Lamentations 1 – 5

Verse 1:3 opens with the underlying premise of Lamentations:

Carried off to a foreign place, Judah is exiled in misery
    and debased by affliction and hard labor;
She cannot find rest living among the pagan nations.
    She tried to run and hide, but in her distress pursuers have overcome her.

This book is one of the more depressing books in the Bible. You have to understand the period in which it was written around 586bc. If you remember the reading in Jeremiah, it was the period where Babylon had taken and destroyed Israel. The torment they are going through is reflected in the writings.

Verse 2:3 talks about what happened:

Cut down by God’s anger,
    the pride and strength of Israel falls;
He withdrew His right hand and stood back and allowed Israel’s enemies
    to wreak havoc in the land.
God has burned and consumed Jacob
    in an insatiable fire.

Israel was handed to their enemies by God and they lost their protection. As we move through this book we see the “setup” for Jesus happening. Israel has lost their ability to repent and save themselves. I pray we are not doing this today, but based on many of the modified gospels being preached today (namely the prosperity gospel) I fear we may be too late.

Man is like electricity, we follow the path of least resistance. That is until we hit a shunt, switch or diode, or a path like Israel’s that is stopped by God. The road God wants us down is not easy, but is not a complex one either.

Verse 4:10 captures the despair they must have been living:

Just imagine the injustice: loving mothers
        are forced to cook their babies’ flesh.
    Children have become their food!
        All because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Turning into cannibals to survive is awful. It’s unclear if this is an illustration of the despair or if it actually was happening. Either way the though is unnerving and gives us a glimpse into what happened some 600 years before Roman occupation and Jesus. No wonder they were looking for a warrior and not who they got!!