Lamentations: Cries from Hell

God made man, and he knows us inside and out. Just as surely as he knows how to bring us joy, he knows how to bring us sorrow and punishment beyond measure.

There was a time in the history of Judah when God decided to punish his people for their sins. In the history books of the Old Testament we read about this time, when God sent the Babylonians to take the people of Judah captive and haul them away from their homes into captivity. For some reason, the historical accounts in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles seem almost sanitized. Maybe because we live in a society where people move across country regularly, the Jews being taken away from their homeland to Babylon just doesn't sound so bad. In terms of punishment, it sounds like God just gave them a "time out".

There is some comfort in having this sterile view of God's punishment; it makes God seem less fearful. But the history books don't tell the whole story. To see the real power of God's punishment we have to look at the books of the prophets, and especially the Lamentations written by those suffering God's punishment.

In Lamentations the objective pen of the historian is replaced with the tears of those suffering God's punishment. Just listen to their cries.

My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. They say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mother's arms. ¹

Look, O Lord, and consider: whom have you ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have cared for? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity. ²

He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and sated me with gall. He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.³

Because of thirst the infant's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth; the children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them. Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those nurtured in purple now lie on ash heaps. The punishment of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand turned to help her. Their princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. But now they are blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed. The Lord has given full vent to his wrath; he has pourt out his fierce anger.⁴

The cries of pain from Lamentations, the descriptions of the horrors inflicted on the people by the God who decreed their punishment, cry out to us. They are like the voices from hell, warning us that God knows how to punish those who will not obey him. Although the accounts from history may seem sanitized, God has not left us without a witnesses to tell us how great the sorrow can be when God turns his wrath on man.

The punishment God inflicted on the Jews was not only for their benefit, it also happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. May we listen to their cries and heed their warning to "examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord"⁵. For "though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love" ⁶. After all, God is patient with us, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.