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Lamentations – Lam 1:1-22 Part 1, The Lord was as an enemy

The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation – (Lam 2:5)

[Study Aired August 12, 2023]

The Lord’s direct juxtaposition of marital intimacies with positive and negative spiritual associations is undeniable. It is a major, if not the underpinning theme of the Bible, that sub-themes radiate. Marriage’s beautifully complementing sexuality is a temporary God-given aberration of the spirit of God, designed in mankind to reflect righteous and unrighteous spiritual connections. It all points to our deepest honor and respect for the order and belief in God’s headship.

At the end of the One Thousand-Year reign with the rod of iron, our sexuality is redundant ~ finished  with its assignment (Gal 3:15-28)

Every study’s purposeful and hopeful outcome is the ‘terrible blue crystal’ clarity. It started in Eden with nakedness and concludes with us clothed in lightning-white clothing.

Mat 28:3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

The book of Lamentations results from fickle Israel being against her Husband ever since leaving Egypt. When life is joyful and rich, we are powerfully inclined to celebrate with friends, and opposite-sex friends are always a part of the mix, or a spouse particularly offers greater righteous sensual celebrations. Unrighteous celebrations resulted in the “daughter of Judah” mournfully sitting alone, a widow. Yet, she always pleases herself to ‘snuff up the wind in her season’ (Jer 2:24) to reclaim the Lord’s name to console her lamentations. So, the dissolute and bitter cycle goes around and around until the Lord kisses us with the ‘wind’ (spirit) of His truth in the season when He pleases.

Celebration is fine if it glorifies our Husband. It results in us immersed in His breath of apples (Son 7:8).

Rom 14:6 He who regards the day regards it to the Lord; and he not regarding the day, does not regard it to the Lord. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, does not eat to the Lord, and gives God thanks.

The Book of Lamentations summarises our journey of disobedience and directs us to call on the Lord’s name for deliverance. Yet this book graphically highlights our utter inability to follow our Lord without God’s spirit. The last three verses of Lamentations reflect that bewildering dilemma.

Lam 5:20 Why do You forget us forever and forsake us the length of days? 
Lam 5:21 Return us to You, O Jehovah, and we will turn; renew our days as of old,
Lam 5:22 unless You have utterly rejected us; You are very angry against us. At our Lord’s table, let us give thanks and glorify him.

Perplexed, we throw up our hands and ask why He has forsaken us, then, we want to return to the riches that the flesh offered in Egypt and Babylon. Our demeanour is like King Agag coming ‘lightly’ before Samuel (1Sa 15), expecting Saul to overrule Samuel’s assurance of Agag’s death with a nod and wink for life ~ that our sins are nothing. We want to cajole the Lord’s anger into peace without our repentance.

Of course, with our Lord’s spirit within, we can conversely see those verses reflecting positively on a genuinely changed heart.

How Lonely Sits the City

Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! 
Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. 
Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. 
Lam 1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. 
Lam 1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
Lam 1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. 
Lam 1:7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. 
Lam 1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Lam 1:9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.
Lam 1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation. 
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile. 
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. 
Lam 1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. 
Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. 
Lam 1:15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. 
Lam 1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed. 
Lam 1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. 
Lam 1:18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.
Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls. 
Lam 1:20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death. 
Lam 1:21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. 
Lam 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. 

Interpretations:

The term “daughter of Judah” and “daughter of Zion” are one and the same; she is us who are becoming a faithful city after being harlots. Unfaithfulness is our failure to righteously walk our sexual correlations spiritually.

Isa 1:21 How has the faithful city become a harlot? It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers.

Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! [Tributary H4522 –  1. gang or body of forced labourers, task-workers, labour band or gang, forced service, task-work, serfdom, tributary, tribute, levy, taskmasters, discomfited From H4549 – 1. to dissolve, melt a. to waste way 2. to faint, grow fearful 3. wasted, worthless]

The spiritually discriminating saint will know that “city” was Old Jerusalem with the odd mournful owl now roosting in her once beautiful, now decimated, stained glass arches. The echoes of lying foxes yammer in the night, the sermons long gone.

No woman is more lonely than our former Babylonian selves moaning and groaning that we are not loved as we once sat lonely, waiting for our Lord to work physical wonders for sensual joy.

Isa 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
Isa 13:20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
Isa 13:21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs [hairy goat. To storm; shiver; dread] shall dance there.
Isa 13:22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons [lizards; serpents] in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Rev 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city [you and me; Old Jerusalem], which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt [Babylon], where also our Lord was crucified [within].

In verse one, she becomes “as a widow”, but she doesn’t believe she is one! She doesn’t realise that His death cancelled the marriage covenant, yet she still worships the dead Christ through her dead works of the flesh and doesn’t know it.

Rev 18:7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Luk 9:58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests [in Old Jerusalem within]; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Luk 9:59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 
Luk 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 
Luk 9:61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. 
Luk 9:62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

In August 2015, I wept sore in the night (as no doubt we all did) with tears upon my cheeks without a lover among any of my imagined friends whom I thought wanted to see the Lord’s truth; they all dealt treacherously with me and abandoned me ~ well, I abandoned them by not realising that it was the beginning of me coming out of Babylon and them rejecting my strange breath.

Job 19:15 They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. 
Job 19:16 I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth. 
Job 19:17 My breath [the newness of the Lord’s word] is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body. 
Job 19:18 Yea, young children [my own children unconsciously and my disappearing sins in my land] despised me; I arose, and they spake against me. 
Job 19:19  All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. 

Joh 15:18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 
Joh 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

We can glory in those hatreds, not because we are masochistic, but because it identifies us with Christ and the world’s hatred for His commands which we follow.

Mat 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

When we are dragged out of Babylon and look back, not lustfully but astonished for having been strongly deluded (2Th 2:1-12), our weeping turns into Shulamite joy. We escape the slavery of Sodom, Egypt and Babylon that is the old Daughter of Zion in the flesh, and in the new light of the word, take pleasure in afflictions and fiery trials that we know will build gold in the Lord’s temple.

Lam 1:3 Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. 
Lam 1:4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

The priests of God, the Lord’s budding Elect, Judah, have gone into captivity in Christ. None of our former friends in Babylon come to ‘the Jesus’ table, His feast, to eat the true bread of life. We eat up the “little book” of which John in Revelations speaks and are given to understand its bitterness that dramatically turns into joy. All that the daughter of Judah experienced (us before being dragged to Christ) was a bitter experience of evil flesh that the new daughter, the Bride of Christ, is filled with the joy of understanding that is better than wine.

Rev 10:9 And I went to the angel and said to him, Give me the little book. And he said to me, Take it and eat it up, and it will make your belly bitter, but it will be sweet as honey in your mouth.
Rev 10:10 And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it up. And it was sweet as honey in my mouth, and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter.
Rev 10:11 And he said to me, You must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.

The old Zion within is done mourning and lying back on her couch, waiting for her lovers to awaken her torrid desires yet remaining bewilderedly torpid. Our virgins within are tearfully afflicted, wondering why our husband in the flesh is bitter. In time, we are given to experience our spiritual Husband’s arousing kisses (Son 1:2-7). The culmination of those kisses His wife gives to her children in the chastising resurrection to judgment.

Lam 1:5 Her enemies have become as chief; her haters are at ease; for Jehovah has afflicted her for the multitude of her sins. Her children have gone, captive before the enemy.

The stolen waters of fornication are sweet until the next day when we as a woman realise our folly. In contemporary terms, we cry ‘rape’, and the next morning feel stabbed through our liver with a dart, and we now sue our cohort for his violation of our imagined purity.

Deu 22:23 If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, 
Deu 22:24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them with stones that they die; the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has humbled his neighbor’s wife. So you shall put away evil from among you. 

Isa 30:1 Woe to the rebellious sons, says Jehovah, who make advice, but not of Me; and who cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit, that they add sin to sin; 
Isa 30:2 those who set out to go down to Egypt and have not asked at My mouth; to take refuge in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! 
Isa 30:3 Therefore the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your curse.

Lam 1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty has departed. Her rulers have become like bucks: they find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

Rachel is, in type, the “daughter of Zion” who felt her beauty had departed. Her sister, Leah, ruled humiliation over her for being barren. Leah’s ten “bucks” in Babylon waxed fat in their green pasture, not realising their food was to become moldy. Rachel, as we sometimes do, felt defeated and unloved before Leah (Babylonian family and friends), her pursuer.

Like Rachel, we impulsively strike out at our Lord for Him not validating our beauty by our measures; and imagine ourselves barren for not changing more rapidly than we expect. We easily forget that Christ is building His temple within us and awakening our love in His timing.

Gen 30:1 And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. And she said to Jacob, Give me sons, or else I will die.
Gen 30:2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel. And he said, Am I in God’s stead, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? 
Gen 30:3 And she said, Behold my slave woman Bilhah; go in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, and yea, let me be built up from her, me also.

Lam 1:7 In the days of her affliction and her wandering Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from previous days; when her people fell into the hand of the foe; and there is no ally for her. The foes saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

As carnally expressed in the prelude, we remember our Vashti-like beauty and, too late, don’t see the coming rejection.

There will be nothing more humiliating for us to experience than to revel in our God-given beauty without bringing forth righteous children and thus miss out on the First Resurrection. Our unconverted family and friends (foes) will laugh at our disgrace. We will thus be naked, and the world will see death beneath our skirts and the desecration of our orchard, our vineyard that brought forth rotten fruit. We will not be comforted!

Mat 2:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

The following verses all speak about our fornication we didn’t reject. Like Solomon showing the Queen of Sheba all the temple treasury, it is not wise to flaunt our inheritance before family, friends and dogs.

Lam 1:8  Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has been removed. All knowing her despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.
Lam 1:9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not remember her end, and has gone down astoundingly. There is no comforter for her. O Jehovah, behold my affliction, for the enemy has magnified himself. 
Lam 1:10 The enemy has spread out his hand upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the nations enter her holy place, whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation.
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to relieve the soul. See, O Jehovah, and look on me, for I have become vile.
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, with which Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.
Lam 1:13 From above He has sent fire into my bones and it has laid them low. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me amazed and faint all the day.

Thankfully, our Lord does comfort us by sending fire into our bones. Our heart was a snare and net and hands like bands (Ecc 7:26) for our Lord that He has reversed, and we look back in amazement and temporarily faint at our humiliation. However, our Lord will patiently raise us up into heavenly places.

Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. 
Jas 4:10 Be humbled before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Joh 16:21 The woman has grief when she bears, because her hour has come. But when she brings forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, because of the joy that a man is born into the world. 
Joh 16:22 And therefore you now have sorrow. But I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; Jehovah has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.
Lam 1:15 Jehovah has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. Jehovah has trod the virgin daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
Lam 1:16 For these I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who could refresh my soul is far from me. My sons are desolated because the enemy prevails.

Our bones being burned with fire and bodies trodden in the winepress until our blood runs deep unto the horse’s bridle sounds terrifying; it is terrifying to the babes in Christ. It all is part of our dragging from exile in Babylon.

Even though we are a bunch of harlots in Babylon, our coming out of her at our Lord’s hand causes Him to attribute virginity to us. Just as the faithful city becomes a harlot, she becomes a virgin.

Lam 1:17 Zion [daughter old Jerusalem] spreads forth her hands; none is comforting to me; Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.
Lam 1:18 Jehovah is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. I beseech you, all peoples, hear and behold my sorrow. My virgins and my young men went into exile.

The Lord’s people do get immeasurable comfort from reflecting upon our former lamentations when we return to Him with our entire heart.

Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, says Jehovah; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. 
Isa 1:19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 
Isa 1:20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of Jehovah has spoken. 

Jer 29:11 For I know the purposes which I am purposing for you, says Jehovah; purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jer 29:12 Then you shall call on Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 
Jer 29:13 And you shall seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 
Jer 29:14 And I will be found by you, says Jehovah; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Jehovah. And I will bring you again into the place from where I caused you to be exiled.

Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food for them to bring back their life.

How spiritually poetically true is verse 19?! All sensual joys of the flesh deceive us to lust for more. We don’t want to consider that they are all vanity of vanities (Ecc 1:2-11) as Solomon ultimately ‘lamented’. Yet, that is the only dirty trough water (Jas 3:11-13) we had in Babylon as we dipped our sop in the blood of Christ’s death, ignorantly thinking we were saved by the letter of the law. 

Lord willing, let’s not be like Judas and Queen Vashti learning their fate too late as their inward parts dissolved. It is incredibly wise to authentically acknowledge our sins before our accusor before we mourn our house of death. Nonetheless, mourning that produces righteousness is infinitely superior to mirth in a house of revelling.

Ecc 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made better. 
Ecc 7:4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of laughter. 
Ecc 7:5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. 

Lam 1:20 Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in trouble; my inward parts ferment; my heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. On the outside the sword bereaves; in the house it is as death.
Lam 1:21 They hear that I sigh; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard my evil; they are glad that You have done it. You will bring the day that You have called, and they shall be like me.
Lam 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before You; and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint. 

The initial dreadful lamenting of our humiliations matures into gladness since we are given to see the future and the Lord’s reasoning behind His tailored trials. By waiting and enduring the pain and suffering, we will look upon our inherited family, the world, in the Resurrection to Judgment with Joseph’s mixture of emotions. We will be ecstatic that the world’s children are nearing their spiritual birth, yet, no doubt, a little angry against their sin, as the Lord was against ours.

Indeed, “the Lord was as an enemy,” and he still is anytime we fall short of His commands, teaching [i.e. chastening – paideuō] us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world – Tit 2:11.

Rom 5:20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, [scourging, chastening, rebuking] grace did much more abound:

Heb 12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Amo 6:1 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

Joh 15:15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.