Lamentations: Poetic Prayer of Grief, Pain, & Suffering

Sunset over Jurupa Valley, Santa Ana River ©2015

Lamentations

This week (March 9 - 13, 2015), I will be studying the book of Lamentations. I'd like to share some background, historical contexts, and insights into the book. I have found understanding the different books of the Bible from historical contexts, along with how the books are structured helps me read them more clearly and gain deeper insights. All of my notes are gathered from my Bible (Holman Christian Science Bible, Study Bible) unless otherwise noted. 

Lamentations Intro:

Lamentations is about pain, suffering, grief, but also hope, faith and addressing the hard questions about why and how we suffer as children of God. It doesn't answer the hard questions about suffering, but it addresses them. 

Lamentations Context:

Lamentations Author: Jeremiah

Lamentations History: Lamentations chronicles or expresses the pain and suffering that resulted from the harsh overthrow and plundering of Jerusalem, including the burning of the temple in 587 B.C. by the Babylonian army. It gives voice to a very dark, desolate time in Jewish history.

Lamentations Structure: Lamentations is composed of five chapters, each of which is an entire poem. The poems are acrostic in form. First, each poem is an alphabetic acrostic poem of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet (with the exception of Chapter 5, which follows a slightly different form). And the entire book is acrostic in form (a-b : b-a), so that chapters 1 and 5 mirror each other and are summaries, chapters 2 and 4 mirror each other and are both detailed descriptions, and finally, chapter 3 holds a central position. 

To break that down further, both chapters 1 and 5 summarize the disaster of Jerusalem, chapters 2 and 4 proved detailed descriptions of what occurred, and chapter 3 covers God's compassion for Jerusalem. There is a rise, or crescendo to the book, beginning with the first two chapters that ascend towards the climax in chapter 3, and then the descent in chapters 4 and 5.

Chapter 3 is the most structured of all the chapters, and chapter 5 is the exception to all the others. Chapter 5 has 22 single line stanzas, as opposed to the previous chapters having full stanzas. Chapter 5 also does not follow the alphabetic acrostic form.

Lamentations Message & Purpose:

Lamentations provides a poetic history of the suffering of the Jewish people during one of their darkest periods. The point of this history is to identify and attach the suffering to the events that caused them. The purpose of this is threefold; (1) first, chronicling the events helped to develop perspective and attach the suffering to the events that caused them, this helped the people to see the consequences of their actions, but also allowed them to not loose touch with reality while suffering through perspective and greater understanding; (2) anchored the sorrow of the people to their covenant history and relationship with God, by allowing them to see how their choices and their rebellion lead to God's judgement; and finally, (3) Lamentations gave the people's grief and suffering boundaries, defined lines so that they may still hold and find hope in their circumstances.

It is important to understand, while reading Lamentations, that the book does not proved the answer to suffering, but it provides a better means to understand it, live with it, and pray through it. It's goal was to attach the consequence of suffering to the actions of rebellion against God, in an effort to create a better understanding how to obey God. Also, of great importance was to create and sustain a feeling of hope for readers.

Lamentations Contribution to the Bible:

Lamentations addresses, but does not answer a very important human question we all struggle with in our lives. How do we understand/receive God's love and justice with out human pain, grief, and suffering? 

It doesn't give us concrete answers, but it does teach us how to find and know God while suffering. It teaches us a fundamental ways of approaching grief in our lives--how to voice our grief (from A to Z),  how and what to pray while grieving and suffering, and how to focus on God's faithfulness and rest in knowing He is the path out of suffering.

Outline of Lamentations:

I. Jerusalem, outside view (1:1-22)

     A. Descriptions of Jerusalem's afflictions (1:1-7)

     B. Explanation of Jerusalem's afflictions (1:8-18)

     C. Effect of Jerusalem's afflictions (1:19-22)

II. God's Wrath, inside view (2:1-22)

     A. Jerusalem's adversary (2:1-8)

     B. Jerusalem's agony (2:9-16)

     C. Jerusalem's entreaty (2:17-22)

III. God's Compassion, upward view (3:1-66)

     A. The rod of God's wrath (3:1-20)

     B. The multitude of God's mercies (3:21-39)

     C. The justice of God's judgement (3:40-54)

     D. The prayer of God's people (3:55-66)

IV. Sins of All Kinds, overall view (4:1-22)

     A. The vanity of human glory (4:1-12)

     B. The vanity of human leadership (4:13-16)

     C. The vanity of human resources (4:17-20)

     D. The vanity of human pride (4:21-22)

V. Prayer, future view (5:1-22)

     A. Jerusalem invokes God's grace (5:1-18)

     B. Jerusalem invokes God's glory (5:19-22)

Please Note: It is never my intentions or hope to pass on the insights or knowledge I have about different books of the Bible as my own. Everything I share comes from my study Bible, which I have found gives me great guidance and insight in my own reading. I share these insights here for a few reasons; (1) to help facilitate accurate readings of the Bible; (2) to provide greater resources to those who (for whatever reasons) do not have the same resources available to them; finally, (3) to shine greater light on the divinity of Scripture. My prayer is that these insights will expand your reading as it does mine, and that the insights I gather from my study resource will minister to you like they do to me.

Blessings,

Kiandra