Commentary - Lamentations 1:17

Bird's-eye view

Lamentations 1:17 is a dense summary of Jerusalem's utter desolation, and it is crucial to see that this desolation is not a tragic accident, but a divine verdict. The verse presents us with five distinct but interwoven realities. First, we see Zion's desperate and futile plea for help. Second, her complete abandonment by any potential comforters. Third, the ultimate cause of this state of affairs: a direct command from Yahweh. Fourth, the result of that command, which was to turn her neighbors into her adversaries. And fifth, her resulting status as a loathsome, unclean thing in the eyes of those same nations. This is not just a sad story; it is the faithful execution of covenant curses upon a covenant-breaking people. God is the central actor here, and His justice is the central theme.

The prophet is not questioning God's goodness, but rather affirming His righteousness in judgment. The pain is real, the suffering is immense, but the cause is not arbitrary. This verse forces us to confront the terrifying reality that God can, and does, command the affliction of His own people when they persist in rebellion. He is not a cosmic bystander watching things unfold; He is the sovereign Lord orchestrating the judgment He long ago promised in His law.

Outline

Context In Lamentations

This verse sits in the middle of the first of five poetic laments over the destruction of Jerusalem. Throughout this first chapter, Jerusalem, or Zion, is personified as a desolate widow and a disgraced woman. She has been abandoned by her "lovers" (her former political allies) who have now become her enemies (Lam 1:2). Her sin is the acknowledged cause of her downfall (Lam 1:5, 8). Verse 17 serves as a theological anchor for the whole chapter. It takes the observable misery described in the surrounding verses, the empty gates, the groaning priests, the weeping, and traces it back to its ultimate source: a sovereign command from Yahweh. It is a pivot point that moves from describing the "what" of the suffering to explaining the ultimate "why."

Key Issues

The Commanded Desolation

We must be very clear about what is happening in this verse. This is not fate. This is not bad luck. This is not the unfortunate but predictable outcome of geopolitical forces. This is a court case, and the verdict has been handed down by the Judge of all the earth. The plaintiff, prosecutor, and judge is Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. The defendant is Jacob, the covenant people. The charge is persistent, high-handed rebellion, and the sentence is the full weight of the covenant curses found in places like Deuteronomy 28. Every painful detail described here is a direct fulfillment of what God promised He would do to His people if they forsook Him. Understanding this legal, covenantal framework is the key to understanding not just this verse, but the entire book of Lamentations.

Verse by Verse Commentary

17a Zion stretches out her hands;

This is a posture of utter desperation. Imagine a drowning man reaching for a rope, or a beggar pleading for a crust of bread. Zion, the personified city of God, is in her final extremity. Her hands are empty, and she is helpless. She has no armies, no walls, no king, no leverage. All she can do is appeal for aid. But as the next clause makes clear, it is a futile gesture. Her sin has bankrupted her of all resources and all allies. This is the end of self-reliance. This is the posture that every sinner must come to before they can receive grace, empty hands stretched out, with nothing to offer and no one else to turn to.

17b There is no one to comfort her;

This is one of the central refrains of the book. The comfort is gone. Why? Because all her former lovers, her political allies, have dealt treacherously with her (Lam 1:2). They were fair-weather friends, and now that the storm of God's judgment has hit, they have not only abandoned her, but joined in on the plunder. But the ultimate reason there is no comforter is that God has withdrawn His comfort. He is the God of all comfort, and when He determines to judge, He removes all lesser, creaturely comforts so that the one being judged will feel the full force of His displeasure. The isolation is part of the curse. There is no human solution, no political fix, no friendly nation to bail her out. She is utterly alone with her sin and its consequences.

17c Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob

Here is the theological heart of the matter. The adversaries did not get the idea to attack Jerusalem on their own. Nebuchadnezzar was not the ultimate actor here. Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God whose name is tied to His covenant promises, is the one who issued the command. He commanded this disaster. He orchestrated this ruin. This is a staggering thought, and it runs contrary to all our sentimental notions of a God who is simply "nice." God is holy and God is just, and His justice required this judgment. He is sovereign over the armies of Babylon just as He is sovereign over the affairs of His people. The word commanded is a military and legal term. This was a divine decree, an order from the high king. Jacob, the covenant people, is the object of this command. God is commanding judgment against His own.

17d That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;

This is the substance of the command. God's executive order was to turn all of Jacob's neighbors into his enemies. The Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, all the surrounding nations who should have been brothers or at least neutral parties, were divinely commissioned to become adversaries. This is a direct reversal of the blessing of Abraham. Instead of being a blessing to the nations, Israel has become a target for them. God weaponized the gentiles to chastise His own unfaithful wife. This is a terrifying display of His sovereignty. He doesn't just permit evil; He directs and commands the actions of wicked men to accomplish His own righteous purposes.

17e Jerusalem has become an impure thing among them.

The final outcome is one of ritual defilement and social revulsion. The Hebrew here refers to the uncleanness of a menstruating woman (niddah). Under the ceremonial law, this was a state of ritual impurity that required separation from the community and the sanctuary. Jerusalem, the Holy City, the place where God set His name, has become a thing of loathing. She is ceremonially unclean, and the surrounding nations treat her as such. They shun her, they despise her. This is the external manifestation of her internal spiritual state. Her idolatry and injustice made her spiritually filthy before God, and now her physical condition reflects that reality to the world. She is an object lesson in the ugliness of sin.

Application

This verse is a bucket of ice water for any church that has begun to trifle with sin or to trust in its political connections and cultural savvy. The warnings here are perennial. First, we must recognize that God's judgment is real, and it begins with the house of God. When a church or a denomination begins to compromise the gospel, to wink at sexual sin, to neglect justice, and to love the praise of men, it places itself under the threat of this same kind of commanded desolation. God can and will turn the surrounding culture into an adversary. He can and will make a once-respected church into an object of contempt and ridicule.

Second, this verse exposes the futility of all comfort that does not come from God. Jerusalem stretched out her hands, but found no comforter. When we are under God's discipline, the world has nothing to offer us. Our friends will fail us, our resources will dry up, and our best-laid plans will come to nothing. The only true comfort is found in turning back to the one who is afflicting us, confessing our sin as Jerusalem does later in this chapter, and pleading for the mercy that is found only at the foot of the cross.

Finally, we see the true nature of our sin and our only hope of cleansing. Like Jerusalem, our sin makes us an impure thing before a holy God. We are utterly defiled. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ became that impure thing for us. On the cross, He was treated as the unclean one, cast outside the camp, so that we, the truly unclean, might be brought near to God, washed, and made holy. Our only hope is not in our own efforts to clean ourselves up, but in the finished work of the one who became a curse for us.