Bible in a Year Series - Day #237 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible. Click here to learn more. You are most welcome to join along at any time.
Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Lamentations 1-3:36.
The author of the book of Lamentations is uncertain. However, tradition has credited the book to the prophet Jeremiah.
Nonetheless, clearly it was written by a man who witnessed first hand God's destruction of Jerusalem, and is likely one of the exiles in Babylon.
You will never be able to grasp the depth of the lament found in this book unless you have traveled the path we have traveled in the past 237 days, or perhaps come under God's rod of wrath yourself.
This is my second journey to the land of lamentation, and unfortunately I have also felt the stinging end of the rod of Yahweh's correction.
Even today, I find myself in lament feeling as though I have survived the "day of the Lord", am safe, but still exiled in Babylon.
As I read the witness of the man in chapter three, I can relate. Though certainly not anywhere's near the depth of pain experienced by Judah's exiles, I now understand that God will proclaim judgment on those he loves as well as those who profane his name. He is Lord of all.
The author of Lamentations rightly proclaimed:
"The Lord is in the right,
for I have rebelled against his word"...(Lamentations 1:18a)
However, in the key passage of the whole book, he sets our eyes on hope:
"Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:19-24)
Standing on the other side of God's greatest judgment, and the greatest demonstration of his love, in the slaying of his only begotten Son, we can more fully understand the depth of God's unending mercy. We can begin to understand the lengths that God will go to bring his wayward children to himself.
Therefore, we too must continually bow our souls before our great God.
Oh my soul, the Lord is our portion, hope only in him.
Abba, I plead with you; give me the faith, open my eyes, give me the wisdom, and create in me a clean heart that lives this fully.
