Just as it was for Jerusalem-Judah and the prophet of Lamentations, so it is the same for us: any suffering we experience should be a time for reflection on any sin in our lives that may require repentance. Of course, our suffering may not be a direct result of a particular sin in our life, but the sanctifying usefulness of the experience of suffering should not be missed. The Puritans are a good example of those who viewed periods of suffering as healthy means of sanctification. This is exactly what this section of Lamentations encourages us to do. We ought to use affliction in our lives to test and examine our ways; to see, as David put it, if there be any grievous way in us and to be led in the way everlasting (Ps. 139:24). The good news is that when we do find such sin and confess it, God is “faithful and just to forgive us” (1 John 1:9–10). Because we live on this side of the cross, extended periods of unforgiveness, such as the seventy years of exile, are now thankfully obsolete. When we approach Jesus in repentance and faith, we can be sure that we have complete access to God and immediate forgiveness from him. This is only because of who Jesus is as our Prophet-Priest and what he has done for us and continues to do for us in that role.
The weeping prophet adopts the role of persistent intercessor. In his relentless weeping he pleads with Yahweh to hear the prayers of his people—to “see” their plight and come to their rescue. He stands between Yahweh and his people in the day of judgment. As such, the prophet-intercessor points back to Moses, who performed a similar role with Israel when God’s anger was aroused against them (Ex. 33:12–16). He also points forward to Jesus, the true and final Prophet-Intercessor of God’s people. The prophet in Lamentations, through his persistent and heartfelt intercession, serves as a type of Jesus.
The parallels are numerous and striking. As prophet, Jesus gives instruction and encouragement to his people to confess their sins in the Lord’s Prayer (Lam. 3:40–41; cf. Matt. 6:12) and to plead continually with God in the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1–8). As priest, he provides mediatorial intercession so that God might hear the prayers of his people and answer them (Lam. 3:49–50; cf. Heb. 7:25). The reason Jesus’ intercession is effective, that he is able to save to the uttermost, is because he himself stood in the gap between us and God on a day of judgment. On the cross Jesus experienced God’s wrapping himself in anger and pursuing him like a merciless enemy (Lam. 3:43), as he endured three hours of darkness with no glimpse of his Father’s smiling approval (Matt. 27:45). He felt like God had wrapped himself in a cloud, so that Jesus’ prayers were shut out as the sound of his cry of dereliction was swallowed up by the darkness (Lam. 3:44; cf. Matt. 27:46). He was made to feel like “scum and garbage” among the people (Lam. 3:45) as he hung naked and ashamed on a cross, receiving mockery and insult from Jew and Gentile alike (Matt. 27:39–44; Heb. 12:3; 13:13). Throughout his passion Jesus knew what it was for his enemies to open wide their mouths to devour him, as they leveled taunts and threw punches at him (Lam. 3:46; cf. Mark 14:65). “Panic and pitfall,” “devastation and destruction” were his lived experience from Passover to Sabbath in that fateful week (Lam. 3:47; cf. Matt. 26:17–27:54).
For the suffering believer today, all this is good news. Through his bitter affliction Jesus has removed the possibility of our experiencing such terrors of judgment from God and men, for he experienced them as our Prophet-Intercessor on our behalf. As a result, every Christian believer, united to this same Jesus by faith and repentance, has complete access to God and immediate forgiveness. “Before the throne of God above, we have a strong, a perfect plea.” This is why we can be assured that, as we raise our hearts and hands to God in prayer, he will hear us, he will look down and see, and he will give mercy and grace to help us in our time of suffering (cf. Heb. 4:16), because we pray “in Jesus’ name. Amen.”Lamentations 3:40–51
Lamentations 3:52–66
3:40–42 The stanza begins with exhortations to repent (vv. 40–41) and ends with the reason why (v. 42). In Daniel-like manner the prophet includes himself in the need for the people to test and examine their ways and return to the Lord (cf. Dan. 9:1–19). The language of “testing” one’s “ways” is reminiscent of Psalm 139:23–24. The word “return” is employed here and in Lamentations 5:21 (ESV “restore”) to convey the idea of repentance. This is a keyword in the OT for expressing repentance in covenantal terms (cf. Deut. 30:3), which is why the covenant name Yahweh is chosen as the object of the returning action. The second bicolon encourages the repentance to be accompanied by spiritual and physical gestures: the lifting up of hearts and hands to God in heaven. Previously the prophet exhorted the people to lift up their hands in intercession for their children (Lam. 2:19); now he exhorts them to lift up their hands in confession of sin. It is their sin that has ultimately led to the starvation of their children. The third bicolon provides the reason they should repent: they have transgressed and rebelled. The two common OT words for sin have already been used in the book (cf. 1:5, 14, 22; and 1:18, 20, respectively); this time, however, the confession is corporate, including the prophet himself.
The final line in 3:42 introduces an abrupt shift to second-person speech, as the prophet addresses God directly. The statement that God had not forgiven should not be interpreted to mean that the people had repented of their sin and God had refused to forgive them. Thus far there is only an exhortation to repent and a reason why. Verses 40–41 do not record any repentance from the people; that will come at the end of the book (in 5:21). Rather, the statement ending 3:42 should be read in redemptive-historical terms: the people have refused to listen to God’s prophets to turn from their wicked ways, and so they are experiencing the inevitable judgment of destruction and exile of which God had forewarned. Moreover, the time of their affliction and wanderings is still ongoing. In this sense he has not forgiven them. But, once they have paid for their sins after seventy years of exile, he will forgive and comfort them (e.g., Isa. 40:1–2). In the meantime they will experience the ongoing inaccessibility of God (Lam. 3:43–45) and feel the destructive consequences of the enemy (vv. 46–48).
3:43–45 This stanza continues to unpack the last line of the previous stanza and explain in vivid pictures what the unforgiveness of God looks like. The key verb “wrapped” (or “covered”) appears twice in the first two bicola yet conveys two different images of God. In verse 43 the picture is that of God’s wrapping himself in a cloak of anger and pursuing his people to slay them like a merciless warrior. Verse 44 repeats the verb but now changes the material of the covering from anger to cloud. The picture evokes images of Israel’s journey in the wilderness of Sinai and beyond, in which God manifested his presence and protection of his people with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (cf. Ex. 13:21–22; 19:9; 40:34–38). While various barriers to accessing God directly were present at Sinai and in the tabernacle because of his holiness, a level of accessibility was nevertheless possible via the prophet Moses and the priesthood inaugurated with Aaron. God was present with his people, and their prayers were heard via his prophet and priest.
Here in Lamentations, however, the image is inverted to communicate God’s complete inaccessibility, such that the prayers of his people bounce off the cloud rather than pass through it. “Anger has replaced atonement. Absence has replaced gracious presence.” Again, as with the end of Lamentations 3:42, the two “covering” images must be read redemptive-historically. While in exile and experiencing the devastating effects of the fall of Jerusalem-Judah, the people are still under the wrath of God, and thus he is inaccessible to them. The time for their prayers of repentance to be heard at the mercy seat of God in heaven is not yet; indeed, thus far in the book such a prayer has not yet been uttered. Thus, instead of forgiveness they continue to experience forsakenness. The extent of their forsakenness is described by two unique words used only here in the whole of the OT: God made them “scum and garbage” among the peoples to which they were scattered (v. 45). It is as if the prophet is at a loss for common words to describe how bad the situation has become.
3:46–48 If the previous stanza described the experience of the people before an inaccessible God, this stanza describes their experience before their destructive enemy nations. Verse 46 picks up on the people’s being scattered among the nations and speaks of the aggressive stance of the nations against them: they have opened their mouths. The image might be that of the nations’ swallowing up Jerusalem-Judah, just as they boasted earlier: “We have swallowed her!” (cf. 2:16). Or the image might relate to the mockery that the nations spout out of their mouths against God’s people (cf. 1:7; 2:15–16; 3:14). The former seems more likely, given the description of Jerusalem-Judah’s experience in verse 47. The “panic and pitfall,” the “devastation and destruction,” are terms more resonant with swallowing up than with mere mockery. In any case, the point is clear: both God and the nations are angrily and aggressively antagonistic to Jerusalem-Judah. As a result, the people have been reduced to a terrible state. But it is not just them: the prophet himself is reduced to a flood of tears (v. 48). The metaphor “rivers of tears” is a unique phrase in the OT, highlighting the depth to which the prophet has been affected by the destruction of his people. In 2:11 the prophet reacted emotionally and physically to the plight of the people, especially that of infants and babies; here he has the same emotional reaction but even more profusely, and this time for the daughters of his beloved city (3:51).
3:49–51 The weeping prophet continues to weep. The force of his emotional reaction is further underscored in three ways. First, the twofold reference to his eyes forms an inclusio in the stanza (vv. 49, 51). Second, two negated qualifications accompany the pouring of his eyes—the tears flow “without ceasing” and “without respite” (v. 49). Third, his eyes begin to afflict his soul—these are not superficial or momentary tears. The prophet had previously encouraged relentless, persistent, tearful prayers from the people (2:18); now he lives what he preaches. The purpose of these tears is revealed in the middle bicolon (3:50): they are intercessory. In chapter 2 the prophet’s intercession was implicit as he cried for the people and wished to speak for them (vv. 11, 13); now it becomes explicit as he commits himself to weeping until Yahweh looks down from heaven and sees their plight.
The choice of verbs is not accidental. The verb “look down” (Hb. shaqap) is used in Exodus for God’s “looking down” on the Egyptian army and throwing it into a panic (Ex. 14:24); here it is used as a plea to God to “look down” because his people are in a panic (Lam. 3:50). The second verb “see” (raʾah) is even more choice, since it forms the core of the people’s plea to God in the book (1:9, 11; 2:20; cf. 3:36). The people’s plea for God to “see” has thus far gone unanswered (cf. 3:36), but now a weeping prophet stands between them and God, interceding on their behalf and making the exact same plea. The identical wording reveals that the people’s prayer has become the prophet’s. He commits himself to relentless, persistent, tearful intercession until Yahweh, the covenant God, hears the prayers of his people delivered through him. Thus we see in this stanza the twofold nature of the prophet’s ministry: instruction and mediation, a call to repentance and a commitment to intercession. Whether the people will heed the instruction of the prophet to repent, only time will tell; so too will time tell whether his fervent intercession will avail much. However, since his prayer is delivered to the covenant Lord, there is reason to hope.