Lamentations and Ezekiel for Everyone

John Goldingay

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780664233891
• eBook ISBN: 9781611647761
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

In the Old Testament for Everyone series, Old Testament scholar John Goldingay addresses Scripture from Genesis to Malachi in such a way that even the most challenging passages are explained simply and concisely. The series is perfect for daily devotions, group study, or personal visits with the Bible.

In this volume on Lamentations and Ezekiel, Goldingay explores these two prophetic books. Lamentations is considered one of the most tragic books in the Bible, with graphic and blunt language about the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians and the people's feelings of loss and despair amid God's silence. Ezekiel contains the prophet's thoughts after a tumultuous political time that saw many taken away from their homes and sent into exile. Where is God, Ezekiel asked, and what must we do for God to return?

LAMENTATIONS 1:1–22

The City Pours Out Its Heart

¹Oh! The city sits alone,

that was great with a people.

She became like a widow,

She who was great among the nations.

She who was a queen among states

became a slave.

²She weeps and weeps in the night;

there are tears on her cheeks.

She has no comforter

from all her allies.

All her friends broke faith with her;

they became her enemies.

³Judah went into exile after affliction

and hard servitude.

Even when she dwelt among the nations

she didn’t find a resting place.

All her pursuers caught her

amid her distresses.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn,

because of the lack of people coming for the set occasions.

All her gateways are deserted,

her priests are groaning.

Her girls are suffering,

and her—it’s hard for her.

⁵Her foes became her head,

her enemies are at ease.

Because Yahweh made her suffer

on account of the great number of her rebellions.

Her infants went into exile

in front of the foe.

⁶All her glory went away

from Ms. Zion.

Her officials became like deer

that had found no pasture.

They walked without strength

before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem’s been mindful,

in her days of affliction and wandering,

of all the delightful things she had,

which there were from days before.

When her people fell into the hand of the foe

and there was no one helping her,

as the foes saw her,

they laughed at her coming to an end.

⁸Jerusalem offended and offended;

therefore she became taboo.

All the people who honored her treated her as wretched

because they saw her exposure.

Yes, she groaned

and turned away.

⁹Though her uncleanness was in her skirts,

she hadn’t been mindful of her future.

She went down astonishingly;

she had no comforter.

“Yahweh, look at my affliction,

because the enemy’s triumphed.”

¹⁰The foe laid his hand

on all things in which she delighted.

Because she saw the nations

come to her sanctuary,

who you commanded should not come

into your congregation.

¹¹All her people are groaning,

searching for bread.

They gave the things in which they delighted

for food to bring life back.

“Look, Yahweh, pay heed,

because I’ve become wretched.”

¹²It’s nothing to you, all you who pass along the road;

pay heed and look.

Is there any pain like my pain,

which was dealt out to me,

when Yahweh made me suffer

on the day of his angry blazing?

¹³From above he sent fire,

into my bones, and it overwhelmed them.

He spread a net for my feet;

he turned me back.

He made me a desolation,

faint all day long.

¹⁴The yoke of my rebellions was bound on,

they interweave by his hand.

They came up onto my neck;

he made my strength fail.

The Lord gave me into the hands

of people before whom I cannot stand.

¹⁵The Lord in my midst threw aside

all my strong men.

He proclaimed a date against me

for breaking my young men.

The Lord trod in a press

young Ms. Judah.

¹⁶On account of these things I’m weeping;

both my eyes are flowing with water.

Because a comforter is far from me,

someone bringing my life back.

My children became desolate,

because an enemy’s prevailed.

¹⁷Zion spread out her hands;

there’s no one comforting her.

Yahweh commanded against Jacob

his foes all around him.

Jerusalem became

something taboo among them.

¹⁸Yahweh is in the right,

because I rebelled against his word.

Do listen, all you peoples,

see my pain.

My girls and my young men

went into captivity.

¹⁹I called to my friends;

those people deceived me.

My priests and my elders

perished in the city,

when they searched for food for themselves

so that they might bring their life back.

²⁰See, Yahweh, how I had distress,

my insides churned.

My heart turned over within me,

because I rebelled and rebelled.

Outside, the sword destroyed;

at home, simply death.

²¹Though people heard when I was groaning,

I had no comforter.

When all my enemies heard

of the evil that’s happened to me, they rejoiced.

Because you yourself acted,

you brought about the day you proclaimed—they should be like me.

²²All their evil should come before you—

deal with them,

as you dealt with me

on account of all my rebellions.

Because my groans are many,

and my heart is faint.

We’ve just returned from driving around cities in Turkey such as Ephesus and Laodicea to whose churches John writes in Revelation, some of which Paul also visited. Seeing them generated a twofold shock. First there’s their size. I’d thought of them as something more like villages or small towns, but they’re monumentally vast. They’re the New York, Los Angeles, London, and Glasgow of their day. The second shock is then the fact that they’re simply ruins. Ephesus, for instance, was destroyed by the Goths in AD 262 and again by an earthquake in 614. What was it like to go through that experience? How did people pray in light of the event? How do you pray in light of an earthquake or a tsunami or an event such as 9/11?

Lamentations tells us the answer from Jerusalem’s angle, in light of the city’s devastation by the Babylonians in 587. It begins with a bare exclamation, “Oh!”—a cry of pain. This word gives the book its title in Hebrew (the title “Lamentations” comes from the old Greek translation). It’s also the first word in chapter 2 and in chapter 4. One reason for opening the book with this Hebrew word is that it begins with the first letter of the alphabet, aleph. The chapter has twenty-two verses; that number recurs in each chapter of the book. It’s the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. In the first four chapters the verses begin with the successive letters of the alphabet. The poems give expression to grief and pain from A to Z. Linking with this fact, the word all comes sixteen times: all Judah’s allies fail it, all the people’s pursuers catch them, all its enemies gloat, all passersby ignore it, though all peoples are urged to listen to its cry of pain, all Zion’s strong men are thrown aside, all its people are gone and all its gateways are deserted, all its glory, all its honor, and all its treasures are gone, all day Zion faints, all its rebellions have met with their punishment, and all their enemies’ evil should come before Yahweh to the same end.

One should allow for hyperbole; the Old Testament makes clear that the Babylonians didn’t transport the city’s entire population (still less Judah as a whole), and many people who fled from the city and the country during the Babylonian invasion doubtless crept back when the Babylonian army was gone. Yet the contrast between past and present is horrifying. Jerusalem was not a great city like Ephesus, or Babylon. But with its temple and its palaces, for its people it was a great city. Further, it was a great city because of the great God worshiped there. The poem imagines...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Old Testament for Everyone
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Lamentations 1:1–22 The City Pours Out Its Heart
• Ezekiel 15:1– 8 They’re Toast
• Ezekiel 32:1–32 The Great Leveler
• Glossary