Lamentations 4:1-8 says,...Bible reading week 22, day 5

Today our verses are Lamentations 4:1-8, which read,

1 - How dark the gold has become, how the pure gold has changed!  The sacred stones are poured out at the corner of every street.

2 - The precious sons of Zion, weighed against fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen jars, the work of a potter's hands!

3 - Even jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel like ostriches in the wilderness.

4 - The tongue of the infant cleaves to the roof of its mouth because of thirst; the little ones ask for bread, but no one breaks it for them.

5 - Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those reared in purple embrace ash pits.

6 - For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were turned toward her.

7 - Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than corals, their polishing was like lapis lazuli.

8 - Their appearance is blacker than soot, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin is shriveled on their bones, it is withered, it has become like wood.

This new chapter of Lamentations gives Jeremiah another chance to describe what is going on spiritually and physically for the people of Israel who are abandoning God for other gods.  Let's take them this morning verse by verse.

Verse 1 gives us the picture of gold, something precious, but it is dirty.  It is collecting dust and not cared for so that its luster is seen.  It is actually getting melted down and poured out on the streets like they would with their waste.  What a picture of how something so precious could be neglected and abused to not hold the position and prestige it once had.  We put value on things like gold but just a thought that this precious metal that we wear on our fingers or around our necks or put as an embellishment on items that make us go "wow, look at that" is what we will be walking on in heaven.  "We don't wear that up here, we use it for road construction."

Verse 2 makes the connection between gold as something physical of great value to the sons of Zion as someones of great value.  The same that has happened to the gold has happened to the sons.  They are neglected and they are transformed to be of no value.  They are just a clay pot that you could pick up anywhere.  The value of those of Israel who once were held in high regard as they followed after their God, a precious vase, are now just earthen vessels, easily broken and with no regard.

Verse 3 tells us of the toll of captivity.  The youngest, the children, are suffering.  Mothers are not nursing their babies.  The despised jackals are fulfilling their motherly duties but the mothers of Israel are acting more like the ostriches who many times abandon their young.  A cross reference of this is Job 39:13-17, which reads,

The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but are her feathers and plumage like the stork's?  She abandons her eggs on the ground and lets them be warmed in the sand.  She forgets that a foot may crush them or that some wild animal may trample them.  She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own, with no fear that her labor may have been in vain.  For God has deprived her of wisdom; he has not endowed her with understanding.

Verse 4 builds upon the suffering of the children.  Their mouths are so dry that their tongues are sticking to the roof of their mouths.  They also are asking for bread, the most simplest of substance in the land of grain, but none is given to them.

Verse 5 lets us see that this has also hit the rich.  Those who could eat delicacies, the finest foods of the day, were not doing so.  Those who wore the finest fashions were found in the ash pits mourning and donning sackcloth.  

Verse 6 stresses again why all this suffering is happening.  It is because of sin.  The greatest sinner city of all time held by the Scriptures is Sodom.  So Jeremiah compares Sodom to Jerusalem and says that Sodom was better than Jerusalem and that Sodom was handled by God in a moment and didn't have to experience this prolonged suffering of the people of Jerusalem.  Sodom was filled with people who worshipped other gods but Jerusalem once served the one true God but has turned away.  The people of Jerusalem were the people of God so would God's treatment of them in light of judgment look differently?  I Peter 4:17-19 says,

For the time has come for judgment to begin with God's household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?  And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?  So then, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator while doing what is good.

Verse 7 and 8 end with the picture of those who were consecrated for service of God.  These are the ones whose lives seem pure and white and ruddy and polished.  Will these ones be spared from the judgment and consequences of the sins of Israel?  They go from pure, white, ruddy, and polished to black, unrecognizable, shriveled and withered.  Even the noble are not above the consequences of sin.  

You can't hide behind the tree God has created and think He doesn't know that you, who He also created, is there.  We are totally exposed to Him therefore take Peter's words and apply them.  We need to entrust ourselves to our faithful Creator while doing what is good.  The way out of this mess is being the midst of God rather than mocking Him.  Let us pray.

"Lord, what pictures Jeremiah gives us today to understand the consequences of sin that the people of Israel are experiencing under the bondage of the Babylonians.  May we see the consequences of our sin when we are a people who live under the bondage of Satan by not acknowledging You in word and deed.  Amen."

Pastor Adam