“The LORD himself has scattered them; he no longer watches over them. The priests are shown no honor, the elders no favor.”
~ Lamentations 4:16
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you ever feel like you are failing at whatever you try to do? How do you think that Jeremiah felt after he saw his city – which was the city of Jerusalem, invaded, pillaged and probably most of the guys and gals who had been living in the city of Jerusalem taken away as exiles to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army. Jeremiah lamented or grieved. Tradition has it that Jeremiah wrote a series of five poems or odes that were compiled in a tome called Lamentations in which Jeremiah candidly pours out his raw, dejected feelings. Jeremiah had been given the unenviable task and responsibility by God to warn His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem of their pending doom. Jeremiah for forty years argued God’s case in front of God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah witnessed at times that a message that God had given him to pass on to His specially chosen guys and gals as an ultimate warning was heard and obeyed. It is now 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army have done exactly what Jeremiah had hoped would never happen – but that he probably knew in his heart would invariably happen one day; seeing his city – which was the city of Jerusalem, being ransacked by Babylonian army soldiers. Many of the guys and gals who were still alive who were living in the city of Jerusalem after the Babylonian army had done a number on the city were taken away as exiles by the Babylonian army to their country of Babylonia. Lamentations 4 is probably Jeremiah reflecting on the days right before the Babylonian army breached the walls that surrounded the city of Jerusalem. Even though Jeremiah could acquiesce to God being in control by what he scribed in verse 16 “The LORD himself has scattered them; he no longer watches over them. The priests are shown no honor, the elders no favor.”, Jeremiah seems to have trouble wiping out from of his mind the last scenes in his city – which was the city of Jerusalem, before the Babylonian army put his city out of its misery. God – as God the Spirit, breathed on Jeremiah to record some of the gory details of those last days before the Babylonian army – which was doing what God had predestined for them do, made 586 B.C. a year of infamy for the Israelite people group guys and gals who God had established as His specially chosen guys and gals and a year of humiliation for a city – the city of Jerusalem, that had become the center of God’s earthly kingdom.
As Jeremiah reflected on the bygone days of God’s specially chosen guys and gals who had been living in the city of Jerusalem, Jeremiah used pure gold and sacred gems to symbolize how God had once looked at His specially chosen guys and gals. Jeremiah laments that the pure gold – which once symbolized God’s specially chosen guys and gals, had lost its luster and that God’s specially chosen guys and gals had become in God’s eyes dull looking. Jeremiah laments that the sacred gems – which once symbolized God’s specially chosen guys and gals, had become scattered among a foreign nation of guy and gals. Jeremiah laments that the guys and gals who God specially chose for Himself and who He made as precious as gold, He now sees these guys and gals as being no more valuable than a piece of clay in the hands of a potter. Jeremiah laments about what life had been like during the last days of survival for the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem before Babylonian army’s soldiers did what God had fated them to do. Jeremiah had witnessed his compatriots – who were the guys and gals who had been living with him in the city of Jerusalem, change from being loving and caring dads and mas to becoming heartless animals. Jeremiah had witnessed babies and kids of his fellow citizens – who were the guys and gals who had been living with him in the city of Jerusalem, having to suffer because there was nothing for them to drink, turning to begging for bread because there was no longer any bread in their homes for them to eat and being cooked and eaten by their mas because of how famished their mas had become. Jeremiah had witnessed the city of Jerusalem change from being a place where delicacies could easily be found to a place where there was nothing but destitution and ash heaps, from being a place where the city leaders had been the healthiest looking guys in the place to where the city leaders could no longer be recognized because they had become so skinny and shriveled from a lack of food and from being a place where living had been fun to a place where dying was preferred over living.
Would you have liked to have been kids who were living in the city of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. right before Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army were finally able to break through the thick walls of your city – which would have been the city of Jerusalem? There are kids everywhere on planet Earth who are trying to survive as street kids. Some of these kids who are living as street kids are no longer wanted by their mas as their mas can no longer feed them. There are kids everywhere on planet Earth who are helping their dads and mas survive. After your grandmaa and grandpaa in 1978 moved with your dad and Aunt Lynn into a house in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, your grandpaa would walk almost every morning to a nearby outdoor market where your grandpaa would buy food and whatever else that your grandmaa and grandpaa needed to subsist in their house. When your grandpaa showed up at the Pari outdoor market, a kid would invariably ask your grandpaa if he could carry your grandpaa’s plastic bags of food and whatever else that your grandpaa might have bought. The kid expected that your grandpaa would give him a peso – equal to a few cents, for carrying your grandpaa’s plastic bags. You need to consider yourselves blessed!
Lamentations 4 (598)