The Hangover of a Holy God
Introduction: The Certainty of the Moral Order
We live in an age that has declared war on consequences. Our entire culture is a massive, concerted effort to detach actions from their necessary outcomes. We want sexual liberation without the babies, debt without the bankruptcy, crime without the prison, and rebellion against God without the judgment. Men believe that if they close their eyes to the moral fabric of the universe, it simply ceases to exist. They think they can mock God, celebrate the downfall of the righteous, and that the only result will be a few sanctimonious frowns from the dwindling remnant of believers.
But the universe is not a democracy. It is a monarchy, and the King is holy. The law of the harvest, that a man reaps what he sows, is more fixed than the law of gravity. You can deny it, you can legislate against it, you can cancel anyone who speaks of it, but you cannot escape it. God is not mocked. His justice is not a suggestion; it is an inevitability. It is a slow, grinding, inexorable force that will eventually catch up to every sneering enemy of God.
The book of Lamentations is a raw, visceral portrait of what happens when God's own people, the daughter of Zion, fall under His heavy hand of discipline. Jerusalem is in ruins, the people are starving, and the glory has departed. And looking on from the sidelines, with a smug and spiteful grin, is Edom. Edom, the brother nation, descended from Esau, has always harbored a bitter, envious hatred for Jacob. When Jerusalem fell, Edom was there, cheering it on, likely looting the stragglers, and rejoicing in the calamity of God's people. They were throwing a party at Zion's funeral.
It is in this context that the prophet speaks. He turns his gaze from the rubble of Jerusalem to the gloating face of Edom, and he delivers a prophecy that is dripping with divine irony. It is a promise that the party is about to end, and the hangover will be the undiluted wrath of Almighty God. This passage teaches us a fundamental truth about the divine economy: God's discipline of His own children is the absolute guarantee of His vengeance upon His enemies.
The Text
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, Who inhabits the land of Uz; But the cup will pass on to you as well; You will become drunk and make yourself naked.
The punishment of your iniquity has come to an end, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no longer. But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins!
(Lamentations 4:21-22 LSB)
A Toast to the Damned (v. 21)
The prophet begins with a command that is pure, holy sarcasm.
"Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, Who inhabits the land of Uz; But the cup will pass on to you as well; You will become drunk and make yourself naked." (Lamentations 4:21)
God, through His prophet, essentially tells Edom, "Go ahead. Have your party. Drink your fill of schadenfreude. Laugh while you can." This is not a blessing; it is a taunt. It is the same kind of language God uses against all His arrogant enemies. He gives them rope. He lets them think they are winning. He allows their pride to swell to its maximum possible dimensions right before He pops it like a balloon. Edom's sin was not just that they were a pagan nation; their sin was that they took malicious delight in the chastisement of God's covenant people. They saw God's discipline and mistook it for God's defeat.
But their joy is temporary, because "the cup will pass on to you as well." This is one of the most terrifying metaphors in all of Scripture. The cup is the full measure of God's judicial wrath against sin. It is not watered down. It is not a slap on the wrist. It is the undiluted fury of a holy God. Jeremiah was told to take this very cup and make all the nations drink it, and Edom was on the list (Jer. 25:15-21). The principle is this: God often starts His judgment with His own house (1 Pet. 4:17). But He does not end there. The fact that God disciplines His children is the surest sign that He will not let His enemies get away with anything. If a father spanks his son for playing with matches, what do you think he will do to the arsonist who tries to burn his house down?
The result of drinking this cup is utter degradation. "You will become drunk and make yourself naked." To be drunk on the wrath of God is to be thrown into confusion, to lose all control, to stagger and fall under the weight of His judgment. To be made naked is to be exposed, shamed, and stripped of all dignity and pretense. This is what happened to Zion in her sin, and it is precisely what will happen to Edom. God's justice is impartial. He will repay. Edom thought they were spectators at a judgment; they were actually just next in line.
The Great Covenantal Divide (v. 22)
Verse 22 draws the sharpest possible contrast between the fate of God's people and the fate of His enemies. This is the pivot of the entire passage.
"The punishment of your iniquity has come to an end, O daughter of Zion; He will exile you no longer." (Lamentations 4:22a)
For the daughter of Zion, for the covenant people of God, punishment has a limit. It has a purpose, and it has an end point. The Hebrew word for "has come to an end" can also be translated as "is accomplished." God's chastisement is not an infinite, retributive wrath; it is a finite, corrective discipline. He is a Father, not a tyrant. He had a purpose in the exile, and once that purpose was accomplished, the discipline would cease. He would bring them home. This is a glorious promise of restoration.
But for us, who live on this side of the cross, this phrase, "the punishment of your iniquity is accomplished," echoes with an even greater finality. It points us directly to the cry of the Lord Jesus from the cross: "It is finished" (John 19:30). Tetelestai. Paid in full. For all who are in Christ, for all who are citizens of the true Zion, the punishment for our iniquity has been fully and finally accomplished in our substitute. God poured out the entire cup of His wrath upon His own Son, so that for us, there is not one drop left. This is why the apostle can say, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). God may discipline us as sons, but He will never condemn us as criminals. Our debt has been paid.
But the verse immediately turns, and the contrast is stark and absolute.
"But He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will expose your sins!" (Lamentations 4:22b)
For Zion, the punishment is past tense. For Edom, it is future tense. For Zion, the exile is over. For Edom, the exposure is just beginning. Notice, there is no end point mentioned for Edom. There is no talk of restoration. There is only punishment and exposure. God will "punish your iniquity." The word here is not about fatherly discipline; it is about judicial visitation. God is going to inspect their accounts, and He is going to exact payment down to the last penny.
And how does He do this? "He will expose your sins!" The sins that Edom committed in secret, the malice they harbored in their hearts, the glee they took in Zion's fall, all of it will be dragged out into the light. Judgment is, at its heart, an act of total, unavoidable transparency. Nothing will be hidden. Every pretense will be stripped away. Just as they would be made naked by the cup of wrath, so their sins would be laid bare before God and the world. For those without a substitute, for those who have not fled to Christ for covering, judgment is the great uncovering. It is the final, public shaming.
Two Daughters, Two Destinies
This passage presents us with a picture of two corporate entities, two "daughters," with two utterly divergent destinies. You are either a daughter of Zion or a daughter of Edom. There is no third city, no suburban compromise between the two.
The daughter of Zion is the covenant community, the Church of the living God. Her story is one of sin, discipline, and glorious restoration. She falls, but her punishment is finite and purposeful. Her iniquity is punished, but it is ultimately "accomplished" and paid for by another. Her shame is real, but it is temporary, and it gives way to a restoration that is eternal. She is chastised, but she is never forsaken. She is brought low, but she is raised up again. Why? Because her standing before God is not based on her own fickle righteousness, but on the unshakable righteousness of her King and Husband, Jesus Christ.
The daughter of Edom represents the world in its enmity against God. She is the city of man, built on pride, envy, and malice. She rejoices when the church stumbles. She mocks the idea of holiness. She mistakes God's patience for His absence and His discipline of the saints for His impotence. But her story is a short one. It is a brief, drunken party followed by an eternal hangover. Her punishment is not corrective, but retributive. Her sins are not covered, but exposed. Her destiny is not restoration, but ruin.
The central question this text forces upon every one of us is this: which city do you belong to? When you see the church facing hardship or discipline, is your secret reaction one of glee, like Edom's? Or is it one of familial grief, like a true citizen of Zion? When you look at your own sin, do you see a punishment that has been accomplished for you at the cross? Or do you see a bill that is still outstanding, a cup of wrath with your name on it, waiting for you at the final judgment?
The good news of the gospel is that citizenship can be transferred. You can defect from the daughter of Edom and be adopted into the family of the daughter of Zion. You do this by turning away from your sin and your pride, and by trusting in the one who drank the cup of God's wrath in the place of His people. Jesus Christ went into the ultimate exile, He was made naked and exposed on the cross, so that we could be brought home and clothed in His righteousness. He drank the poison of God's fury so that we could be invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Therefore, do not be like Edom, gloating over the struggles of the saints. Rather, see the discipline of the church as a sign of God's faithfulness, and a terrifying warning to the world. And flee to the only place of safety, the city of God, where the punishment for sin is already and eternally accomplished.