The Grammar of Judgment Text: Lamentations 1:21
Introduction: The Publicity of Ruin
We live in an age that despises public shame. Our therapeutic culture tells us that our failures, our sins, and our griefs are intensely private affairs, to be handled with quiet dignity, preferably with the help of a licensed professional. But the Bible knows nothing of this privatized piety. When God’s people sin corporately, the consequences are not whispered in a corner. The judgment is public, the ruin is visible, and the shame is an international spectacle. This is the scene in Lamentations. Jerusalem, the city of the great king, has become a widow, a slave, a woman bereft of all her glory. Her king is in chains, her temple is a smoking ruin, and her people are a refugee crisis.
And everybody knows it. The pain is not just in the loss, but in the fact that the loss is being watched. The world does not avert its eyes in polite sympathy. It stares. It points. It gloats. This is the hard reality that Jeremiah, speaking for the desolate city, brings before God. This is not a private journal entry; it is a public legal plea, lodged in the heavenly court. It is a raw, honest, and excruciatingly public acknowledgment of sin, suffering, and the sovereignty of God, who is the ultimate author of this calamity.
The modern evangelical mind often struggles with such passages. We want a God who is always comforting and never afflicting. We want a faith that is perpetually upbeat. But the faith of the Bible is robust enough to handle the hard realities of a holy God who judges His own people. And it is in this brutal honesty that we find the only path to true restoration. You cannot be healed of a wound you refuse to acknowledge. You cannot be forgiven for a sin you are still trying to hide. And you cannot appeal to God for justice until you first agree with God about your own injustice. This verse is a master class in how to pray in the midst of ruin. It is a prayer that acknowledges the pain of public humiliation, the malice of our enemies, and the absolute, terrifying, and ultimately hopeful sovereignty of God.
The Text
"They have heard that I am sighing; There is no one to comfort me; All my enemies have heard of the evil done to me; They rejoice that You have done it. You have brought the day which You have proclaimed, So that they will become like me."
(Lamentations 1:21 LSB)
The Unseen Grief Heard by All
The lament begins with a statement of profound isolation.
"They have heard that I am sighing; There is no one to comfort me;"
The "they" here refers to the enemies mentioned in the next clause. The news has traveled. The sound of Jerusalem’s grief is not contained within her broken walls. It has become international news. The sighing is deep, constant, and soul-wearying. It is the sound of a people who have lost everything. But notice the paradox: her grief is public knowledge, yet her comfort is non-existent. "There is no one to comfort me."
This is the nature of worldly attention. The world is fascinated by disaster. It will watch the fire, it will report on the casualty count, but it has no real comfort to offer. The very nations that were once allies or trading partners are now either hostile or indifferent. They hear the sighing, but they do not send aid. They do not offer solace. They only watch. This is a profound spiritual lesson. When we are under the chastening hand of God, we must not look for comfort from the world. The world cannot comfort those whom God is afflicting. To seek comfort from the ungodly when you are being disciplined by God is like asking the hammer for sympathy while the carpenter is using it to shape you.
This isolation is part of the judgment. God had promised to make Israel a wonder and a byword to the nations if they forsook Him. Now, that promise has come due. The very ones who should have been drawn to the light of Zion are now gawking at her darkness. The loneliness is total. Her lovers have forsaken her (Lam. 1:19). Her friends have dealt treacherously with her. And so she is left with nothing but the sound of her own grief, echoing in a world that refuses to comfort.
The Joy of the Enemy and the Sovereignty of God
The lament now turns to the reaction of the enemies, and it is here that we find a crucial theological anchor.
"All my enemies have heard of the evil done to me; They rejoice that You have done it."
The enemies are not neutral observers. They are filled with schadenfreude, a malicious joy in the suffering of others. They see the "evil" done to Jerusalem, the calamity, the disaster, and they are glad. Their gladness is a sin. It is the sin of pride, of cruelty, of kicking a man when he is down. The Edomites were specifically condemned for this very thing, for rejoicing over the day of Jerusalem’s fall (Obadiah 1:12).
But look very closely at what Jeremiah says. "They rejoice that You have done it." This is breathtaking. Jerusalem does not attribute her fall to the superior military strategy of the Babylonians. She does not blame it on bad political luck. She looks past the secondary causes, past the swords and siege ramps of Nebuchadnezzar, and sees the ultimate cause: the sovereign hand of God. "You have done it."
This is the bedrock of a Reformed worldview, what some might call hard sovereignty. God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. This does not mean that God is the author of sin, or that the Babylonians were not responsible for their cruelty. Not at all. The Westminster Confession is careful to say that in God’s ordination, "violence is not offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." The Babylonians were doing what they wanted to do, out of the wickedness of their own hearts, and for that they would be judged. But in their wicked actions, they were fulfilling the righteous judgment that God had decreed. God was using their sin as His rod of discipline. This is the mystery of providence. God stands behind all things, governing all things, without being culpable for the evil that men do.
To be able to say "You have done it" in the midst of ruin is the beginning of wisdom. It is to confess that your suffering is not meaningless. It is not random. It is not a tale told by an idiot. It is an appointment. It is a summons from a holy God who loves His people too much to let them continue in their sin. The enemies rejoice because they think Jerusalem’s God has failed her. But Jerusalem knows the truth: her God has judged her. And there is more hope in being judged by a righteous God than in being abandoned to a meaningless cosmos.
The Imprecatory Appeal
Having established God's sovereignty over her fall, Jerusalem now pivots to a bold, startling request.
"You have brought the day which You have proclaimed, So that they will become like me."
This is an imprecatory prayer. It is a righteous curse. It is an appeal to God to bring justice upon the heads of His enemies. The logic is flawless. Jerusalem says, "God, you are a God who keeps His promises. You proclaimed a day of judgment for me because of my sin, and you have faithfully brought that day to pass. Now, I am asking you to be just as faithful to your other promises, the ones where you promised to judge the nations who oppress your people and rejoice in their downfall."
This is not petty vengeance. This is a prayer for God to vindicate His own name. The enemies of Jerusalem are not just political rivals; they are mockers of Yahweh. Their glee is directed at God’s apparent failure. Therefore, for God to be God, He must act. He must show the world that while He uses the wicked for His purposes, He does not endorse their wickedness. The axe is an instrument in the woodcutter's hand, but when the tree is felled, the axe does not get to set itself up as king of the forest.
The prayer is for retributive justice: "let them become like me." Let them experience the desolation, the abandonment, the shame that they have so gleefully watched us endure. Let their cities be broken, their people exiled, their pride humbled. This is the cry of Psalm 137: "O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!" This kind of prayer makes modern Christians nervous. We have been taught a soft, sentimental version of love that has no room for wrath or justice. But biblical love is not incompatible with a hatred for wickedness. To love righteousness is to hate iniquity. To pray for justice for the oppressed is a holy act. It is to pray for the kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And in heaven, there is no injustice.
The Gospel in the Rubble
How can we, as new covenant believers, pray this way? We must see this entire lament through the lens of the cross. Who is the ultimate fulfillment of this suffering Jerusalem? It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
On the cross, Jesus was utterly alone. He sighed, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). His enemies heard of the evil done to Him; they stood by, watching, mocking, and rejoicing. They wagged their heads and said, "He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him" (Matt. 27:43). They rejoiced, believing that God had abandoned Him.
And in a very real sense, they were right to say, "You have done it." It was the Father who crushed the Son. "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10). The Romans and the Jewish leaders were the secondary agents, but the ultimate cause was the sovereign plan of God to make Him an offering for our sin. Jesus was enduring the ultimate corporate judgment, bearing in Himself the curse that was due to us, His people.
And from the cross, Jesus also prayed an imprecatory prayer. Not for Himself, for He also said, "Father, forgive them." But the very justice He embodies demands that sin be judged. His death was the great judgment, and it was also the great promise of a final judgment. The day has been proclaimed. The resurrection of Christ is God’s public announcement that a day is coming when He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained (Acts 17:31).
Therefore, we can look at the evils of our world, at the enemies of Christ who rejoice in wickedness, and we can pray for that final day. We pray for the day when all who have mocked the Son and persecuted His bride will be made like Him in judgment, unless they first become like Him through faith and repentance. We pray for the day when God will finally and fully answer the plea of the martyrs under the altar, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10). This is not a prayer of personal spite. It is a prayer for the final victory of Christ, a longing for the day when all sighing will cease, all tears will be wiped away, and the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.