy and Lamentations appear to have answered the question of how. The curses enumerated in Deuteronomy 28, which God forewarned His people would inevitably befall them if they ever rebelled against Him, are the very things Jeremiah describes in Lamentations as having happened to a rebellious Judah and a God-forsaking Jerusalem. The moral of this story is clear, there is no such thing as security in sin, neither for temple attending Jews in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day nor for churchgoing Christians in America in our day. As Scripture forewarns us all, “Be sure your sin will find you out” and “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Numbers 32:23; Galatians 6:7).

I believe one final note of introduction to Lamentations is warranted. According to Matthew 16:13-14, some believed at the time of Christ that He was Jeremiah come back from the dead. There are similarities between the two, which do not excuse, but may help explain, why some confused Jesus with Jeremiah.

1. Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet and Jesus as “a man of sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:5; Jeremiah 9:1; Lamentations 1:16)

2. Both Jeremiah and Jesus predicted the coming judgment of God and destruction of Jerusalem to their unbelieving countrymen. Jeremiah predicted the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and the Romans in 70 A.D.

3. Both Jeremiah and Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Jeremiah in Lamentations and Jesus in Luke 19:41-44.

4. Finally, and most strikingly, both Jeremiah and Jesus experienced their greatest anguish on Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified and where Jeremiah, from a grotto on the side of Golgotha, which overlooked Jerusalem’s ruins, is believed to have written the book of Lamentations.