1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the LORD say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”
5 Out of my distress I called on the LORD; the LORD answered me and set me in a broad place.
6 With the LORD on my side I do not fear. What can mortals do to me?
7 The LORD is on my side to help me; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in mortals.
9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
10 All nations surrounded me; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
12 They surrounded me like bees; they blazed like a fire of thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
13 I was pushed hard, so that I was falling, but the LORD helped me.
14 The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.
15 There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the LORD does valiantly;
16 the right hand of the LORD is exalted; the right hand of the LORD does valiantly.”
17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD.
18 The LORD has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD.
27 The LORD is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.
29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 118 has the flow of a moment of worship with a repetition which easily leads to a responsive feel between the primary speaker and the congregation gathered. This psalm closes the Egyptian hallel psalms used during the Passover meal in the Jewish tradition and is the psalm for both Palm Sunday and Easter in the lectionary for Christians. Although we cannot know how this psalm was used in the time after its composition it does echo in all four gospels as they tell of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem before the crucifixion as well as numerous other echoes throughout the New Testament. Martin Luther, while he was hiding at Coburg Castle during the Diet of Augsburg inscribed the words of verse seventeen on the wall as a message of confidence and reassurance. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 868) This worship like song of praise has shaped the practice and faith of countless generations of both Jewish and Christian faithful.
The opening words of Psalm 118 are words frequently used in gathering people for worship or concluding a prayer in worship in the Hebrew Scriptures. Chronicles uses nearly identical wording to close for David’s first psalm of thanksgiving when the ark of the covenant is brought into the tent of God, Solomon uses it while dedicating the temple, and Jehoshaphat uses these words in his reformation.[1] Both Psalm 106 and 107 have the same words in their opening verse. Particularly with the opening of Psalm 107 which begins book five of the psalter and Psalm 118 beginning and ending with this statement about the goodness of the LORD and the hesed (steadfast love NRSV) of God enduring forever may form both a bookend for the psalm but also for this portion of the psalter. Psalm 118 on its own and this group of psalms (107-118) can be grouped together as a reflection on the goodness and the hesed of God.
Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear the LORD are all to declare that the LORD’s hesed endures forever. These are the same trio of groups called upon to trust the LORD in Psalm 115: 9-11 and to the initial readers it was likely an emphatic way of referring to all of Israel, although most modern readers hear the final verse as expanding this trust and proclamation beyond Israel to ‘those who fear the LORD’ throughout the nations. For Psalm 118 the focus in the first four and final verse on the hesed of the LORD prepares the hearer of the psalm to reflect on the verses in between as demonstrating and explaining the unending hesed of the LORD.
The speaker speaks of the LORD’s rescue of them from a tight space. The Hebrew word for distress (mesar) in verse five has the sense of “narrow,” “restricted,” or “tight.” (NIB IV:1154) Knowing this fuller meaning gives a more poetic flow to the verse as the speaker is taken from a tight or narrow space into a broad place. This rescue leads the psalmist to speak in trust in confidence in the LORD’s ability to deliver from anything that mortals and rulers (princes) may array against them. As the apostle Paul will later state to the church in Rome in an echo of this psalm, “If God is for us, who is against us.” (Romans 8:31b) The psalm echoes the common image of God as a refuge against these mortals and princes arrayed against them.
These enemies poetically swarm like bees, blaze like fire among thorns and push hard against the psalmist but the LORD cuts them off and helps the faithful one in distress. The words of verse fourteen through sixteen pulls on the words of the song of Moses in Exodus 15:1-18, ancient songs of faith whose words that become relevant to the psalmist’s experience of delivery. After the ordeal which pushed the psalmist hard but the LORD delivered, they can exclaim that “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD.”
Throughout the Hebrew scriptures there is a primary testimony that punishment and testing all come from God. Yet, even in that testing and punishment there is mercy where God does not abandon the psalmist and allows them to both endure the moment and enter into this time of praise and triumph. There is the movement through the gates of the righteous into the worship space where the psalmist can lift up his triumphal praise with the congregation of the faithful. Verse twenty-two which speaks of the stone the builders rejected probably referred to the psalmist originally (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 868) but this psalm is used multiple times in the New Testament as a way of reflecting on the rejection and exaltation of Jesus.[2] This marvelous deliverance from the tight space to the broad place allows the psalmist and those gathered with him to realize that “this is a day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
The psalm closes with what continues to feel like a triumphal procession which continues to seek the favor of the LORD as they celebrate the moment of triumph. As mentioned above, verse twenty-six echoes in the gospel narration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Even if we may not fully grasp the specifics of the worship event in the psalm where the festal procession is bound with branches, the movement towards the altar and the temple is clear. The people and the psalmist process in thanksgiving and praise to celebrate the experience of deliverance because of the hesed of God. They continue to worship the God they experience as a good God of unending steadfast love (hesed).
The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70 by David Roberts 1850
Lamentations 4
1How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at the head of every street. 2The precious children of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold — how they are reckoned as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands! 3Even the jackals offer the breast and nurse their young, but my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 4The tongue of the infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives them anything. 5Those who feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple cling to ash heaps. 6For the chastisement of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, though no hand was laid on it. 7Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, their hair like sapphire. 8Now their visage is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood. 9Happier were those pierced by the sword than those pierced by hunger, whose life drains away, deprived of the produce of the field. 10The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of my people. 11The LORD gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations. 12The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem. 13It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her. 14Blindly they wandered through the streets, so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments. 15“Away! Unclean!” people shouted at them; “Away! Away! Do not touch!” So they became fugitives and wanderers; it was said among the nations, “They shall stay here no longer.” 16The LORD himself has scattered them, he will regard them no more; no honor was shown to the priests, no favor to the elders. 17Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; we were watching eagerly for a nation that could not save. 18They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered; for our end had come. 19Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens; they chased us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness. 20The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was taken in their pits — the one of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.” 21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom, you that live in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare. 22The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished, he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish, he will uncover your sins.
Grief, despair, and depression are natural responses to traumatic events, and the destruction endured by the people of Jerusalem would have shattered the foundational beliefs of this once proud citizens of Zion. They can look at the way the deprivations of the siege of Jerusalem stripped them of their humanity and made them act like animals. Society broke down under the strain of starvation. Death reigned in the city and now in the aftermath they are a broken people who look at themselves wondering what they have become. They grieve the city, the life, and the friends and family that they have lost. Their world looks hopeless, and the briefly summoned hope of the previous chapter has been swallowed by despair. There is an exhaustion to this fourth poem which is one third shorter than the previous three. It still attempts to maintain the orderly composition of the acrostic form, but now each letter has two lines instead of three. The intensification of the form in the previous poem now relapses into a gasping poem of diminishment. Things once beautiful have become ugly, the noble has become not only common but cruel, the hope of the future has been consumed by the needs of the present. As Yael Ziegler describes this poem,
Despair colors this chapter in dark hues; the lustrous gold, shining white, and rosy-cheeked vigor of Jerusalem’s bright past fade, giving way to dark tones, the shadowy color of despondency. Blackened by hunger and desiccated by thirst, people no longer recognize their fellows. Lack of recognition metaphorically suggests antisocial behavior; society breaks down as hunger predominates, and every individual seeks his or her own survival at the expense of another. (Ziegler, 2021, pp. 341-342)
Yet, the poet attempts to bring some order to their disordered world. To honestly assess the present and look for something to hold onto but in the end the only thing the poet finds is a hope for revenge.
The characteristic of gold is that it does not tarnish like most other metals, and that is one of the properties that makes it valuable. Yet, the opening image is of gold dimming and being transformed to have the properties of a common metal. Sacred stones, perhaps the impressive stones used in the construction of the temple, now litter the streets as rubble. Yet, the gold and the sacred stones are now metaphorically related to the children of Zion—once its most valuable possession but now thrown away like the commonest of pot. It is the fate of the children of Zion which forms one of the central concerns of this poem.
Something has happened to transform this people which prized their children above all things into a people unfavorably compared with jackals and ostriches. The language of the book of Job seems a natural place to search for language that voices the suffering of the poet and the people of Zion in general, and Job 39: 13-18 portrays the ostrich (although it uses a different Hebrew word for this bird) as an uncaring mother who delivers her eggs onto the sand but may just as carelessly step on them. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures jackals are the inhabitants of ruins[1]and jackals and ostriches often appear together in the metaphors for judgment.[2] Now the people have become less maternal than the jackal and the ostrich during and after the siege of Jerusalem and infants and children suffer hunger and thirst by adults unable to see past their own hunger and struggle.
Another unhappy parallel for Jerusalem is Sodom. In Ezekiel 16 the infidelity of Judah is compared with Samaria and Sodom, and she is found worse than both destroyed societies. Yet, Sodom with its destruction by the LORD for its sins[3] is now viewed as favorable to the punishment Jerusalem has received. The rapid destruction of Sodom in the Genesis narrative does not have the dehumanizing effect that the siege and starvation of Jerusalem has had on the people. Sodom may be the representation of both wickedness and judgment in scriptures and is frequently used by the prophets as a warning for Israel, Jerusalem, and the prophets who have failed to faithfully communicate God’s word.[4]
The poet of Lamentations likely came from the nobility and priests of Jerusalem. He may have been an unwelcome voice to the nobles, like Jeremiah was, but he still can see in the diminishment of the nobles the dimming of the people. Those who ate fine food now perish in the street, and those who wore scarlet (NRSV purple)[5] now cling to the ash heap. The city which provided their position and privilege now lies broken and burning, and without Zion they are nothing. Princes and nobles whose skin was fairer and their hair clean and black[6] and compared to the dark blue sapphire or lapiz lazuli now are described as similar to Job with blackened skin which has shriveled on their bones. (Job 30:30) For both Job and the nobles God is the cause of their desperate situation where they suffer with the people they were supposed to lead.
Death by violence seems a preferrable state than what the residents of Jerusalem were reduced to. The cannibalistic action of the compassionate women who boil their own children may be hyperbolic, but the subject of mothers eating their own children comes up multiple times in relation to sieges in the Hebrew Scriptures.[7] Being reduced to survival by eating one’s own child, perhaps that has already died of salvation, is a horrific and inhuman image. These compassionate women are no longer titled as mothers. They, and by extension the rest of the people, have been reduced to animalistic actions by their starvation and deprivation.
The pillars of the Zionistic hope: the Davidic king, the city, the temple, and the land have all been consumed in the fiery wrath of God’s action against the people. There is a belief that God will not abandon the temple, the city, or the Davidic king. Yet, those very things have been destroyed or taken into exile in shackles. The poet turns to the prophets and priests who failed the people. Priests and prophets in Jeremiah were willing to shed his blood, but ultimately the people judge he has done nothing worthy of death[8] and Jeremiah earlier makes an accusation that the “blood of the innocent” being spilled in this place (the temple) is one of the things that the people of Jerusalem must turn from.[9] Ezekiel can declare that Jerusalem has become “the bloody city” by its unjust and violent ways.[10] Both prophets would have agreed with Lamentations identifying the priests and prophets as being active contributors to the judgement of the city. Now these priests and prophets who are supposed to embody holiness for the people have been reduced to the uncleanness of lepers. “Away! unclean!” is what lepers are required to shout in Leviticus 13: 45.
The siege of Jerusalem takes place in the context of the plotting of the leaders of Jerusalem to align themselves with Egypt rather than Babylon. The help they await during the siege was expected to come from their ally Egypt, but Egypt was unable to break the siege or to successfully challenge Babylon. Jeremiah challenges the reliance on Egypt by the leaders in Jerusalem, and there seems to have been the hope of a regional alliance against Babylon. Yet, many of these nations who may have been a part of the ‘regional alliance’ seem to have betrayed Jerusalem and sided with Babylon, like Edom who will be mentioned as deserving God’s revenge at the end of the poem. The Babylonians and their allies overwhelmed the defenders of Jerusalem and made daily life under the siege unbearable. Even when nobles and others attempted to escape through breaches in the wall they were captured and imprisoned by the Babylonians.
The LORD’s anointed, the Davidic king, is mentioned for the first time in the poem. The psalms of enthronement[11] draw this anointed king into a close relationship with the divine, standing as the LORD’s representative on earth. The language of these psalms will later be used by the New Testament to speak of Jesus, and they helped form the expectation of a messiah in post-exilic Judaism, but here this poem uses the evocative phrase the breath (ruach) of our life. Elsewhere the ruach of life is the spirit, wind, or breath of God which animates both in creation and in Ezekiel 37. Now the removal of the Davidic king is like the removal from the air from the lungs of the people. They have lost many of the things that defined their community and the foundational images of their life and it may have felt like in combination with the presence of death seen in the starvation and conflict that their way of life was dying as well.
Ultimately, this fourth poem ends like the first and third poems calling for God to judge others as harshly as they have been judged. Now the target is Edom, who has earned the rancor of God in numerous prophets.[12] The entire book of Obadiah, only one chapter, is against Edom. Edom apparently took advantage of Jerusalem’s fall and abused the people and city at its lowest point. Now the poet asks for the punishment to pass to them and that they would know shame, here represented by Edom’s nakedness. In the cup passing to Edom there is a moment of hope for the poet that now Jerusalem’s judgment may come to an end, that the exile may be now longer as God’s anger is redirected at Edom.
Having worked through Jeremiah and Ezekiel there are significant sections dedicated to the desire for revenge upon the enemies of the people. It is important to realize that these are the words of defeated people with no power to act upon this desired revenge and the vengeance that would belong to the LORD. Much like the imprecatory psalms[13] they bring their anger and commit it into the LORD’s hands. Lamentations is not easy reading but one of the gifts of our faith is the ability to take all our emotions and bring them into our relationship with God.
[3] In Genesis the sins of Sodom are primarily sins of inhospitality, the way it abused strangers in its midst.
[4] In addition to Ezekiel 16, mentioned above, Isaiah 1:9-10; 3:9; 13:19; Jeremiah 23:14; Amos 4:11; and Zephaniah 2:9.
[5] Scarlet has the association with royalty that purple does which is probably why the NRSV switches to this better known correlation.
[6] Fairer skin and clean and dark indicates a lifestyle out of the sun and which was viewed as a sign of prosperity and attractiveness in the ancient world, hence the shame of the female speaker in Song of Solomon over her darkness from being forced to work the fields (Song of Solomon 1: 5-6).
[7] 2 Kings 6: 26-30 in the siege of Samaria and Ezekiel 5:10 about the siege of Jerusalem. Although this language may be for shock, it may also report the desperate actions that people took during starvation.
1How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. 2She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. 3Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. 4The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. 5Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the LORD has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe. 6From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer. 7Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was no one to help her, the foe looked on mocking over her downfall. 8Jerusalem sinned grievously, so she has become a mockery; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans, and turns her face away. 9Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; her downfall was appalling, with none to comfort her. “O LORD, look at my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!” 10Enemies have stretched out their hands over all her precious things; she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. 11All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. Look, O LORD, and see how worthless I have become. 12Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. 13From on high he sent fire; it went deep into my bones; he spread a net for my feet; he turned me back; he has left me stunned, faint all day long. 14My transgressions were bound into a yoke; by his hand they were fastened together; they weigh on my neck, sapping my strength; the LORD handed me over to those whom I cannot withstand. 15The LORD has rejected all my warriors in the midst of me; he proclaimed a time against me to crush my young men; the LORD has trodden as in a wine press the virgin daughter Judah. 16For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my courage; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed. 17Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her; the LORD has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors should become his foes; Jerusalem has become a filthy thing among them. 18The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word; but hear, all you peoples, and behold my suffering; my young women and young men have gone into captivity. 19I called to my lovers but they deceived me; my priests and elders perished in the city while seeking food to revive their strength. 20See, O LORD, how distressed I am; my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death. 21They heard how I was groaning, with no one to comfort me. All my enemies heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have done it. Bring on the day you have announced, and let them be as I am. 22Let all their evil doing come before you; and deal with them as you have dealt with me because of all my transgressions; for my groans are many and my heart is faint.
Poetry can be used to speak to things that are at the edge of our ability to articulate. It can be utilized to speak to moments of profound joy, of awe and wonder, of emotions like love and happiness whose meanings seem to transcend our words. Yet poetic words can be utilized in our moments of heartbreak, depression, grief, and trauma as we attempt to make sense of a world which seems senseless. Lamentations is the work of a poet or poets attempting to make sense of their reality in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The poet has seen death from war and starvation, has seen the foundations upon which their life was built collapse, and the LORD who was supposed to protect Zion has turned away. The poet attempts to make sense of the loss of the home they knew, grieve the family and friends who did not survive the siege and the beginning of the exile, and to walk among a shattered people with shattered dreams into a previously unimagined reality.
The survivors of Jerusalem not only retained the words of the prophets who warned of this reality, but they also retained the words of the prophets and poets wrestling with God, attempting to reconcile their faith with the world they experience. They are living in a disordered world, and yet in their words they attempt to bring some order into the disorder. Kathleen O’Connor in her book Jeremiah: Pain and Promise talks about the way these works written in the time surrounding the exile invite not only the contemporary generation but also future generations to enter the process of being meaning-makers.
It not only reflects the interpretive chaos that follows disasters, when meaning collapses and formerly reliable beliefs turn to dust. Jeremiah’s literary turmoil is also an invitation to the audience to become meaning-makers, transforming them from being passive victims of disaster into active interpreters of their world. (O’Connor, 2011, p. 31)
Making sense of a traumatic world-changing event is not an overnight process. It is a journey through the dark shadows of grief and fear, depression and guilt, the struggle to survive as others surrender to the end. This first poem in the book of Lamentations attempt to bring some order to the disorder and give voice to the pain and humiliation felt by the people. They, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, understand that the tragedy is a result of their own rebellion and disobedience which have broken their relationship with the LORD who protected them. They also understand that they have no future without the LORD looking, seeing, and considering the fate of this disgraced and displaced people.
The poem has two voices, a narrator and daughter Zion. The narrator is the primary speaker for the first half of the poem and attempts to relate the fate of daughter Zion as an observer of the fall of this city personified as a woman. The poem begins with the interrogative “How?” Although in English translations the word how is used primarily as an inquiry about the state of daughter Zion: How lonely, How like a widow. The word also inquires about the manner or way in which something comes to pass: How did it happen that lonely sits the city, How did she become like a widow? How did this place of honor among the nations become dishonored? How did the princess become the vassal? What has brought about this reversal for daughter Zion and those who made their home in this great city. Something has changed that has brought about the reversal of fortunes for the city and the people.
The narrator voice in the poem has a greater detachment from the suffering and events occurring to daughter Zion. Daughter Zion may weep, but the narrator reports. Yet, the narrator’s reports begin to allude to the reason why daughter Zion weeps. In a world where women were not to have lovers, they were to be faithful to their husband, now this one who has become like a widow[1] we learn is also abandoned by her lovers and friends. Something has gone wrong in the relationships that were supposed to provide support. The narrator slips out of the metaphor to narrate Judah’s entry into exile and the suffering that comes with her displacement from the promised land into the hostile nations. The exclamation that Judah found no resting place echoes the language of the curses for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28:65. As Lamentations, like Ezekiel and Jeremiah, make sense of the catastrophe of the Babylonian exile the utilize the theological perspective of Deuteronomy.
Now the roads that pass through Jerusalem mourn the loss of the pilgrim traffic to the festivals, and the priests who officiated at the festivals groan as the young women grieve. The young women here are teenage women of marriageable age. These may be the women at greatest risk of sexual violence from the enemy soldiers who have breached the city and who now escort them into exile. They also would be the women whose potential partners died in the defense of the city or in the aftermath of the breach. Daughter Zion now returns to the poem as one with a bitter lot, whose foes are now her master, whose enemies prosper. The reason is for the first time explicitly stated by the narrator: she is being made to suffer by the LORD for her transgressions. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations all share a common perspective on the disastrous events. The tragedy of the siege, destruction, and exile are all a result of Judah’s disobedience to God and the curses of Deuteronomy 28 echo throughout Lamentation’s poetic remembrance.
Yael Zigler has a powerful explanation of the poetic image of the princes being like stags which find no pasture:
The verse portrays the previously powerful leadership as drained of energy, unable to find pastures or the basic means of survival. If they cannot find pasture for themselves, they certainly cannot help their people, whose sufferings are compounded by their leaders’ impotence. (Ziegler, 2021, p. 92)
Nobles, priests, and elders all failed the people in this crisis, but now they are unable to even deliver themselves. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had harsh words for these leaders who failed to care for the people and who compounded the upcoming crisis, but now as the world is turned upside down the powerful in Jerusalem are now impotent.
As the image once again returns to Jerusalem personified as mourning over her past riches and glories. She is isolated among the nations. Lamentations adopt a similar image to Hosea 1-3, Jeremiah 2–4, and particularly the harsh language of Ezekiel 16. Jerusalem’s past actions have led those who once admired her to despise her. Like the imagery of Ezekiel 16:35-43, Jerusalem is like a woman who is shamed by having her clothing taken away as an act of humiliation. The language of uncleanness enters the poem for the first time, but the uncleanness is literally in her hems at the bottom of her clothing. Whether the poem imagines her walking through the uncleanness of the world around her and it clinging to the skirts or whether it utilizes the image of menstruation[2] (which will come up with uncleanness later in the poem) without rags to catch the blood. Regardless of how exactly her uncleanness is visualized in the imagery of the poem, from the narrator’s perspective her actions which took no thought of the future, are the reason for her humiliated state. Her fall from grace was appalling and former friends and lovers are distant as daughter Zion for the first time raises her voice in the poem calling out to the LORD to “look at my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
The narrator concludes his portion of the poem with the enemies of Zion taking her precious things and invading her sanctuary. Nations that were not to be a part of the congregation of Israel in the law now stand in the center of the temple where even priests would not enter. The language behind invade, often rendered “come into,” often denotes sex in the Hebrew scriptures and the poetic intent of the imagery may be to communicate that this is both the pillaging and rape of Zion. (Goldingay, 2022, p. 67) Daughter Zion is stripped, humiliated, dishonored, and disgraced as her people struggle to find the food, they need for the strength to endure the ravages of the siege and now exile. For most of the first half of the poem the narrator has described her sorry state, but now she turns to the LORD and to those who see her and raises her voice to command people to look, see, and consider her.
Rather than cowering in her pitiful state, daughter Zion lifts her voice and demands to be seen. The first one she cries to is the LORD to see the state that the LORD’s fierce anger has left her in. Then she cries to those who pass by to look and see her sorrow. Former friends and lovers who pass by ashamed of her are commanded by daughter Zion to see her in all her suffering and to understand the reason for her suffering. Her betrayal of the LORD has resulted in the LORD’s actions. As Kathleen O’Connor narrates,
Using vivid, violent verbs; she relates Yahweh’s brutal treatment of her. He sent fire; he spread a net; he turned her back; he left her devastated. Divine attacks of the female body again serve as a metaphor for the destruction of the city. (NIB VI: 1033)
In addition to the violent verbs listed above, the transgressions become a yoke which daughter Zion bears. The harsh language of daughter Zion’s appeal may also be designed to call upon the LORD to again assume the protector role. She now is the vulnerable one who needs the protection of the LORD. Like in the Psalms, the LORD may be both the cause of their suffering and the only one who can end the suffering.
The warriors, young men, daughters, and children of Zion now bear the crushing weight of the defeat of Zion by her foes. Warriors and young men have been crushed in the crucible of war and starvation, and in an image that will resonate in Isaiah 63, Joel 3, and Revelation 14 now “girl daughter Judah” is treaded as in a wine press. Daughter Zion weeps, and there is no one to comfort her or wipe away her tears. Children, perhaps orphaned by war or the first to suffer from starvation, are a prime example of the vulnerable caught in situations they cannot control.
In verse seventeen the narrator interrupts daughter Zion’s cries. This narrator can describe her isolation where no one will comfort her because the LORD has commanded her neighbors to become her foes. Yet, even beyond foes Jerusalem has become a “filthy thing” among them. “Filthy thing” (NRSV) or “unclean thing” (NIV) translates the Hebrew term nidda which refers to a “menstrual rag.” As Kathleen O’Connor states daughter Zion, “is not only ritually unclean, but she is also repulsive and dirty.” (NIB VI: 1033) Yet, rather than refute the narrator’s claim daughter Zion proclaims, “the LORD is in the right.” The woman does not deny that her suffering is justified but she also cries out the peoples once again to look and see her sufferings. Her bowels churn and her heart is wrung and death reigns both in the house and in the streets.
The enemies of Zion have seen and heard but their reaction is one of joy. In one final appeal the woman asks for the LORD to judge these enemies. That they may be judged as she was judged. That their evil may come before the LORD as her own rebellion came before the LORD. The LORD has dealt fairly if violently with her, now dealing in a similar fashion with those who abuse and taunt her. With a groaning body and a faint heart, she appeals to God out of her desolation asking for her God to look, see, and consider her words.
This acrostic poem utilizes the voice of a narrator and daughter Zion to express the pain and desolation of the collapse of the world as the people of Jerusalem gives words to the trauma of the exile. Like reading Elie Wiesel’s Night it allows a reader to encounter a small part of the tragic reality that the author encounters. Its language may at times make us uncomfortable, but we should never feel comfortable looking into the courageous act of someone trying to use words to express the inexpressible depths of their pain, their attempts to reimagine the relationship between themselves and their God in the midst of an earthshattering tragedy, and their attempts to make sense in a senseless world. One appeal of the acrostic form is that it imposes order on a chaotic world.
Any time we engage with the scriptures it is helpful to remember that there is some distance between the worldview of the exiles of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and ourselves. To appreciate the courage of the poet in their attempt to make sense of the world with words does not require us to fully endorse the use of vivid, violent verbs against a metaphorical female body. Although I cannot speak with authority about the view of masculinity of this time, I do believe one of the intentional uses of this language is to invoke in the LORD, who plays the masculine role in this imagery here and throughout the prophets, the role of protector. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations do not shirk from the perspective that Jerusalem’s punishment is justified but that does not prevent Jeremiah, Lamentations, and the Psalms[3] from calling out to the LORD to look, see, consider and to respond in mercy.
The first poem of Lamentations may be able to articulate the pain of daughter Zion, but it is unable to resolve that pain. Even though the poet has worked through their crisis from aleph to tav, the acrostic poem has not brought about a complete expression of the pain. Perhaps that leads to the second poem which also speaks out of the pain of defeat, grief, and an uncertain future. These poems are steps on the way to healing. They are the articulation of the pain and loss of the people of Jerusalem. The loss of home, the loss of identity, the loss of meaning. Yet, in a strange way, these poems are a part of the rediscovery of faith. The LORD is the focal point of daughter Zion’s appeal. Daughter Zion hopes for a future beyond the anger of the LORD in this moment which has brought such devastation and disgrace.
[1] Widows in the bible are not only women who have lost their husbands but also people who have lost familial support and are therefore vulnerable. A person may be a widow and have a son or son-in-law to take her into her house, but widows as a vulnerable portion of the population (like orphans and strangers/resident aliens) would be those outside the familial support structure. (NIB VI: 1029)
[2] This may be a source of discomfort for modern readers, but menstruation occupies a significant place in the law in relation to cleanness and uncleanness. Similar language appears in the prophets.
[3] Ezekiel rarely appeals to the LORD for mercy. Ezekiel tends to value obedience to the LORD and rarely protests like his older colleague Jeremiah.
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem by Rembrandt van Rijn 1630
I have intentionally worked my way through several books normally overlooked by Christian readers and leaders in our scriptures. The book of Lamentations for most of its history would qualify as an underutilized book within the scriptures we share with our Jewish Ancestors. Although there has been some recent scholarly interest in these five poems, for the average person of faith the name of the book is probably enough to scare the casual reader away. Yet, I do believe that we neglect the breadth of scripture to our own detriment. Over the thirteen years I’ve been writing on signoftherose I’ve gained a much greater appreciation for the wisdom of Hebrew poetry and the open and honest dialogue between God and God’s people that our scriptures capture.
Having worked through Psalms 1-110 and Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) has given me a much greater appreciation of Hebrew poetry, and Lamentations is poetry. Lamentations is five poems, four of which are structured as acrostics[1] which move sequentially through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the final poem’s twenty-two lines while not acrostic matches the twenty-two verse format of an acrostic. The acrostic form is often used to denote the completion of a thought, but due to the tragic event that evokes these poems it is also may be a tool to provide structure during a traumatic time.
Gwen Sayler and Ann Fritschel, my Hebrew Bible instructors twenty-five years ago at Wartburg Seminary used to joke that the answer to any question in the Hebrew Scriptures was likely to be the Babylonian exile. This event reshaped the Hebrew people when the Davidic king is sent into exile as well as the people. They mourn the loss of their land, the temple, and Jerusalem. Having worked through both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which bracket Lamentations in the Christian arrangement of scriptures, has involved me dwelling in the writings of this period around 587 BCE. Lamentations current position after Jeremiah is due to the traditional attribution of these poems to Jeremiah.
The Hebrew name of this short book of poems is Eikha which comes from the first word of the first poem. Eikha is the elongated form of the word eikh which means “how?” How has this disaster happened to the people. This question would consume the two long prophetic books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Deuteronomic historical retelling of the narrative of 1 & 2 Kings which climaxes at the exile at the end of the narrative, and several psalms most notably Psalm137. How has the relationship between God and God’s people come to this point where the central symbols of the people have collapsed: the Davidic monarchy, the city of Jerusalem (Zion), the land, and the temple built by Solomon. As the people find themselves as strangers in strange lands they have to rediscover what it means to be the people of the covenant.
Lamentations is a book with theological implications, but it is not attempting to be systematic. It is emotional, as it should be. Its voice is the voice of the wounded people of a lost city seeing through tear-filled eyes. It may be utilizing structure to help make sense of the chaotic, but it is a book shaped by grief and broken hearts. As John Goldingay states, “Lamentations is a “mandate to question.”” (Goldingay, 2022, p. 30) Theologically Lamentations assumes, like much of Hebrew literature, that the God of Israel is responsible for everything that occurs. Although Lamentations understands that the cause of the exile is the covenant unfaithfulness of Israel to their God, they protest and plead with God to change God’s mind and reverse the punishment they are receiving. Ultimately for the poet or poets of Lamentations their physical and emotional problems are a result of their relational problems with their God.
Resources Used For This Journey
Harvey Cox and Stephanie Paulsell, Lamentations and The Song of Songs. Belief Commentary on the Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Publishing Company,2012.
The Belief Commentary series is a theological commentary written by theologians rather than biblical scholars. Harvey Cox did the Lamentations half of this commentary and uses Lamentations as a springboard into a wide range of theological topics. I read this commentary initially when I was working through Song of Songs.
John Goldingay, The Book of Lamentations. (New International Commentary on the Old Testament series). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2022.
The NICOT series of commentaries have often been helpful textual commentaries, and when looking for a volume to assist with the language as well as the historical background these have often been helpful. John Goldingay is a scholar who has written extensively on Jeremiah and the literature associated with Jeremiah.
Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Book of Lamentations” in The New Interpreter’s Bible. Volume VI. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1996.
The NIB is a solid all-around commentary on the entire bible and apocrypha. It is designed for pastors and those leading in congregations, so it does not normally engage the textual issues as deeply as the NICOT or Anchor Bible commentaries.
Ziegler, Yael, Lamentations: Faith in a Turbulent World. Maggid Studies in Tanakh. Jerusalem. Maggid Books, 2021.
When I can I attempt to utilize a Jewish scholar when reading the scriptures that we share. The Maggid Studies I have utilized in the past have been approachable but also provide a window into perspectives that most Christian scholars may not explore.
[1] Chapter three is acrostic but instead of one verse per letter there are three verses.
Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Psalm 105
1O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. 2Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works. 3Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. 4Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually. 5Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he has uttered, 6O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. 8He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, 9the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, 10which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, 11saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.” 12When they were few in number, of little account, and strangers in it, 13wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, 14he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account, 15saying, “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” 16When he summoned famine against the land, and broke every staff of bread, 17he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. 18His feet were hurt with fetters, his neck was put in a collar of iron; 19until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD kept testing him. 20The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free. 21He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, 22to instruct his officials at his pleasure, and to teach his elders wisdom. 23Then Israel came to Egypt; Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham. 24And the LORD made his people very fruitful, and made them stronger than their foes, 25whose hearts he then turned to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants. 26He sent his servant Moses, and Aaron whom he had chosen. 27They performed his signs among them, and miracles in the land of Ham. 28He sent darkness, and made the land dark; they rebelled against his words. 29He turned their waters into blood, and caused their fish to die. 30Their land swarmed with frogs, even in the chambers of their kings. 31He spoke, and there came swarms of flies, and gnats throughout their country. 32He gave them hail for rain, and lightning that flashed through their land. 33He struck their vines and fig trees, and shattered the trees of their country. 34He spoke, and the locusts came, and young locusts without number; 35they devoured all the vegetation in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground. 36He struck down all the firstborn in their land, the first issue of all their strength. 37Then he brought Israel out with silver and gold, and there was no one among their tribes who stumbled. 38Egypt was glad when they departed, for dread of them had fallen upon it. 39He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light by night. 40They asked, and he brought quails, and gave them food from heaven in abundance. 41He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. 42For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant. 43So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing. 44He gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples, 45that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the LORD!
Although there is no superscript to introduce Psalm 105, verses 1-15 of this psalm appear in the mouth of King David in 1 Chronicles 16: 8-22 combined with several other psalms. This quote of this psalm at the arrival of the ark of the covenant in the tent David set up for it in Jerusalem is one possible background for the composition of this psalm narrating God’s gracious actions on behalf of the covenant people. Within book four of the psalter this psalm pairs with Psalm 106 which closes book four as well as Psalm 103 and 104 which preceded it. Psalm 103 gives thanks to the LORD because God is good (hesed), Psalm 104 gives thanks to the God who is great in relation to the creation, and now Psalm 105 celebrates the covenant faithfulness of God to God’s people in a narration of their history. Psalm 105 and Psalm 106 form complementary narrations of the history of God’s faithfulness. Throughout Psalm 105 there is no mention of the faithless moments in Israel’s history with the LORD the God of Israel, nor is there any moment of reflection upon God’s reaction to those moments of faithlessness. Unlike the other historical psalms[1] that is not the purpose of this psalm. Psalm 106 will contrast the faithfulness of God with the faithlessness of the people.
Once again, the people are summoned to give thanks and praise the LORD for the things that God has done and to remember the works, miracles, and judgments. The covenant throughout this Psalm appears to be the covenant with Abraham in relation to God giving the people the land of Canaan. Even though the second half of the psalm will deal with God’s mighty works in the Exodus narrative the Sinai covenant is never mentioned. Instead the focal point of the promise is the covenant with Abraham confirmed with Jacob (aka Israel) and the statute here and everlasting covenant is one sided. God promises protection and the land as an inheritance for this family set aside by God.
The people in the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wander this land as strangers (Hebrew gerim) who are reliant upon the LORD for protection. Abraham would claim before the Hittites that he was a “stranger and alien residing among them”[2] and this reality of the patriarchs and the people in Egypt being ‘strangers’ forms the ethical reaction to ‘strangers’ in Deuteronomy: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[3] Yet here the focus of the narrative is not upon the ethical responsibility of the people, but the gracious protection of God. God does not allow the settled nations to touch his anointed people or to harm the prophets.[4]
The backstory of the psalm continues through the narrative of Genesis, arriving to the story of Joseph who is sent ahead by God to Egypt to provide bread for the people in a time of famine. Even here, although Joseph is sold as a slave, the mention of the role of the brothers of Joseph in his sojourn in Egypt is obscured. Instead, it is the LORD who tests him through these ordeals. Joseph becomes a heroic figure who endures slavery and imprisonment only to rise to become the lord of the house of Pharoah. Yet, even at the end of this brief retelling of the Joseph story Jacob/Israel is an alien in the land of Ham.[5]
At the midpoint of the psalm the narrative shifts from the stories of Genesis to the stories of Exodus. Exodus remembers the duration of the sojourn of the people in Egypt as four hundred thirty years[6] and during this time they had not only been protected by God but prospered, emerging as a people great in number and feared by their Egyptian overlords. Moses and Aaron are sent to be God’s voice to the people and to Pharoah. The number and order of the plagues are different from the narration of Exodus 7-12 and Psalm 78:44-51. It is possible that this is a separate tradition recounting the Exodus narrative, but I believe it is also likely that the constraints of the poetic form of this psalm are responsible for the truncated nature of this retelling.
Yet, the truncated nature of the retelling of the signs and miracles performed in Egypt are extravagant compared to the narration of the journey from Egypt to the promised land. As mentioned above, the giving of the covenant at Sinai as well as the disobedience of the people is omitted. The forty years of wandering in the wilderness is reduced to eight verses or one stanza of the psalm and as throughout the psalm the focus is on God’s presence, protection, and provision for the people. God provided protection by the cloud and the fire, provided mana from heaven, quails for the camp, and water from the rock, and brought them to the long-promised land of the covenant.
Songs can play a crucial role in helping people to remember their story, and this Psalm helps to remind the people where they come from. Throughout this psalm they are sustained by protection and provision of the LORD through works, miracles, and judgments which demonstrate the faithfulness of the LORD to the people. Any narration of a story makes choices about what to include and what to exclude based upon the intent of the story, or in this case poem or song. The focus upon God’s continual faithfulness and provision may choose to exclude the faithless moments of the people, and yet this psalm stands within a collection of psalms and narratives which reinforce, strengthen, and complete its narration. Yet, the focal imagery of the past three psalms of God being a God of goodness and steadfast love, God being a God of greatness in relation to the creation, and finally God being a God of steadfast love and greatness towards the covenant people mutually reinforce each other.
[4] Presumably for the purpose of the Psalm the patriarchs are the prophets.
[5] The tradition of Egypt coming from Noah’s son Ham is traced back to Genesis 10:6 where Cush (Ethiopia), Egypt, Put, and Canaan trace their lineage to this survivor of the ark in the Hebrew telling of their history.
Of David. 1Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits — 3who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. 7He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. 13As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. 14For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. 15As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; 16for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. 17But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, 18to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. 19The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. 20Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word. 21Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will. 22Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul.
This poem of blessing and praise attempts to capture the fulness of God’s steadfast love and compassion from the experience of the individual, the community of the faithful, and all of creation. This psalm is not an acrostic[1] but like an acrostic poem it is twenty-two lines long and it is likely that the author is using form to denote a whole or complete treatment of the steadfast love and compassion of God. In twenty-two lines the poet covers a remarkable breath of issues. Rolf A. Jacobson can state,
Psalm 103 is a wide-reaching hymn of praise that reaches out and touches most of the great theological issues of life and faith—sin and forgiveness, sickness and health, oppression and vindication, God’s election of Israel and the gift of the law, God’s transcendence and God’s mercy, human mortality and divine immortality, and the reign of God. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 759)
This psalmist joins its voice with the hosts of heaven and the works of God’s creation in lifting their humble blessing on the God of steadfast love and compassion.
This is a psalm where a little knowledge of Hebrew can bring a lot of richness to one’s reading because translations restrict the meaning of some key Hebrew ideas. “Bless,” Hebrew barak, originally meant to bow in homage to one’s king or lord and it does not have the connotation of providing a gift or benefit that the English bless/blessing has. This poem or praise or worship is framed by “bless” and the imperative to “bless” begins with the psalmist and then extends to the heavens and earth joined by the psalmist’s “soul.” “Soul” in Hebrew thought, Hebrew nephesh, is not the Greek idea of a soul which is different from the body but instead is the essence of life and the totality of oneself. It is not only the spiritual Greek “soul” which is to praise God but the center of one’s life and everything else that is a part of the psalmist joined in the action of praising God’s name.
Martin Luther’s contemporary Philip Melanchthon once stated memorably in his Loci Communes, “that to know Christ is to know his benefits.” (Melanchthon, 2014, p. 24) Now this psalm attributed to David[2] reflects on several of the primary characteristics of God and their benefits for the psalmist and all of creation. The thirteen attributes articulated in Exodus 34: 6-7 provide the language for much of reflection on God’s characteristics throughout the scriptures. In the aftermath of the golden calf, God has chosen not to destroy the people of Israel and declares to Moses:
The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed,
“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”
The psalmist begins with the LORD’s action of forgiving iniquity which is linked to the healing of diseases. The word for diseases can refer to illness, weakness, or pains that come from hunger, famine, disease, or old age (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 763) and the cause of ‘disease’ is often a punishment for iniquity in Hebrew thought.[3] Yet, it is the forgiveness of the LORD which brings about the rescue from death for this poet. The rescue from the Pit may be a time when their life was at death’s door or it may be a metaphor for God’s rescue from a time of urgency, but regardless the psalmist has benefited from the forgiving nature of the LORD for the LORD’s servant and the poet understands the benefits they have received from their God.
Instead of crowning the psalmist with gold or silver they are crowned with steadfast love and mercy. Steadfast love and mercy are traits associated with God and God has reached into the divine character to place these traits upon the servant of the LORD. Steadfast love, Hebrew hesed, is the central feature attributed to God and hesed is the root of the New Testament concept of the grace of God. Hesed is a relational love and within this psalm God’s hesed is for those who fear him. Hebrew thought is covenantal in nature and the steadfast love of God is tied to the fear, honor, and respect of God’s people. Transgressions can be removed but the mercy of God is only known in relationship with the LORD. Frequently in the psalms hesed is paired with faithfulness, but in this psalm and other psalms relating to human sin and divine anger resolved by faithfulness it may instead be paired with compassion/mercy. [4](Mays, 1994, p. 328) The psalmist trusts that God’s hesed and mercy/compassion will prevail over any anger at the transgressions of either the psalmist or the people.
The dimensions of the “steadfast love”/hesed of God and the forgiveness of God are measured by the vastness of the heavens. The vertical distance between the heavens and the earth are used metaphorically to speak of the unmeasurable hesed of God. Yet, although English translations obscure this, the length of the heavens is used to envision God’s forgiveness of transgressions. The Hebrew behind “as far as the east is from the west,” is literally rendered as distant as the sunrise (rising) is from the sunset (setting). The compassion/mercy of the LORD is compared to the compassion of a father for their child. God’s steadfast love and forgiveness are as vast as can be comprehended and yet God’s compassion is as tender and intimate as what one hopes to experience within the family.
The immeasurability of the steadfast love of God and the forgiveness of God is contrasted by the impermanence of God’s human servants. The psalm picks up the play on words of Genesis 3:18 “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”[5] The impermanence of humanity is poetically rendered by the metaphors of dust and grass, flowers and wind. In contrast to the impermanence of humanity is the permanence of the hesed of God which lasts from everlasting to everlasting to those who live in faithfulness to the covenant and obedience to the commandments. The steadfast love of God in Hebrew is a relational concept and the gracious, eternal, and forgiving love of God is tied to the fear, respect, obedience, and faithfulness of the servant.
The psalm ends where it begins, in ‘blessing’ the LORD. The blessings begin with the angels and the hosts and ministers of the LORD and then extends to all the works of God’s hands (the creation of God) and finally resides in the voice of this poet praising God in harmony with all creation. The psalmist has seen the way God has crowned their life with the attributes of God, and they have come to celebrate the benefits of living in a relational covenant of steadfast love and compassion/mercy with their God. Martin Luther would later echo the sentiment of the psalmist in reflecting on God’s act of creation when he stated, “For all this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.” (Luther, 1978, p. 25) Like the psalmist we can reflect upon the benefits of this life lived in blessing and praise of God, we can marvel at the immeasurable depth of God’s steadfast love and forgiveness, and we can strive to live in faithful obedience to the God whose love and compassion shape our lives.
[1] In an acrostic poem each line begins with a successive letter in the alphabet. In Hebrew there are twenty-two letters and a multiple of twenty-two is often a clue that a psalm or other Hebrew poetry is acrostic. Acrostic poetry tends to denote dealing with a topic in a complete manner.
[2] Some scholars attribute this psalm to a post-monarchical period and point to the reference to Moses instead of a king as evidence of this reaching back to a pre-Davidic period for a foundation for their faith. Although this historical reconstruction is possible, it is also possible that a psalm written by David, particularly before he is king, would refer back to the last common leader of the people of Israel and the creator of the law.
[3] Although this is not absolute. Within Deuteronomic thought suffering and illness is linked to iniquity, but there are significant counter voices like Job which challenge this linkage.
[5] The name Adam in Genesis 3 is taken from the Hebrew word for soil/ground adamah. In both the psalm and Genesis 3 the word for dust is aphar, but even though the Hebrew utilizes two words in the wordplay the connection between the two words is clear in Genesis 3.
Job (oil on canvas) by Bonnat, Leon Joseph Florentin (1833-1922)
Psalm 102
A prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the LORD. 1Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry come to you. 2Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call. 3For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. 4My heart is stricken and withered like grass; I am too wasted to eat my bread. 5Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my skin. 6I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places. 7I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop. 8All day long my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. 9For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink, 10because of your indignation and anger; for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside. 11My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. 12But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations. 13You will rise up and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to favor it; the appointed time has come. 14For your servants hold its stones dear, and have pity on its dust. 15The nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth your glory. 16For the LORD will build up Zion; he will appear in his glory. 17He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer. 18Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the LORD: 19that he looked down from his holy height, from heaven the LORD looked at the earth, 20to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die; 21so that the name of the LORD may be declared in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem, 22when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the LORD. 23He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days. 24“O my God,” I say, “do not take me away at the midpoint of my life, you whose years endure throughout all generations.” 25Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away; 27but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28The children of your servants shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in your presence.
Psalm 102 is described in its superscription as a prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the LORD. This type of description is unusual among the psalms. It doesn’t indicate an author to attribute the psalm to, nor does it give instructions for its performance or a reference to a scriptural story that the psalm comes from. This psalm of a suffering one who is alienated from their body, from society, and ultimately from God may have been intended as a psalm that any suffering individual could recite at times where their situation seemed hopeless, and God’s help seemed far away. Imagery of impermanence, loneliness, pain, and shame permeate the complaint of the psalm, but like many psalms of complaint there is a turn towards hope. The psalmist intuits that the answer, “to human finitude and mortality is divine infinitude and immortality.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 754)
The opening language of the psalm resonates with appeals throughout the psalter as Rolf A. Jacobson notes:
The opening appeal to be heard employs language quite typical of these entreaties—hear my prayer, let my cry come unto you (39:12), do not hide your face (27:9; 143:7), turn your ear towards me (31:2; 71:2), make haste to answer me (69:17; 143:7) (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 751)
Although Rolf Jacobson attributes this to intentionally creating a generic composition for use in the community, the use of familiar language may also reflect a person shaped in the communal worship which utilizes these psalms. The language of prayer and faith is shaped in the worshipping community which shaped the psalmist’s faith and life. Yet, now in a time when the author is alienated from their own physical body, from the community, and from God, they turn to the words that shaped their life when they were physically, socially, and religiously whole.
The psalm moves between personal complaints about their own health and isolation, “I complaints” in Westermann’s terminology, complaints about the actions of isolation and persecution by those in the psalmist’s society, “they complaints”, and complaints about the way that God is treating the psalmist, “you complaints.”[1] The personal complaints begin with an image of transience that reminds me of Ecclesiastes frequently used term hebel (vanity, emptiness). Hebel literally means smoke, mist, or vapor but is often used metaphorically to refer to the emptiness of life.[2] Now for the psalmist their days pass away like smoke and their bones burn like a furnace. Their life down to their very bones is going up in smoke while their heart withers like grass and they are too far gone to even eat the bread that could give them strength. Their songs have turned to groans and their body now is transforming into a (barely) living skeleton. We don’t know if they were suffering from an illness, but they attribute their suffering to God’s judgment upon them. Their suffering is also done in isolation, they are like an unclean owl of the wastelands or a lonely bird on a roof. These lonely images of birds heighten the feeling of the psalm, for the sufferer is not only weak but they are abandoned.
The social complaints are also sharply worded as the psalmist’s unnamed name is synonymous with a curse among their enemies. Their personal weakness and isolation are viewed in the society as a curse from God, and enemies have taken advantage of this weakness. The only nourishment left for this abandoned one is the bread of ashes and the drink of tears. Yet, behind both the physical pain and suffering and the social isolation is the LORD. We are never told of any sin that this poet has committed, but they view their suffering because of God’s anger and distance. In the words of the psalm God has cast the suffering one aside and yet hope resides in God repenting from God’s attitude towards the psalmist, turning the face and hearing with the ear and responding with grace and healing.
In contrast to the evanescent position of the psalmist is the strength and might of the LORD. The psalmist now joins his fate to the action of God to have compassion on Zion. It is possible that this psalm originates in the time of the exile where there is hope for the rebuilding of Zion and rescue the people from the destitute position as exiles in a foreign land. Yet, even without the context of the Babylonian exile, the turn to hope is based on the faithfulness of God for the people and a belief that God’s anger lasts only a moment, but God’s favor is for a lifetime.[3] The poet’s strength may have been broken in the middle of their life by God’s action, but if God wills it will be renewed. The heavens and the earth which seem so permanent to humanity are like a garment that can easily be changed by the powerful and permanent God. God will continue to endure and only in God can this suffering one hope to find a renewed physical, social, and religious life. The psalmist claims their familial bond to the LORD the God of Israel and now awaits the parental turning of their God to the children of God’s servants.
[1] Rolf A. Jacobson notes this helpful pattern citing Westermann, The Psalms (54-57). (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 752)
[2] Psalm102 does not use the term hebel but the combination of words of impermanence create a similar resonance for me as Ecclesiastes.
Alexey Tyranox, Moses Being Lowered into the Nile by His Mother (1839-1842)
Exodus 2: 1-10 The Continued Resistance of Women
Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4 His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
The resistance to the policies of the unnamed king of Egypt begins with Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives, and continues with a mother, a daughter of the Hebrews and a daughter of the king’s own household. Even in the time of oppression the Israelites continue to marry and bear children, even though the lives of those children are now threatened by a command to all the people of Egypt. Yet, even in ancient Egypt we hear a memory of the subtle and artful resistance to the abhorrent policies of murder. This one child rescued from being thrown into the Nile will later lead the people out of slavery and into a new calling and identity.
A mother looks upon her newborn son and seeing that, in similar language to the creation narratives in Genesis, that he is good attempts to preserve this small piece of God’s creation she holds in her hands. For three months she manages to keep the child hidden but ultimately the wickedness of humanity forces her, like God sealing up Noah and his family in an ark (and the word for the basket here is the same used for the ark in Genesis), places him in the waters of the Nile-the same waters that Pharaoh demanded the Egyptians cast the Hebrew sons into, and hopes against hope for deliverance from those very waters. The mother moves away from the basket leaving a final hope in God’s unseen hands but his sister, perhaps Miriam but unnamed here, continues to watch.
Deliverance comes from the household of the man who ordered the death of the Hebrew children. This daughter of Pharaoh has nothing to gain by being involved in this story. She could’ve easily allowed the basket to remain undisturbed by human hands and still she sees, she acts, and she becomes the deliverance for this child and a medium God will use in the deliverance of the people. She is able to see in this child the human cost of her father’s oppression and she takes pity and acts. She realizes that this indeed must be one of the Hebrew’s children consigned to death and she hears his cries, much as God will later hear the Israelite’s cries. All throughout this beginning of Exodus it is women who prefigure the ways in which God will act.
The surprising nature of the story continues when the daughter of Moses’ mother speaks openly to the daughter of Pharaoh and together they conspire to save the child’s life. It is Moses’ sister who suggests a subtle resistance that allows the mother of Moses’ to be shielded from losing her son and to be compensated by Pharaoh’s household for resisting the deathly order of Pharaoh himself. Moses will grow to be a child of two worlds, both the world of the Hebrews still connected to his family of birth and connected to the household of Pharaoh where he receives not only protection and privilege but also his name. Yet, like Pharaoh’s daughter, his mother and his sister, he too will see the cost of the oppression around him as a young man and be compelled to act.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Finding of Moses (1904)
Exodus 2: 11-15a: Reacting to the Oppression
11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.
Moses has grown up as a person of two worlds. He has both his identity as a child brought into the household of Pharaoh as well as his identity as a Hebrew. Perhaps he was shielded during his upbringing from the friction between these two identities but upon seeing the oppression of his people he feels compelled, like God will at the end of chapter two, to act. Moses reacts violently, he feels his kinship with the Hebrew being beaten, and he commits murder. His action may not be a reasoned and calm reaction, most likely we would brand this type of action today a terrorist action, and yet he sees the oppression and feels compelled to act. Perhaps this is something that God sees in Moses, one who cannot stand aside while the powerful abuse the powerless. Moses believes that he is able to act without his action being seen and known, yet he soon finds he is now seen by both sets of peoples as a murder. His fellow Hebrew sees his quest for justice in a different manner, as yet another person who acts with violence to achieve his goals.
Moses’ resistance is more violent and less effective than the resistance of the women who came before him. Moses ultimately ends up fleeing to preserve his life and going from being a person of two people to a man without a people. Yet, he will continue to see and act when he sees those with power taking advantage of those without. Moses will be unable to be the liberator of the people from their oppression on his own, ultimately he, like God, needs to see and to choose how to act. For Moses his actions mean giving up the protection that Pharaoh’s daughter was able to provide for him and he identifies with a people who is not ready to accept him.
Ciro Ferri, Moses and the Daughters of Jethro (between 1660 and 1689)
Exodus 2: 15b-22: An Alien Residing in a Foreign Land
But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. 16 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” 19 They said, “An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” 20 He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, “I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.”
Moses may have fled Egypt but he has not left his sense of justice behind. In Midian, where he comes to rest after his flight, he feels compelled this time to act on behalf of the daughters of Midian who are being harassed by the shepherd in that region and being made to wait until their flocks are watered so they can water their own flock. Moses again acts and breaks what was apparently an ongoing struggle. When their father is surprised by their early return he realizes something must have changed. Moses again sees and chooses to act and this action opens up a new home for the wanderer.
Reuel, the priest of Midian, after inquiring of his daughters about their early arrival challenges them to welcome in this stranger. “Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread.” Reuel in extending his hospitality to Moses welcomes the alien residing in his land. This hospitality eventually transforms into a new kinship when he gives his daughter, Zipporah, to become Moses’ wife and later bear Moses his son Gershom. Moses now becomes a man of a third people and family and makes his home in the land of Midian away from the empire of Egypt and away from the oppression of the Hebrew people. His choices have led him to a new home away from the homes he knew. He once again is extended the unexpected saving hospitality of another and his life begins again. It will take God’s call to get him to reluctantly return to Egypt and become the one God uses to liberate the Israelites, and yet in his son’s name there is perhaps the longing for home and the identification of displacement he feels being an Egyptian and an Israelite in the household of the priest of Midian.
Exodus 2: 23-25: The God of the Israelites
23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.
Up to this point in Exodus we have seen a human drama where the Israelites and Egyptians have struggled to live within the fear of Pharaoh. But the God of the Israelites is a God who, like the midwives, Moses’ mother and sister, Pharaoh’s daughter, and ultimately Moses, sees and acts. Unlike the gods of the Egyptians or the many gods of the nations than will surround the Israelites in the promised land the God of Israel has an eye for the oppressed. The pivot of Exodus is here where God hears their cry, God remembers the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God takes notice and God decides to act.
The death of the king of Egypt doesn’t change the position of the Israelite people. Individual policies may have changed and the order to kill infants may not have continued but the people are reduced to cries and groans. They may be numerous but they also feel powerless in their captivity. The God of the Israelites, who is ultimately the God of the whole earth, will challenge the gods of Egypt and their emissaries to bring out of the empire of the day a slave people who might learn to be the covenant people of God.
Sign of the Rose 