Introduction to Lamentations

We will take a short walk in the Book of Lamentation for a while. To better understand this book, we take a short peep into Israel’s historical past. Knowledge of Jerusalem is inevitable to our understanding of how God dealt with Israel. Jerusalem was a Jebusite city. It was King David who left Hebron and captured this little hill city and made it the capital of the tribes of Israel. In many portions of the Bible, Jerusalem was alluded to as the city of God. Hence it played a significant role in the history of Israel. However, this historically significant city had a tragic end. The Babylonian seized that city on three separate times. And in 587 B.C., it finally fell and was captured by King Nebuchadnezzar. Her citizens were deported to Babylon. People like the Prophets, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel and etc. were some of those deported. 

Jeremiah has largely been accepted as the author of this short but forgotten book, which he wrote shortly following the fall of that once great city. Hence, this book is closely related to the book of Jeremiah, which we will take a look at some point in time if God’s willing. The cause of Jerusalem’s fall was the result of the nation’s disobedience. From that very first verse of Lamentation, we can sense the morose and the gloominess of the situation. This book presents for us a desperate people in desolation, suffering childlessness, living as widows, and a life of slavery. The purpose of our short journey is to learn from their mistake so that we can avoid the pain they had to endure.

As we read this book, we will get a sense that what was written was an account given by an eye-witness who lived through it. It was probably written near the ruin of the city itself. The clue that Jeremiah was the author came from 2 Chronicles 35:25 where we are told, “Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations.” What we see in this book was a series of emotional outbursts. They were, in fact, a collection of dirges, formal poems written for a funeral. The book contains five well composed and deliberately thought through dirges, reflecting the meaning of human suffering. Through it, God is also explaining His ways to us. Hopefully, we can also see a perspective of suffering. In the book of Jeremiah, we are shown the desperate state of Jerusalem’s closing days, but in Lamentation, we will see an explanation of the meaning of the devastation. Unlike the book of Job that shows the suffering of an individual, Lamentation reveals the suffering of a whole community. Hence the message of this book becomes relevant to us as a community. Like them, we too must come to God in the time of our deepest sorrow. For it is only in Him that we can make sense of our suffering and appreciate what had gone wrong, and make amendments to set the course of our life aright.