2. ('ha)), ii. As the solitude Of the city was the sub- ject of the first lamentation, so the destruction that had laid it waste is that which is most conspicuons in the second. Jehovah had thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah (2). The rampart
and the wall lament together (8). The walls of the yialace are given up into the hand of the enemy (7). The breach is great, as if made by the inrusliing of the sea (13). "With this there had been united all the horrors of the I'amine and the assault — young children fainting for hunger in the top of every street (19) ; women eating their own children, and so fidfiUing the curse of Deut. xxviii, 53 (20); the priest and the prophet slain in the sanctuary of the L(jrd (ibid.). Added to all this, there was the remembrance of that which had been all along the great trial of Jeremiah's life, against which he had to wage continual war. The prophets of Jerusalem had seen vain and foolish things, false burdens, and causes of banishment (1-1). A righteous judgment had fallen on them. The prophets found no vision of Jehovah (9). The king and the princes who had listened to them were captive among the Gentiles.
3. Chap. iii. The difference iu the stnicture of this poem, which has already been noticed, indicates a corre- sponding diflference in its substance. In the two pre- ceding poems Jeremiah had spoken of the miserj' and destruction of Jerusalem. In the third he speaks chief- ly, though not exchfsively, of his own. He himself is the man that has seen affliction (1), who has been brought into darkness and not into light (2). He looks back upon the long life of suffering which he has been called on to endure, the scorn and derision of the people, the bitterness as of one drunken with wormwood ( 14, 15). But that experience was not one which had ended in darkness and despair. Here, as in the prophecies, we find a Gospel for the weary and heavy-laden, a trust, not to be shaken, in the mercy and righteousness of Jeho- vah, The mercies of the Lord are new every morning (22, 23). He is good to them that wait for him (25). The retrospect of that sharp experience shoAved him that it all formed part of the discipline which was in- tended to lead him on to a higher blessedness. It was good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, good that he should both hope and cjuietly wait (26, 27). AMth this, etjually characteristic of the prophet's individual- ity, there is the protest against the wrong which had been or might hereafter be committed by rulers and princes (34-36), the confession that all that had come on him and his ]5eople was but a righteous retribution, to be accepted liumbly, with searchmgs of heart, and repentance (39-42). The closing verses may refer to that special epoch in the prophet's lil'e when his own sufferings had been shaqjest (53-56). and the cruelties of his enemies most triumphant. If so, we can enter more fully, remembering this, into the thanksgiving M'itli which he acknowledges the help, deliverance, re- demption, which he had received from God (57, 58). Feeling sure that, at some time or other, there would be for him a yet higher lesson, we can enter Avith some measure of sympathy even into the terrible earnestness of his appeal from tlie unjust judgment of earth to the righteous Judge, into his cr\- for a retribution without which it seemed to him that the Eternid llighteousness would fail (64-66).
4. Chap. iv. It might seem, at first, as if the fourth poem did but reproduce the jjictures and the thoughts of the first and second. There come before us once again the famine, the misery, the desolation that had fallen on the lioly city, making all faces gather black- ness. One new element in the picture is found iu the contrast between the past glorv- of the consecrated fam- ilies of kingly and priestly stock (A. Vers. '• Nazaritcs"), and their later miser}- and shame. Some changes there are, however, n(;t without interest in their relation to the poet's own life anil to the historj' of his time. All the facts gain a now significance by being seen in the light of the i)ersoiKd- exjjerience of the third poem. The declaration that all this had come '"for the sins of the prophets and the iniquities of the priests" is clearer and sharper than before (ver. 13). There is the giving up of the last hope which Jeremiah had cherished when he urged on Zedekiah the wisdom of aubmissioii to the
LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF 217 LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF
Chakteans (verse 20). The closing words indicate the strength of that feeling against the Edomites which lasted all through the captivity (ver. 21, 22). She, the daughter of Edom, had rejoiced in the fall of her rival, and had pressed on the work of destruction. But for her, too, there ivas the doom of being drunken with the cup of the Lord's wrath. For the daughter of Ziou there was hope of pardon when discipline should have done it^ work, and the punishment of her iniquity should be accomplished.
5. Chap. V. One great difference in the fifth and last section of the poem has already been pointed out. It obviously indicates either a deliberate abandonment of tlie alphabetic structure, or the unfinished character of the concluding elegy. The title prefixed in the Vul- gate, " Oratio JeremicB Praphetas" points to one marked characteristic which may have occasioned this differ- ence. There are signs also of a later date than that of the preceding poems. Though the horrors of the fam- ine are ineffaceable, yet that which he has before him is rather the continued, protracted suffering of the rule of the Chakteans. The mountain of Zion is desolate, and the foxes walk on it (ver. 18). Slaves have ruled over the people of Jehovah (ver. 8). Women have been sub- jected to intolerable outrages (verse 11). The young men have been taken to grind, and the children have fallen under the wood (ver. 13). But in this also, deep as might be the humiliation, there ^vas hope, even as there had been in the dark hours of the prophet's own life. He and his people are sustained by the old thought whicli had been so fruitful of comfort to other prophets and psalmists. The periods of suffering and struggle which seemed so long were but as moments in the life- time of the Eternal (verse 10), and the thought of that eternity brought with it the hope that the purposes of love whicli had been declared so clearly should one day be fidfilled. The last words of this lamentation are those Avhich have risen so often from broken and con- trite hearts: "Turn thou us, O Lord, and we shall be turned. Kenew our days as of old" (ver. 21). That which had begun with wailing and weeping ends (f«l- lowing iMvald's and ^Nlichaelis's translation) with the question of hope : '• Wilt thou utterly reject us ? Wilt thou be very wroth against usV"