Commentary - Lamentations 1:16

Bird's-eye view

Lamentations 1:16 is a raw and visceral expression of grief, but it is not the grief of godless despair. It is a godly sorrow, a sorrow that is fully engaged with the reality of sin and its consequences. Jeremiah, speaking as the personified Jerusalem, weeps over the devastation wrought by the Babylonians. But this is not ultimately the work of Babylon; it is the righteous judgment of God against a covenant-breaking people. The absence of a comforter, the desolation of the children, and the triumph of the enemy are all elements of this severe mercy. The verse teaches us that true repentance begins with an honest accounting of our miserable condition before a holy God. It is only from this place of acknowledging our utter desolation that we can later look to the true Comforter, the Lord Jesus Christ, who restores our souls.

This verse is a master class in what it means to grieve rightly. The weeping is not a denial of God's sovereignty but rather an acknowledgment of it. God has done this, and it is a terrible thing to behold. The pain is real, the loss is catastrophic, and the prophet does not flinch from declaring it. This is not the stiff upper lip of stoicism, nor is it the hopeless wailing of atheism. It is the controlled, disciplined, and honest lament of a man who knows God is just, and that His judgments are true.

Outline

Context In Lamentations

The book of Lamentations is a series of five poems mourning the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Tradition strongly ascribes authorship to the prophet Jeremiah, an eyewitness to the horrors he describes. The book is placed in the Old Testament immediately after the book of Jeremiah, and it serves as a kind of appendix, a funeral dirge for the city whose doom Jeremiah had prophesied for decades. The structure of the book is highly deliberate; the first four chapters are alphabetic acrostics, a literary device that serves to channel and contain the immense grief, showing that this is emotion under the control of faith.

Verse 16 comes in the middle of the first lament, where Jerusalem is personified as a weeping widow, a princess brought into slavery. She has been abandoned by her lovers (allies) and betrayed by her friends. Crucially, the lament repeatedly confesses that this calamity is from the Lord on account of her many transgressions (Lam. 1:5, 14, 18). So when we arrive at verse 16, the weeping is not over a random tragedy but over a righteous judgment. The lack of a comforter is a direct result of God having turned His face away from His people in this covenant lawsuit.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

16a. For these things I am weeping; My eyes run down with water;

The weeping here is not a sign of unbelief. It is a sign of being alive to the situation. Jeremiah, speaking for Zion, looks at the rubble, the corpses, the starvation, and the exile, and he weeps. This is the proper response. God gave us tear ducts for a reason, and a primary reason is to respond to the bitter consequences of sin. There is a kind of pietism that believes strong faith means you never cry. The Bible teaches the opposite. Jesus wept. Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. Godly sorrow is not the same as worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow leads to death, because it is full of self-pity and rebellion against God (2 Cor. 7:10). Godly sorrow leads to repentance, because it agrees with God about the sin and the rightness of the judgment.

The phrase "my eyes run down with water" is a Hebrew parallelism, emphasizing the intensity and profuseness of the grief. This is not a quiet, dignified tear rolling down the cheek. This is a torrent. The prophet is emotionally invested; he feels the pain of his people deeply. This is a model for pastors and for all believers. We are to weep with those who weep. But our weeping must be anchored in the truth of God, as Jeremiah's is.

16b. Because far from me is a comforter, One who restores my soul.

Here is the heart of the lament. The ultimate misery is not the Babylonian army; it is the absence of God. A comforter is far from Jerusalem. In the Old Covenant, God Himself was Israel's comforter and the restorer of their soul (Psalm 23:3). His presence meant life and peace, even in the midst of enemies. His absence meant utter desolation. The covenant blessings have been replaced by covenant curses, and the chief curse is this sense of divine abandonment. God had promised that if they broke covenant, He would hide His face from them (Deut. 31:17), and now that promise has come to pass.

This is what made the cry of our Lord on the cross so terrible: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He was experiencing the ultimate curse of the covenant, the full weight of divine abandonment, on our behalf. He became the one with no comforter so that we, who are in Him, would have the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Comforter, sent to us forever. Jerusalem's grief here is a foreshadowing of the grief that Christ would bear. She is without a comforter because of her sin; He was without a comforter because of our sin.

16c. My children are desolate Because the enemy has prevailed.

The consequences of this divine abandonment are practical and devastating. "My children are desolate." The next generation is ruined. They are either dead, starving, or being marched off to a pagan land. The covenant promises were always for the people and for their children after them. The breaking of the covenant means the cutting off of those children from the land, from the temple, and from the visible signs of God's favor. The Hebrew word for desolate can mean ruined, forsaken, or made parentless. It is a state of utter devastation.

And why are they desolate? "Because the enemy has prevailed." But we must read this with the whole book in view. The enemy has only prevailed because the Lord allowed him to prevail. Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant, His instrument of judgment (Jer. 25:9). This is hard sovereignty, but it is the only source of true hope. If the enemy prevailed because he was stronger than God, then all is lost. But if the enemy prevailed because a sovereign God used him for His own righteous purposes, then that same God can, in His own time, restore and redeem. The enemy's victory is temporary and subservient to God's ultimate plan. This is the truth that allows Jeremiah to weep with hope, a hope that will find its full voice in the third chapter of this book.

Application

This verse has three profound points of application for the Christian. First, it teaches us how to grieve. We are not to be stoics who deny pain, nor are we to be faithless hysterics who see no purpose in it. We are to face suffering, especially suffering that is the result of our own sin, with honest tears and a broken heart. Godly grief is a grace, a gift that leads us to repentance. When we sin and fall, the first step toward restoration is to weep as Jerusalem weeps here, acknowledging the mess we have made.

Second, it reminds us of the source of true comfort. Our comfort is not in our circumstances, our health, or our bank accounts. Our true comfort is the presence of God. When we feel that God is far from us, that is the greatest desolation of all. But the gospel tells us that for those in Christ, God is never truly far. Christ has borne the curse of separation for us. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, now dwells within us. When we feel desolate, we must preach the gospel to ourselves and remember that our feelings of abandonment do not have the last word. God's promise in Christ does.

Finally, this verse points us to the sovereignty of God in all things, even in the triumph of our enemies. It often appears that the enemy is prevailing in our culture, in our nation, and sometimes in our own lives. But Lamentations reminds us that the enemy only prevails within the boundaries set by our sovereign God. God uses even the wicked to accomplish His purposes. This does not make their actions any less wicked, but it does mean that their victories are never ultimate. Christ has already prevailed over the last enemy, which is death. Therefore, we can face the apparent victories of lesser enemies with sorrow, yes, but not with despair. Our hope is not in the absence of enemies, but in the reign of our King, who is putting all His enemies under His feet.