Lamentations Chapter 4

The Holy Stones Lie Scattered

• Lamentations 4:1  How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. 
• 2  The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! 

All the beauty and design of the temple is in ruins. All for nothing. The spiritual condition of the nation has wasted away. Even the gold is dim and of no value.

This is a picture of a person with no faith, no hope and is without the presence and knowledge of God. Our lives become meaningless without God. We labor, work and even accumulate wealth but it's all for nothing. When we forsake God, our nation is doomed. We need God folks. We need the one He sent to save us from destruction. His name is Jesus. Yeshua in Hebrew.

He brought me out of the miry clay, He set my feet on the rock to stay. He puts a song in my soul today. A song of praise Hallelujah. A course from a song written my Henry J. Zelley in 1898. Jesus will make us well again.

• Lamentations 4:3  Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. 
• 4  The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. 

Their children are starving in the streets like ostriches that lays eggs and then leaves them, not caring what happens to them. Their survival is left to chance. Some survive, some to not.

• Lamentations 4:5  They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. 
• 6  For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. 
• 7  Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: 
• 8  Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. 

Sodom was judged severely and destroyed because of their sin and their pride in thinking that were justified in that sin, yet the sin of those that once knew God but forsake Him is worse because they know better. In fact Jesus mentions this.

• Mark 6:10  And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place. 
• 11  And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. 
• 12  And they went out, and preached that men should repent. 

Jesus told His disciples to preach the gospel of repentance and whoever did not receive them or hear them, would have it worse on the judgment day than Sodom. We can't just preach to let Jesus in our hearts and not turn away or repent of sin.

• Lamenations 4:9  They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. 
• 10  The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. 

They were so deep into idolatry that they would sacrifice their own children to idols. This is why this type of judgment came. When they began to starve from lack of food they would boil their own children. Yet in all this, it didn't have to be this way. God has a better way for us to live.

• Lamentations 4:11  The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof. 
• 12  The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. 
• 13  For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, 
• 14  They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. 
• 15  They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there. 

They were once a great strong nation. God defended them from their enemies. Under King David they prospered. The nation of Israel was united. Now the others nations are astonished by their ruin. Even their priests and prophets were defiled shedding innocent blood.

• Lamentations 4:16  The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders. 
• 17  As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us. 

Other nations could not help when God turned away from them because of their sin.

• Lamentations 4:18  They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. 
• 19  Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. 
• 20  The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. 

They went into captivity from the nation of Babylon.

• Lamentations 4:21  Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. 
• 22  The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

Edom that rejoiced at the captivity of Judah and Israel, later went into captivity themselves. In the latter days after the great tribulation, Christ will come and save Israel. That is when they will be victorious and reign with Christ over the whole world. DC

Lamentations Chapter 5