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Why would anyone want to write about the alarming woes contained in the book of Lamentations? Until writing I had no idea that this would be the topic of interest but it is, and I find myself needing to study further in order to put “pen to paper” and also for the time ahead. Lamentations is a book that is not frequently visited but perhaps it should be. When was the last time you read the short book in full and meditated on the meaning? What is unusual and noticeable is that there is not even one scripture underlined or highlighted, nor any notations made within the five chapters which comprise the entirety of this book, unlike the rest of my Bible. It is very seldom that over the whole of my Christian experience scant mention has been made of these scriptures contained in the 25th book of the Old Testament. For reference, the book of Lamentations is placed between two major prophets — Jeremiah and Ezekiel. As the name suggests and as it has been noted by many, Lamentations is a deeply sad account of the tragic and repeated unfaithfulness of God's people through sin. By reading Lamentations we can experience to a degree the overwhelming sense of despair that threatens to engulf communities and even whole nations when God’s anger is kindled and provoked to the point of allowing His people to fall into the hands of their enemies, with little or no mercy.
You may already realise that the word lamentation means “the passionate expression of grief or sorrow including weeping” as per Dictionary.com. The author is not directly named but is believed and traditionally ascribed or credited to be Jeremiah. He came to be known as “the weeping prophet” who most likely wrote Lamentations while imprisoned, taking poetic form to express and process emotional feelings of grief and despair and an overwhelming sense of loss, further proclaiming that the nation of Judah would suffer famine, foreign conquest, plunder, and captivity in a land of strangers. Their plight would not be solely reserved for Judah but would include Israel and the modern day Israelitish peoples of the English speaking nations of New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, and America. Jeremiah shed many tears over God’s people of his time and the time ahead, which is not far off, and concerns those of us who are alive for the very end times of The Great Tribulation (Matthew 24, Luke 21:5-24, Mark 13, Daniel 12).
Taking a journey by reading through Lamentations in God’s divinely inspired Word and gift to us, the Holy Bible, our wonderful instruction manual, we get a taste of the destruction of God’s temple in the Jewish city of Jerusalem in Judah. This was known as the first temple which was built by King David’s son Solomon, then some 500 years later, destroyed by Nebucchadnezzer the Babylonian King who undertook a siege of Jerusalem to plunder the contents, and then took the majority of the Jews captive to Babylon. The temple was eventually rebuilt through Nehemiah and subsequently defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes, then later cleansed by the Maccabees. Remarkably, both temples were destroyed on the same date, the ninth day of the fifth Hebrew month of Ab (meaning = father); the first in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian army and the second in 70 A.D. by the Roman army. Jeremiah directly saw the destruction of the first temple and understood from God that the Jews had to learn from their sinful, rebellious ways while steeped in pagan worship — and weep he often did for the restoration of God’s people who were exiled. Daniel was one of the people taken captive and provides us with an astonishing example for God’s people of how to thrive under Babylonian rule. The book of Daniel has only 12 chapters yet these are packed full of instructional learning, wisdom, and knowledge we can benefit from greatly.
Lamentations expresses great sorrow and it also provides much joy for God’s people who are mindful of watching their own spiritual state in order to be alert, ready to see compromise, deception, subtle changes in what is taught and what is not from God but from the god of this present, evil age — the devil (1 John 5:19, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Galatians 1:3-4). This has been occurring over and over again down throughout Millenia since Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, and very soon after the death of Jesus Christ. Satan wastes no time in his attempts of division, separation, and mixing truth with lies, because he is expert in it and known as the author and father of lies (John 8:44). His repeated attacks show us that he never gives up and is always ready to strike when we least expect it. He knows the Bible better than any one of us, being supernatural of course, and existed with God as the created archangel Lucifer right behind God’s throne. Satan twists God’s words in order to deceive and is the master of confusion and chaos. He lives in a powerful vortex of chaos into which he attempts to pull humans much like a magnetic force until those of the world are powerless to resist sin. Satan becomes more and more subtle weaving a web with his crafty lies mixed in with some truth until even those with God’s Spirit can fall victim (2 Corinthians 11:3). He managed to remove one third of all the angels away from God through his deceptive lies, and this is no small number (Jude 1:6).
During 2020 it could be very easy for any one of us to be lulled into a false sense of security in our own homes each Sabbath while watching God’s messages in comfort for all those times we have been told it is not safe to meet or congregate in the local hall, as well as all those times we have been restricted to only 10 members. This is definitely NOT how it was intended to be by God, yet He allows it for now. Have you realised there are subtle deceptions being perpetuated even just recently? It brings to mind a vision of a flock of sheep largely unaware while peacefully grazing over lush, green pastures, but some are nervously moving about the field while looking up every now and again sensing something is not quite right. These are they blessed with ears to hear and eyes to see, who pray daily for discernment, righteous discernment in order to keep the love of the Truth rather than sell it, trade it, or give it away for the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). They shun compromise with the world and its systems and ensure they do not have “one foot in and one foot out'' but are indeed separate even though they must live in it as noted in Revelation 3:14-16. God is warning us via the author of Lamentations to wake up and ensure we are watching our spiritual state before it is too late.
Getting back to Lamentations, we see that there are five chapters. The first two are known as the ascent while the last two, the descent, each of which has exactly 22 verses. The middle or third chapter has 66 verses, which could be divided into three segments of 22 verses each, dividing the book into seven 22 verse segments. The exact midpoint between the build up and the decline, known as the crescendo or climax, is segment 4, verses 23 through 44 of chapter 3.. All this is no coincidence but rather what is known and referred to as Hebrew acrostic poetry, written deliberately and structured in this form to help with memory, as the early Scriptures were handed down from generation to generation orally when learning God’s Word since people did not have the Bible in their hands until much later. We may take it for granted now as we can pick up our Bible any time we want to read or refer to it, and we most likely own several Bibles of different translations. We probably know that the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin but not until much later was it translated into English. The vast majority of people who have ever lived until well into the 1800-1900s did not own a Bible due to lack of monetary funds, and then there was a period in the Middle Ages known as the Dark Ages where Bibles were forbidden to be owned. Since the printing press was invented then the Bible was able to be reproduced en masse in order for many to know what this book contains. Here is a history which you may find interesting from one online site: https://www.learnreligions.com/history-of-the-bible-timeline-700157.
Learning about the two former physical temples is interesting yet also sad but we need to take heart, for despite the first two temples being destroyed, we know that WE are God's temple as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 3:16, and as beautiful and grand as the first temple was, we are oh so much more infinitely ornate as God Himself designed us as His masterpiece (Haggai 2:3, Ezra 3:12). We were not built by human hands nor conceived by human minds. We are God's handiwork and the pinnacle of His creation. Some say a third physical temple will be built soon and some say it will not, based on physical as well as spiritual application. All would surely agree that we do know with absolute certainty that God is helping us right now to be framed and supported together in order to form His temple, and He will ensure His work will be completed according to His great purpose (Ephesians 2:21-22). We must ask ourselves this - ”are we eager to be part of God’s temple?” Can we live our lives with such righteous and faithful zeal while God determines our place in the current building of His temple? Surely we all do desire this more than anything else in the world. Stay close to God as the world is changing radically and we do not want to be caught unaware. We need to seriously learn from the “weeping prophet’s” prophetic words in Lamentations in order to be found worthy to escape all these things yet to unfold (Luke 21:36).