Isaiah 22:1 - Meaning and Application

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Since Solomon says something that goes against common opinion, but is still true, sorrow is better than laughter, and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, we should come to this sad book willing and ready to learn from it. We should also prepare ourselves for holy sorrow and resolve to weep with the weeping prophet.

1. The title of this book
In Hebrew, the book has a title taken from its first word, like the books of Moses. That word is Ecah, meaning “How.” But Jewish commentators call it, as the Greeks do, and as we do from them, Lamentations. Just as there are holy songs of joy, there are also holy songs of grief. God uses many different kinds of writing to work on our hearts, stir our feelings, and soften us so that his truth can leave its mark on us, like a seal pressed into wax. Jesus said, “We have piped to you, and you have not danced; we have mourned to you, and you have not wept” (Matthew 11:17).

2. The writer of this book
This book was written by Jeremiah the prophet, who here appears as Jeremiah the poet. The word prophet can refer to both. That is why this book fits beside his prophecy, almost like an appendix to it. In the prophecy, we heard his warnings about the ruin of Judah and Jerusalem. Here we see the sorrow he felt when those things came to pass, which shows that his earlier claims were sincere. He truly did not want that terrible day, but instead the thought of it filled him with grief.

When Jeremiah saw these troubles from far away, he wished that his head were filled with water and his eyes with tears. When the disaster actually came, he proved that he had meant what he said. He also showed that he was not against his own country, as his enemies claimed. Even though his country had treated him badly, and even though its ruin proved that he had been a true prophet and that they had been punished for treating him as a false one, he still mourned deeply. In this, he showed a better spirit than Jonah showed toward Nineveh.

3. The reason for the book
The cause of these Lamentations was the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldean army, that is, the Babylonian army, and with that the ruin of the Jewish state, both civil and religious. Some rabbis think these were the lamentations Jeremiah wrote for Josiah’s death, mentioned in 2 Chronicles 35:25. It is true that Josiah’s death opened the way for the later disasters, but this book seems to have been written after those disasters had already happened, not before them. There is also nothing here about Josiah, though his praise would surely have belonged in a lament for him. No, this is a funeral song for Jerusalem.

Others think these Lamentations were part of the scroll that Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, wrote down from Jeremiah’s words and that Jehoiakim burned. They say the first, second, and fourth chapters were in it at first, and that the third and fifth were added later. But that idea has no solid basis. Scripture says that scroll was a summary and repetition of Jeremiah’s sermons (Jeremiah 36:2).

4. The form of the book
This book is poetic, and it is also alphabetical, except for the fifth chapter, much like some of David’s psalms. Each verse begins with a different letter in order of the Hebrew alphabet, first aleph, then beth, and so on. The third chapter is a triple alphabet, where the first three verses begin with aleph, the next three with beth, and so on. This helped people memorize it, since these sorrowful songs were meant to be learned by heart. It was also a literary beauty that people valued then, and it should not be dismissed now.

In the second, third, and fourth chapters, the letter pe comes before ain, even though the normal Hebrew order is the other way around. Dr. Lightfoot suggests a reason for this: the letter ain, which is the number letter for seventy, was moved out of place to make it stand out. That would remind them of the seventy years after which God would bring back their captivity.

5. The use of the book
This book was surely very useful to faithful Jews in their suffering. It gave them words to express their natural grief in a godly way. It helped keep Zion fresh in their memory, even for their children who had never seen it while living in Babylon. It also taught them to direct their tears rightly, to mourn over sin and to mourn before God. At the same time, it encouraged their hope that God would still return and show them mercy.

It is useful for us as well, because it moves us to feel godly sorrow for the troubles of God’s church, as people who belong to it and are resolved to take our place with it.