Commentary - Lamentations 1:12

Bird's-eye view

Lamentations is a book of structured, disciplined grief. It is not a chaotic, sentimental wailing, but rather a carefully composed expression of sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem. This is godly sorrow, the kind that leads to repentance and not to despair. In this particular verse, the city of Jerusalem is personified as a woman, a desolate widow, sitting by the roadside. Her appeal to passersby is a raw and public display of her unique suffering. But this is not simply the suffering of a city that picked the wrong side in a geopolitical squabble. This is the suffering of a covenant people under the direct, disciplinary hand of their God. The pain is unparalleled because the relationship was unparalleled. And as with all such profound Old Testament suffering, it serves as a type, a foreshadowing, of the ultimate suffering that would be borne by the Lord Jesus Christ, who would one day be afflicted by the Father on the day of His burning anger against our sin.

The central lesson here is that God takes sin seriously, particularly the sin of His own people. He is a jealous God, and covenant infidelity has consequences. But even in the midst of this raw lament, the seeds of the gospel are present. The pain is acknowledged, it is not minimized, and it is rightly attributed to the hand of God. This is the necessary first step before one can recall to mind, as the prophet does later in this book, that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and His mercies are new every morning. You cannot get to the hope of chapter 3 without going through the honest agony of chapter 1.

Outline

Context In Lamentations

This verse comes in the first of five poetic laments over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The first chapter describes the city's utter desolation. She who was once a princess among the provinces has become a slave. Her friends have betrayed her, her enemies mock her, and her children are in exile. The cause for this catastrophe is stated plainly: "The LORD is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment" (Lam. 1:18). So, the context is one of covenant judgment. This is not random suffering. This is the painful, but just, consequence of Judah's persistent idolatry and rebellion. The appeal in verse 12 is therefore not the cry of an innocent victim, but the plea of a guilty party who is nonetheless overwhelmed by the severity of the punishment, asking the world to witness the terrible cost of sin.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

12 "Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?

The scene is set by the side of a road. Jerusalem is personified as a woman utterly undone by grief, and she is making her appeal to the traffic of the world. These are the "passersby," the people who are not invested in her story. They are going from point A to point B, busy with their own commerce, their own concerns, their own lives. Her question to them is a heart-stopping challenge: "Is it nothing to you?" This is the cry of profound suffering in the face of a world's indifference. When God's judgment falls, it is a public spectacle. God does not discipline His people in a corner. He sets them on a hill, and the ruin is there for all to see. The world, then as now, is tempted to just look away, to treat the wreckage as "nothing," just another unfortunate event in a sad world. But Jerusalem insists that they stop and consider. This is not just another tragedy. This is a theological event, a sermon preached in rubble and tears, and it demands an audience.

Look and see if there is any pain like my pain

This is not a rhetorical flourish of self-pity. It is a claim to a unique order of suffering. Why would Jerusalem's pain be so singular? Because her privileges were so singular. No other nation had been brought into covenant with Yahweh. No other city had His Temple. No other people had been given His law. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). The height of the privilege determines the depth of the pain in judgment. Her suffering is unique because her sin was unique, it was the betrayal of a wife against her husband. She is calling the world to be the jury. "Look and see." Examine the evidence. Consider the greatness of the fall. There is a deep theological truth here: covenantal suffering is in a category all its own. And this unique pain points us forward to the only truly unique sufferer in history, the Lord Jesus Christ. Many have been crucified, but only one bore the sins of the world. Many have suffered, but only He could ask in the ultimate sense, "is there any sorrow like my sorrow?"

Which was dealt severely to me,

The language is passive. This pain is something that "was dealt" to her. She is not simply the victim of bad luck, or poor military strategy, or the geopolitical machinations of Babylon. She is the recipient of a verdict and a sentence. The Hebrew word used here has the sense of being forcefully, heavily handled. This is not a light tap on the wrist. This is a severe, bone-jarring blow. This is important because it prevents us from sanitizing the nature of God's judgment. When God's patience finally gives way to active judgment, it is a terrible thing. We must not think of God's discipline as something mild or easily brushed off. It is severe, and it is meant to be. It is meant to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Jerusalem is not minimizing her agony; she is describing it accurately. It is a heavy, crushing weight.

Which Yahweh grieved me with on the day of His burning anger.

And here we come to the heart of the matter. The agent of this severe dealing is named without any ambiguity. It is Yahweh. It was not Nebuchadnezzar, not the Babylonian hordes, not fate. It was the LORD. She knows who is behind her suffering. This is a profound confession. In the midst of her agony, she has not lost her theological mind. She knows that her ultimate problem is not with Babylon, but with God. This is the beginning of all true repentance. And the reason for His action is stated just as clearly: it was "the day of His burning anger." We live in an age that is deeply uncomfortable with the concept of God's anger, but the Bible is not. God's anger is not like our petty, sinful tantrums. It is the settled, holy, righteous opposition of a perfectly good Being to all that is evil. Judah had provoked Him to anger for centuries with their idolatry, their injustice, their child sacrifice. This day of judgment was the day that holy anger was finally unleashed. It was a "burning" anger, a consuming fire. And yet, this very fire that consumed Jerusalem would one day be poured out on the Son, so that the new Jerusalem might be spared. The cross was the ultimate "day of His burning anger," where the full wrath of God against sin was exhausted on Christ. Jerusalem's suffering was temporal; His was eternal in its consequence, purchasing an eternal redemption.

Application

First, we must learn to see suffering, especially the suffering that comes from our own sin, with theological honesty. It is easy to blame circumstances or other people. It is much harder, but absolutely necessary, to say, "Yahweh has done this, and He is righteous in it." Until we get there, we are not on the road to recovery.

Second, we must not be indifferent passersby to the judgments of God, whether in history or in the lives of those around us. When we see the consequences of sin, we are meant to stop and learn. We are meant to see the holiness of God and the gravity of our own sin, and be driven to Christ for mercy.

Finally, this verse ought to drive us to the cross. The cry of Jerusalem, "is there any pain like my pain," finds its ultimate answer and fulfillment in the cry of Christ. He endured the unparalleled pain of being forsaken by the Father. He was afflicted by Yahweh on the ultimate day of burning anger. All the temporal judgments of the Old Testament were but shadows. He is the substance. Because He bore that sorrow, our sorrows, as grievous as they may be, are now touched with mercy. Because God grieved Him, we who are in Him will never be consumed by that burning anger. Our pain is now the discipline of a loving Father, not the wrath of an offended Judge. And for that, we can give thanks, even in the midst of our lament.