The High Cost of Forgetting: Lamentations 1:7
Introduction: The Memory of a Hangover
There is a particular kind of pain that comes only with memory. It is the sorrow of the morning after, the bitter recollection of former glories when you are sitting in a pile of self-inflicted rubble. This is not just nostalgia. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing for a past that perhaps never was. The pain described in the book of Lamentations is altogether different. It is the clear, sharp, undeniable memory of immense blessing, now forfeited. It is the memory of wedding vows in the middle of a messy divorce. It is the memory of sobriety in the throes of a hangover. Jerusalem is sitting in the ash heap of God's judgment, and her affliction is made ten times worse because she remembers. She remembers all her "precious things."
We live in a culture that is drunk on rebellion and is just now beginning to feel the shakes. We are experts in forgetting. We have forgotten what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is for, and what children are. We have forgotten what liberty is, mistaking it for license. And because we have forgotten God, we are in the process of forgetting everything else. But the day of reckoning is also a day of remembering. When the consequences of our covenant-breaking arrive, and they are arriving, the memory of what we once had, the precious things of a distinctly Christian civilization, will be an acute part of the pain.
The book of Lamentations is a funeral dirge for a city. But it is more than that; it is a divinely inspired autopsy of a covenant collapse. It is a structured, poetic, and brutal accounting of what happens when a people beloved by God decides they know better than God. And in our text today, the prophet puts his finger on a central nerve of covenantal sorrow: the torment of remembering grace in the midst of judgment. This is not to drive us to despair, but rather to drive us to the God who judges in righteousness, so that we might be restored in mercy.
The Text
In the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious things
That were from the days of old,
When her people fell into the hand of the adversary
And no one helped her.
The adversaries saw her;
They laughed at her ruin.
(Lamentations 1:7 LSB)
The Pain of a Good Memory (v. 7a)
The verse begins by setting the scene of Jerusalem's current state and her mental anguish.
"In the days of her affliction and homelessness Jerusalem remembers all her precious things That were from the days of old..." (Lamentations 1:7a)
The affliction is total. The "homelessness" speaks of her wandering, her exile. The stability of the promised land, the security of her walls, the glory of her temple, all gone. She is a widow, a princess brought to slavery, as the opening of the chapter tells us. And it is in this precise condition, the condition of utter loss, that her memory kicks into high gear. When you have everything, you tend to take it for granted. When you have nothing, you remember everything you lost.
What are these "precious things"? The Hebrew word is rich. It refers to desirable, pleasant things. Of course, this includes the gold of the temple, the fine houses, the wealth of the city. Jeremiah tells us the Chaldeans broke the bronze pillars and carried all the precious vessels to Babylon (Jer. 52:17-20). But it is much deeper than that. The ultimate "precious things" were covenantal. They were the tangible signs of God's favor. The Temple wasn't just a pretty building; it was the place where God's presence dwelt. The Law wasn't just a rulebook; it was the wisdom of God showing them how to live. The priesthood, the sacrifices, the festivals, these were her treasures. They were from "the days of old," gifts given by grace, sustained by God's faithfulness.
This is the nature of covenant life. God lavishes His people with gifts. He gives them His Word, His sacraments, His Sabbath, His fellowship. These are our precious things. But when we treat them lightly, when we profane them through disobedience and unbelief, He has a way of removing them so that in their absence, we might finally remember their worth. This is a severe mercy. The pain of remembering past blessings is meant to produce a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. As Hosea prophesied, in her desolation she will say, "I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now" (Hosea 2:7). The memory of past goodness is a spur to return.
The Helplessness of the Fall (v. 7b)
The prophet then describes the moment of the collapse, emphasizing the city's utter abandonment.
"...When her people fell into the hand of the adversary And no one helped her." (Lamentations 1:7b LSB)
The fall was not an accident. It was a divine transaction. God "gave" them into the hands of the adversary. This is covenantal language. Throughout Deuteronomy, God warned that if they broke the covenant, He would deliver them to their enemies (Deut. 28:25). This is not a failure of God's protection; it is the execution of His justice. The adversary, Babylon in this case, is simply the rod of God's anger (Isaiah 10:5). They are God's instrument of discipline. When a people insists on sinning, God will eventually hand them over to the consequences of that sin, which often takes the form of a brutal pagan overlord.
And the isolation is complete: "no one helped her." Where were her allies? Where were the nations she had tried to court through political maneuvering and idolatrous compromise? Egypt was no help. Assyria was long gone. Her fair-weather friends were nowhere to be found. This is because all her troubles were downstream from her primary trouble. She had forsaken her only true helper, the Lord of Hosts. Psalm 46 says that God is a "very present help in trouble." But when you abandon God, you forfeit His help. You are left to face your troubles alone, and the world has no ultimate help to offer. Political solutions, economic bailouts, cultural revivals, none of it can help a nation under the judgment of God. The only way out is the way they came in: through repentance and a cry for divine help.
The Mockery of the Wicked (v. 7c)
The final stroke of this verse is the humiliation of being mocked in her ruin.
"The adversaries saw her; They laughed at her ruin." (Lamentations 1:7c LSB)
There is a particular cruelty in the laughter of an enemy. It is not just that they have conquered; it is that they delight in the fall. They gloat. The word for "ruin" here can also be translated "cessation" or "Sabbath." This is a bitter, ironic twist. The people who refused to honor God's Sabbaths, who would not give the land its rest, are now forced into a "Sabbath" of desolation, and their enemies mock them for it. "Look at the people of the great God," they sneer. "Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?" (Lam. 2:15).
This mockery is not just directed at Jerusalem; it is aimed at her God. The fall of God's people is always an occasion for the world to blaspheme. "Where is their God now?" is the perennial taunt of the unbeliever. This is why the sin of God's people is so heinous. It not only brings ruin upon themselves, but it also brings public dishonor to the name of God. When the church is compromised, when Christian leaders fall, when Christian institutions crumble, the world does not weep. It laughs. It sees our ruin and scoffs at the Christ we claim to serve. This should grieve us profoundly and motivate us to walk in holiness, so that our lives adorn the gospel rather than giving the enemies of God an occasion to mock.
Conclusion: Remembering Forward
So what do we do with a text like this? It is a dark mirror. We look into the ruins of Jerusalem and we see the principles of God's covenant dealings, which are unchanging. We are a people who have been given "precious things" far greater than those of old Jerusalem. We have the precious blood of Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the completed canon of Scripture, and free access to the throne of grace. We have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us.
But we are also a people prone to wander. We are prone to forget these precious things, to trade our birthright for a pot of tasteless secular pottage. And when we do, we should not be surprised when God brings affliction. We should not be surprised when He makes us homeless in a culture we thought was ours. We should not be surprised when the world, which we tried to imitate, turns on us and laughs at our ruin.
This text is a call to remember. But it is not a call to a morbid, despairing memory of what is lost. It is a call to remember what was good in order to drive us back to the source of all goodness. The central chapter of this book of sorrows contains the pivot: "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (Lam. 3:21-23).
The memory of sin's consequences should lead us to the memory of God's character. He is the God who wounds, but also the God who heals. He is the God who casts down, but also the God who raises up. Our ruin is never the final word. The laughter of our enemies is not the final word. The final word is the steadfast love of the Lord. Let us therefore remember our precious things, not with the bitterness of loss, but with the gratitude of repentance, and let us cling to the Giver of those good gifts, who will never leave us nor forsake us, even when we are sitting in the rubble.