Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 177
I M M E R S E D I N L A M E N TAT I O N S
I N 5 8 7 b c , the city of Jerusalem was attacked and overrun by the Babylonians. The great Temple of Solomon was utterly destroyed, and
most of the population was either killed or taken captive. A few poor
stragglers were left behind in the rubble. It was an event that shook
the people of God to their core, because their suffering and loss was
immense. But the disaster also raised larger questions about God’s
relationship to his people and the future of their story together. If God’s
people are now scattered and God’s chosen place of worship has been
demolished, how can his work in the world go forward?
The book of Lamentations speaks to the experience of God’s people
while still in the midst of deep suffering (in contrast to many laments
in Psalms that conclude with words of hope or thanksgiving). The five
poems are set in what’s left of the city of Jerusalem after its destruction. (Tradition identifies the prophet Jeremiah as the author of these
poems, though the book itself does not identify who wrote them.)
God’s enemies have triumphed over God’s people, who are now suffering atrocities and deprivations that can barely be described. All of
this raises serious questions about God himself. Where is the God revealed in Psalms as “our refuge and strength, always ready to help in
times of trouble”?
The subject matter is so difficult to handle that the poems in Lamentations are among the most tightly arranged in the Bible. It’s as if only
an orderly structure can hold the sorrow, doubt, and despair together
long enough to be offered to God as a desperate prayer. Most of these
poems are acrostics, meaning that their stanzas begin with the twentytwo consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The stanzas have three
lines each, and in the third poem each individual line begins with the
same letter, the pattern tightening to the extreme. But after that, the
pattern doesn’t hold together. The fourth poem has two-line stanzas,
with the acrostic sequence followed only in the first line of each stanza.
And the final poem consists of twenty-two single lines from which the
acrostic pattern disappears completely, as if the power of the poet to
speak order into the situation fades in the face of its enormity and the
only remaining response is silence.
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