Lamentations; 2 Kings 25:22-26; Jeremiah 39:11 – 44:30; 2 Chronicles 36:17-21

There are clear parallels between Jerusalem and Jesus the Christ. As we consider the lamentations of Jeremiah and the reality of the start of a divinely-enforced 70-year sabbath for the land, we begin to see the city where Yahweh tabernacled as parable of what was to come. Consider then what we can now see with hindsight.

As with Jesus, Jerusalem was stricken for the sins of someone else. The walls and the homes and the temple were innocent. Nevertheless, the wrath of God fell upon Jerusalem and she died a brutal death.

“The Lord rejected all my mighty men in my midst; he summoned an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah. “For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me, one to revive my spirit; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”

Lamentation 1:15-16

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:5-6

As with Jesus, Jerusalem became an object of mockery and scorn. The esteem from the days when multitudes came to see Him and listen to His wisdom was gone on the day of His crucifixion So, too, the glory days of Jerusalem under David and Solomon were distant memories when the nations rejoiced at her downfall after so many seasons when she seemed untouchable.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her foes gloated over her; they mocked at her downfall.

Lamentations 1:7

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:7-9

As with Jesus, Jerusalem was humiliated. In the act of crucifixion the Romans took away all dignity a man possessed. All who beheld Jesus as He died saw His humanity stripped away.

all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness;

Lamentations 1:8

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:3

As with Jesus, Jerusalem would rise again. When the lament of Jeremiah was written the future appeared bleak. As with Jesus, the ordeal of Jerusalem was the divine plan of God for a greater purpose. By the determined foreknowledge of God, Jesus was given over into the hands of evil men. The sacrifice of Jesus was the plan from the foundation of the world so that mankind could be redeemed in His resurrection. Babylon was the instrument of God in dealing with Jerusalem … until glory returned.

He has laid waste his booth like a garden, laid in ruins his meeting place; the LORD has made Zion forget festival and Sabbath, and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest. The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD as on the day of festival. The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

Lamentations 2:6-9

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:10-12

Five hundred years later, fulfilling the prophecies of Micah and Isaiah, the mountain of the House of the LORD would be establish in Jerusalem and the word would flow unto all of the world and the nations would stream back to her. But, first, she would die, lie silently in her tomb before she would burst forth into new life. Just like Jesus.

Consider His nature.  Consider His ways.  Strive to love Him more!