Lamentations 1
March 11, 2024 11:40 AM
Solitary Man
solitaryman.substack.com
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Lam 1:1 How doth the city sit solitary (alone, desolate), 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!
This epic poem of lamentation begins with the first chapter consisting of 2 main parts. The first 11 verses is Jeremiah bewailing the fate of Jerusalem. The last 11 verses is the city itself declaiming her miseries. Each verse is divided into three lines, each line beginning, in the Hebrew, with the same letter.
Jerusalem is first and foremost depicted as a weeping female, bereaved of her husband, with no one to comfort, or even to mourn with her. No surrounding nation, indeed, no one at all showed any sorrow over her destruction. At one time she had a great reputation. She had friends, or at least those who respected her. She was the head, and not the tail. Now that she has fell so low, it’s as if her former associates had never heard of her.
Isn’t that the way of the world? When you are at the top, everyone wants to be your friend. When you fall from grace, most people act like they want nothing to do with you. Even in the church, those who have fallen are usually shunned and forced to leave. How many souls who were abandoned in their time of trouble have been eternally lost because of our unwillingness to forgive, or to be associated with a fallen soul, as it may hurt our social standing? The church has much to account for.
Personal application aside, let us try and enter into the mind and heart of the prophet. For 41 years Jeremiah has been warning Judah over and over that judgment is coming. He was mistreated time and time again. Very, very few listened and heeded the word. So, what he said has now come to pass. Not only did he have to live the judgment message for 40 years, but he actually had to experience it for himself. You would think having a heart filled with such negative things would of been enough of a task to satisfy God. Yet he had him experience all the horrors of those pronouncements first hand.
I can see Jeremiah sitting on some wall, watching Jerusalem burn while the Babylonian soldiers carry on the work of total destruction. Burning, looting, pillaging and raping. Torturing and murdering. Revelling in drunkenness and depravity, as only victorious soldiers can do. Being strangely protected by the order of Nebuchadnezzar himself, Jeremiah himself was safe, but none of his countrymen were. He had to watch all of them suffer the loss of everything. I suppose to keep from going mad, God inspired him to express the anguish of his heart in this poetical dirge. Often writing or expressing what we are going through can help us to get through the misery and sorrow of our situation.
Lam 1:2 She weepeth sore (baw-kaw baw-kaw) 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.
We are invited to enter into the depth of emotion that the prophet is experiencing. I am sure this book must have struck a familiar chord to many who have undergone their own personal times of crisis and despair, when all seems to be lost. Yet we have never had the opportunity here in North America to experience such a similar set of circumstances on a national scale as Judah had.
We all intuitively understand that it is simply a matter of time before our nation comes crashing down just like Judah. Already it is so easy to lose heart at the senseless loss of all that is good and true in our lands. While God is judging us in his own unique way, we know that there really is no place that we can turn to for help. All our allies have their own crisis, their own downfalls to deal with. Former allies have now turned away from us. In Judah’s case, they had made alliances with countries like Egypt. Once Judah’s downfall was certain, no one would claim to be her friend, lest they jeopardize their own safety. Indeed, any promises made to her were not kept, and old friends ended up betraying her.
Since America is the great power of the world today, the exact parallel of allies may not hold as strongly, since all western nations are falling under a similar sentence of judgment. However, even in Judah’s day, most nations also fell under the dominance of the Babylonians. When tribulation comes, it’s usually every man for himself.
That is an inevitable truth. The more important precept for us to grasp is that on an individual basis in the body of Christ, will we end up acting just like the world? Will be abandon all our friends in their time of need? How many pastors abandoned the flock during covid? Almost all of them. They told them it was ok to not gather together. To poison themselves and their children. To separate themselves from the unvaxxed. To persecute them, even. Then after it ended, they went back to their normal programming, and acted as if nothing had ever happened.
What I find most disturbing since 2020 is the fact that I have not heard of even one pastor or church or denomination apologize to the people for making the wrong choice. While I find it hard to believe that any true believer could of been taken in by the demonic, lie filled, coercive, oppressive, diabolical, illegal narrative of the government concerning the pandemic, and all the mandates and especially the shots, I can agree that at least some were deceived. Most simply loved the free money to stay closed. Most proved that they knew not the Lord, so they easily embraced the lie, being of the world, just like all the sheeple out there.
But why aren’t there any pastors out there who were fooled and now have had their eyes opened? Why aren’t they repenting? Why won’t they apologize? Is it because they are afraid it would ruin their ministry? That the big donors would leave? That they hope to just sweep it all under the rug? Or have all the pastors who fell for the big lie been permanently blinded by God forever?
These are scary thoughts. Those who we thought were on our side have shown their true colors. When you have so called pastors teaching that it is a great example of loving thy neighbour to inject yourself and your children with an experimental gene therapy that turns you into a snake venom producing factory, then that is where I draw the line at mutual fellowship!
Seriously, was that the best example that you could come up with to demonstrate obedience to the second great commandment?
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.
The sense of this verse may mean something like this: Judah has been stripped of everything, she is in misery and depression, in great bondage, dwelling amongst the Gentile heathen. There is no rest or quiet, no sense of home. Those who chased after her with evil intent caught up to her and caused her to be squeezed into a distressingly tight space.
Can we not see the parallels to what we are facing today? Does it not feel like we are being squeezed from every side? Whether it’s new oppressive, freedom killing laws, or our borders being overrun, or our skies being sprayed with poison, or our schools overrun with the sexually deranged, or our police forces turning against their own citizens, our sense of tranquility that comes with living free is being squeezed out of our lives. Reality is leaving us with a greater and greater sense of unease. We know what is coming. We can see it before our very eyes. And deep down, we know that we are utterly helpless as individuals to do much about it. Except pray. Except make the choice to do the only logical thing left to us – develop our total trust in our savior, and try to learn to really commit every aspect of our future into his capable hands.
Lam 1:4 The ways (deh-rek – road or course of life) of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts (moa-dah or moadin – the appointed times): all her gates are desolate (stunned, stupified): her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
Here the word deh-rek may primarily be taken literally – as a physical road. All the roads to Zion mourn, as no one travels them anymore. The appointed feasts of the Lord are no more. Depopulation tends to do this. Whether priest or virgin, 2 of the more consecrated groups to the Lord, they are in terrible distress. Bitterness refers to bitterness of spirit – no joy or gladness at such an awful hour.
I am a Zionist, because God is a Zionist. If the world hates something, I tend to love it. Zionism has been turned into a euphemism of evil. If you are a Zionist, then you are cabal, according to all the non-believing freedom fighters out there. Well, you can go ahead and side with all the muslims and the mainstream media if you want and use the word Zionism as an excuse to hate the Jews, but I believe I will pass.
Now we can see how the appointed times of Christmas and Easter were especially singled out by the cabal as holidays that must be shut down during the plandemic. Whatever your personal feelings on the appropriateness of Christians celebrating these days, the world certainly thinks that they were the two most important days of the year to destroy from people’s consciousness going forward. Anything that reminds the world about Jesus was targeted, and will be targeted in the future.
In tribulation and judgment, people are scrambling to survive. I think we don’t see widespread repentance yet because the judgments have not been severe enough. People still think they have options, so they are bending all their energy into trying to salvage their situations. Only when there are absolutely no options left may we see people coming back and meeting God in the appointed place of the prayer closet. I pray that they find that closet before it’s too late.
Lam 1:5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions (peh-shah – rebellions, moral revolt): her children (o-lawl – suckling, infant) are gone into captivity before the enemy.
Does this not perfectly describe our world today? When Americans protested on Jan 6, 2021, what happened? Their enemies triumphed. When the truckers protested in Feb, 2022, the enemy trampled upon us (literally). Yet we are clearly told that Yehovah afflicted us for our rebellions. And to prove just how comprehensive the judgment is, God specifically mentions that the most innocent of all of us, the infants, are taken captive. How has that come to pass? By the shots being given to 6 month olds. As if all the other childhood shots were not bad enough, these frail, vulnerable bodies are now given the king of all bio-weapons before they even learn to walk!
Lam 1:6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty (magnificence) is departed: her princes (rulers) are become like harts (male deer) that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer (persecutor).
Whatever made us desirable has now departed. America and Canada were once looked upon as the most desirable places in the world to live. Almost everyone wanted to come here. Now more and more (especially in Canada), people are starting to flee this beautiful land. Our rulers are really rulers no more. They have been replaced with soulless puppets. Our real leaders, such as some of the freedom fighters, have no strength. Because the courts are corrupted, they cannot get justice. They mostly end up wasting their time and resources in fruitless endeavours, trying to win cases that in normal times would be a slam dunk, but today are virtually impossible to succeed in.
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 (saw-khak – laugh, scorn) at her sabbaths (mish-bawth – cessation, destruction).
Mish-bawth is only found here. Because it is related to the word used for Sabbaths, there is near unanimity that it means that the heathen mocked the Jews for their Sabbath keeping. Now that their lands and homes were totally destroyed, they could sit back and keep all the Sabbaths that they wanted. Heathens looked upon Sabbath and other holiday observances as a form of laziness, so now they could really make fun of them.
However the main point of this verse is that we don’t appreciate all the good things of life until they are taken away. Looking back, do you remember the days of air travel before 911? How you were actually treated as an important paying customer, whom the airlines treated well, as someone who they hoped would come again and do more business with? After 911, we are all treated like potential terrorists, being frisked and scanned and x-rayed up the wazoo. Even today, we are still groped and grabbed, while every sort of vile creature can hop across our border with not so much as a glance, and given all the money they need to go wherever they want in our land, no questions asked.
Don’t you miss the days when you never saw anyone with a face diaper? How it disturbs me to still see so many religiously wearing these abominations of slavery, professing undying love to the cult of Fauci. How about the days when the only men you’d see in dresses were named Flip Wilson or Milton Berle? Now we have these walking, talking abominations in high office in our lands. I could go on and on. We all can recall some of our favorite things, forever gone, never to return again.
When the day of calamity came, Jerusalem found out she had no friends. Do we think anyone will come to our rescue? The rest of the world has waited for this day, for the west to fall, so they can pounce on our bones and pick our carcasses clean.
Lam 1:8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed (exiled): all that honoured her despise (quake at her, see her as worthless) her, because they have seen her nakedness (disgrace, uncleanness): yea, she sigheth, and turneth (shoob) backward.
Finally, my old friend the shoob has come out of hiding and made an appearance! How God wanted his people to shoob in the book of Jeremiah! Yet a shoob is only a good shoob if the direction of the shoob is the correct one. In this case, Jerusalem has shoobed backward. Not good.
Grievous sins require grievous punishments. America used to be the beacon of righteousness and morality. A city shining on a hill. The common man longed for her. The tyrants were terrified of her. She used to be the policeman of the world. Now she has become the moral cesspool of humanity. It begins with her sexual morality, or the utter lack of it. They go around lecturing the world about transgenderism and alphabet people’s pride. It used to be that people groups like the muslims had no moral ground to stand on, when they lied about the Christian west. Now they don’t have to lie about the moral degeneracy of our nations. We have far surpassed anyone in sexual degeneracy of all kinds.
Whatever you may believe about Russia and Putin, one should take the time and listen to his state of the union address this last month. When our leaders speak, they emphasize wokeness, racism, equity, climate change, diversity and inclusion. When Putin spoke, he spoke of the importance of family, and crafting tax policies that encouraged having as many children as possible. He knows that a country’s children are their greatest asset. In the west, we are trying to kill them. If we can’t kill them, we want to castrate them. If we can’t castrate them, we want to sterilize them. If we can’t sterilize them, we want to destroy their immune systems. If we can’t do any of that, then we want to brand them as having white privilege, label them as racists and white supremacists, and encourage them to hate themselves, and in Canada at least, offer them MAID (medical assistance in dying) at every possible opportunity.
Which system would you choose? Who do you think God regards as most evil?
Lam 1:9 Her filthiness (toom-aw – religious impurity) is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end (where she will end up); therefore she came down wonderfully (miraculously): she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction (depression, misery, trouble): for the enemy hath magnified himself.
As you may of begun to notice, I feel led to really emphasize the way this book describes the actual events of our time. Never before has Jerusalem’s sorrow been so realistically painted for us as when the plandemic exploded on the world’s doorstep.
Let us examine this verse closely. The word toom-aw is used 36 times in the bible. The vast majority is found in Leviticus, denoting various forms of ceremonial impurity. What has been the root cause of all our grief? Marxism in the universities? A lust for wealth and comfort? Crony capitalism?
None of those things. Uncleanness and impurity in the church. Our doctrines were unclean. Our doctrinal filthiness pervaded the pulpits, preaching pious platitudes of unparalleled prosperity, pure pablum for the impious in the pews. The result? A complete abandonment of the inviolable truth of ultimate judgment. We remembered not where these heresies would cause us to end up. The chasing of wealth, and justifying it with heretical teachings, guaranteed that the deh-rek that we took would end up where we did in 2020. Total judgment.
What was surprising was the miraculous nature of our downfall. We all know how completely incompetent any large governmental organization is. You can plan any project. Inevitably, it is always late and over budget. Yet in 2020, all the countries of the world had an unbelievably synchronized response to the so called pandemic. All acted in lockstep. All were absolutely ruthless in imposing similar, if not identical, mandates, and soul crushing directives. Then the entire world did all it could to shove the bio-weapons down all of humanity’s throats. And the comprehensive global nature of the propaganda of all things viral was truly breathtaking. They made the vast majority of humanity throw their brains away. As a result, apparently over 70% of all humans took at least one shot of deadly poison. Who could of foreseen anything that would cause over two thirds of all humanity to act the same way? How could this happen? The only way was supernaturally. God made it happen. He sent us strong delusion, and thus it was so.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that what we have witnessed was every bit as stupendously miraculous as the parting of the Red Sea, or the levelling of Sodom and Gomorrah. In no reality could mankind ever of acted in such lockstep, and keep continuing to do so.
Those of us who were not fooled have no one on our side. We have been labelled enemies of humanity. Even as people take their 5th booster and are dying off, they are still posting insane comments about how they hate those unvaxxed creatures, as they waste away in their hospital bed.
The enemy is indeed boasting at what they’ve done. They’re boasting by not even pretending to hide what they are doing. They know that with the majority of brains now completely fried, and with ever increasing censorship, they can post their genocidal plans right out in the open, and they truly believe nothing can stop them now.
The horrid truth is that they are right. Nothing, except the living God. That is why we need to do one thing and one thing only. Beseech the courts of heaven day and night and give him no rest until he comes to our aid. Jesus gave us the parable of the unjust judge, for such a time as this. If a wicked judge may do the right thing, just to get an annoying person off their back, will not our gracious heavenly father eventually come to our help, as long as we faint not in our petitions?
Lam 1:10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant (makh-mawd) things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.
This speaks of the plundering of the temple. The unclean were never to enter where the holy things of God are to be found. That is why it is such a detestable act to wilfully inject yourself with something that you know is a severe poison. Most did it for the stupidest of reasons. To be able to travel. To go to the bar. To go to grandma’s funeral. To be able to go to my family’s thanksgiving supper. To keep my job. To not be criticized on social media. To keep my friends. And on and on and on.
Who is our adversary? Satan. He has stretched out his hand and everything he touched has brought death. If you allow the devil to touch your body, the temple of the Lord, you will be defiled. The Holy Spirit cannot abide an unclean vessel. He will eventually depart if you do not repent. Does that mean that someone who took the jab in ignorance and now repented will lose the Holy Spirit? Certainly not. God is able to forgive. That does not mean that he will spare you from all the consequences of your decision though. We must learn to be content with whatever level of deliverance and restoration that God provides. Sometimes God will leave us to rejoice that our names are written in the book of life, and we have to be content with that.
I will quickly cover something fascinating that I heard a western expert on islam mention. The word makh-mawd is found 12 times in the bible, including Song 5:16. According to this person, this is where the name of Mohammed was created out of thin air, by the Nestorian heretic false Christian who invented islam in the seventh century AD. I will speak no more on this subject, but youtube has numerous videos by Jay Smith that I recommend should you be interested, as well as by Robert Spencer.
Lam 1:11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things (makh-mood) for meat to relieve the soul (nephesh): see, O LORD, and consider (behold); for I am become vile (zaw-lal – shaken, blown down, even worthless).
When the end comes, you will trade your valuables for a slice of bread. We have never known hunger such as this. We don’t know what it is like to be brought so low that we are willing to do anything for our next meal. That is what it would of been like at the end of the siege. Are we headed toward this same fate? With the speed that they are destroying our food supply with dew weapons, who can stand? As an aside, wouldn’t dew weapons be a fulfillment of Rev 13:13, where from John’s point of view, the discharge of a dew weapon would seem totally miraculous.
Lam 1:12 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow (anguish, grief, pain) like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
It is easy to see why commentators feel that the speaker is now Jerusalem herself. Jeremiah wouldn’t be bemoaning his own personal condition by certain of the phrases found here. Nevertheless, some of the sentences can certainly be attributed to the prophet’s continual sorrow. I prefer to see the rest of this chapter as a mixture of Jerusalem’s and Jeremiah’s duelling bewailments of inconsolable sorrow and untrammelled grief.
The city tries to appeal to those who pass by. Is there no humanity left in all the earth? Does not my distress move you? Is there not at least some speck of pity left in your soul? We have been so desensitized by our media that it’s hard enough for Christians to retain compassion on a regular basis, much less the blinded, hardened sinner.
Jerusalem is challenging everyone who passes by as to whether or not they have ever seem such suffering. I think her plaintive cry comes from the fact of what she has truly lost. Many cities have been destroyed throughout history. Yet which city had the intimate presence of Yehovah, like Jerusalem did? Not one. No city had more to lose than Jerusalem. It is also true that no human has more to lose than the one who has truly been born again, then for whatever reason turns their back on God and ends up in hell. Will there be any more miserable soul in all eternity that that peculiar creature of misfortune? One who had the real presence of the living God within, yet only to throw it away for the equivalent of a bowl of pottage?
Jerusalem never twists her doctrinal understanding as to who ultimately is the bringer of all her grief. Only God is authorized to bring such a severe judgment. We think we are in control of so much. The truth of the matter is that we are in control of far less than our prideful hearts think.
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 (shoob) me back: he hath made me desolate (stun, stupify, to lay waste) and faint (sick) all the day.
Note the regular unveiling of the singular truth that God directs souls on the path that he chooses. The unshakable truth is that when we use our free will to go down a certain path, we choose which deh-rek we shoob (which road we take, and which direction we go). Once we are warned enough times and we refuse to repent, God can then turn us over to that behavior, and we will then find ourselves with no more desire to go any other way. It is then said that God shoobs us, or turns us in the direction of guaranteed total judgment.
In this verse God is described as actively fighting against Jerusalem. This can apply to the rebellious individual as well. God sends the fire from heaven. Today he is sending the dew weapon. The attacks are increasing in frequency. It is prevailing against us. God then spreads a trap for the sinner. We may be walking our own way, but God will trip us up. He will turn us around. He will impoverish us, and leave us sickly and dying if we choose not to repent. No one can stand against the judgment of God.
Lam 1:14 The yoke of my transgressions (rebellions) is bound by his hand: they are wreathed (entwined), and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall (totter, waver), the Lord (Adonai) hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
It is interesting that 14 times in this book, Adonai is used instead of Yahweh, as if the sacred name was not to be uttered by one who is under his severe judgment. I think this shows the sort of contriteness of heart that one under such a burden should exhibit.
God has literally got us by the scruff of our neck. Our sins have so entangled us, that we are bound up in them, and the subsequent judgments, of which we now cannot escape from. Sin that leads to judgment always leads to a loss of strength. We become the tail, not the head. Our enemies triumph over us. All becomes upside down. Nothing describes our world better than a total inversion of all things that we took for granted all our lives.
Lam 1:15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly (mo-ad-daw – an appointed time, a fixed time or season) against me to crush my young men (baw-khoor – youth): the Lord (Adonai) hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.
All our angry freedom fighters have been brought low. When they began to protest, they were full of bravado and boastful words. After they were beaten and crushed, imprisoned and bankrupt, most are now gone from the scene. They were trodden under foot. Why? Because of God’s appointed time. God gave us the seven feasts not so much to keep the ritual of each one legalistically in the church, but to teach us the importance of the reality that God has a fixed season for all things.
For the longest time we have bemoaned the fact that God was allowing injustice to go unpunished. That sin was flourishing in the land. Where was God to right all the wrongs? Yet when he came, we were all caught off guard. We expected him to destroy the wicked. Instead, he destroyed us. Destroyed our nations. Our churches. Our freedoms. Our liberties. Ezekiel chapter 21 describes what has happened to us most eloquently:
Eze 21:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 21:2 Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,
Eze 21:3 And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.
Eze 21:4 Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
Eze 21:5 That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.
Here is a verse that never gets taught. In appointed times (moa-din) of total judgment, the righteous can get swept away with the wicked. What? Does not the word say he hides us under the shadow of the almighty? Sure. But that is why you need to study all the word of God, not just your little Reader’s Digest version that you cling to.
In normal times, the righteous may expect special protection. In total judgment, one cannot be so sure. Sometimes God’s wrath is so fierce, the sin is so deep, that the righteous get swept away along with the wicked. It may be an uncomfortable truth, but here it is in God’s word nonetheless. God does not care if you like his word. He does care if you believe and obey it.
Look at it this way. Even if this is another one of those appointed times where the righteous are in danger of being caught up in the judgments of the wicked, we know where we are going, so its still a win-win scenario, right?
America, the lone superpower, is being crushed. Her virginity is being trodden underfoot. She may be a virgin to judgment, but not anymore. She is being thrown into the winepress of the wrath of God.
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.
Jerusalem is personified as a weeping mother. Yet we can place the prophet as also speaking of his deep sorrow here. Even though we have the Comforter living within, sometimes circumstances so overwhelm us that the Holy Spirit cannot seem to touch us in our grief. Those things that we have birthed, whether literal children, or our ministry, may seem to be in ashes, as the enemy has seemed to of won at this specific point in time.
Do our eyes weep at the sight of all the suffering and sorrow all around us? One thing that continually scares me are all the days that I do not feel the grief and loss of all the poor souls all around me that are so lost and bewildered. They did everything their government and doctors told them to do. They thought that their leaders and these professionals were there to help them. Isn’t that why we pay taxes? So that we have those people who are specially trained to look after our health? And now, for the first time in recorded history, our doctors have seemed to of intentionally lied to us, and injected us with something that has permanently damaged our bodies. And when we go back to them for help, they say it’s all in our heads and try to tell us we’re imagining things. If we insist that what we’ve experienced is real, they get mad and throw us out of the office. We go to our friends and family, and they throw us out too. Suddenly we find ourselves living in an alien landscape. Nothing is as we thought it was. Humanity has seemingly been taken over by some sort of parasite that has sucked all empathy out of people’s souls. We know all this. We truly understand and believe this. Yet because there is such an unrelenting continuation of this unparalleled evil in our lives, our hearts become somewhat hardened to it after awhile. We are afraid that we have run out of tears. How do we keep our humanity ourselves?
Lam 1:17 Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD (Yehovah) hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
Jerusalem implores anyone to come and help. No one comes. This is because Yehovah (not Adonai) has issued a command that Jacob (Israel, Judah, Jerusalem) is to be swallowed up at this time. As for an explanation of the last sentence, Gill’s exposition of the entire bible sums it up quite descriptively:
Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them; reckoned filthy and unclean, abominable and nauseous; whom none cared to come near, but shunned, despised, and abhorred; as the Jews separated from the Gentiles, and would not converse with them; so neither now would the Chaldeans with the Jews; but treat them as the offscouring of all things (see Lev 15:19-24).
God is certainly not squeamish about using strong, even offensive, language. So much of the church has become hyper feminized, exactly like the culture all around us. Our pastors would never talk this way. If you posted a video like this, there would be endless condemnation of how offensive this sentence would be. Forget about the spiritual truth God is trying to convey, all the energy would be focused on God using the wrong, forbidden words.
God would not last one minute on youtube.
Lam 1:18 The LORD is righteous (tsad-deek – just, lawful); for I have rebelled against his commandment (peh – mouth or word): hear (shama), I pray (beseech) you, all people, and behold my sorrow (mak-o-bah – anguish, affliction, grief, pain): my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity (taken prisoner).
Jerusalem speaks on behalf of her inhabitants. Before any progress can be made in our situation, one must acknowledge that what God has done is the absolutely correct and perfect thing to do. If you pay lip service to this, but secretly harbor in your heart the idea that somehow God has treated you unfairly, you will not have the ear of your father. God is perfectly righteous when he judges us. He is the only totally just judge in all of creation.
Second, you must confess your sin. This is not an optional step. Once you’ve done these two things, you can now give vent to your grief and your anguish of soul.
Lam 1:19 I called for my lovers (a-hab – love), but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders (the ancient) gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat (food) to relieve (shoob) their souls (nephesh).
The lovers most likely referred to the Egyptians whom Judah was in alliance with, but who ultimately abandoned her in her time of need. Just like all our politicians, who almost to a man did not stand up for us when our rights were trampled upon.
Priests and elders dying. Sounds like the pastors promoting the jab, blasphemously stating you are saving grandma by lethally injecting yourself and them. People lost their jobs, so many having to make the terrible decision to take a chance with the poison in order to feed their families. Perhaps the sense here is that your decision to stand firm against the jab got turned around when faced with your ability to provide food on the table. In Jerusalem’s time, the cohen (priest) and the aged died in the siege, trying to find food to save their life force (to try and turn back their life force from death).
Lam 1:20 Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress (a tight place): my bowels (stomach, heart) are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled (maw-raw maw-reaw – provoked provoked): abroad the sword (cutting instrument) bereaveth (miscarries, suffers abortion, at home there is as death (pestilence, ruin).
Who has not experienced an increase in anxiety these days? This is such a monumental challenge. If you haven’t been troubled by all the horror, then you are not human. Yet we must never lose sight of the truth that we are the rebellious ones. We treated the holy things of the Lord as common. Even worse, we brought the unclean and the profane into the house of the Lord. The result is spontaneous abortions like we have never seen, and death in general (the phrase ‘there is’ is in italics, so the end of the verse reads: ‘at home, death’).
Lam 1:21 They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble (rah – evil); they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called (proclaimed, bidden, pronounced), and they shall be like unto me.
All the wicked rejoice when the righteous fall. So many of our youth have been brainwashed to hate their own land, to hate the system of government that has given them such freedom, to hate even the color of their own skin. Like the Edomites of old, they rejoiced when Trump was cheated out of the presidency. They rejoiced that Canadian truckers and Jan 6’ers were locked up.
Yet Jerusalem (and Jeremiah) knows that God has a day that he has proclaimed in waiting. A day where our tormentors will become just like us. Ruined. Destroyed. Utterly consumed.
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.
Let’s be totally honest. Who doesn’t wish that our evil rulers would be destroyed by God? Yet most of us feel guilty for having these thoughts, much less ever praying for their ruin. We say that we are not to curse the ruler of our people. We are to obey our governments. Etc. Etc. Yada, yada, yada.
It never crosses their mind to read what the bible says about obeying the wicked. How about the Hebrew midwives who refused to kill the male children in Moses’ time? How about Daniel who refused to stop praying? How about the 3 Hebrew boys and the furnace of fire? How about Peter and John telling the Sanhedrin that they had to obey God and not men? How about the priests who opposed wicked king Uzziah, who thought he could burn incense in the house of the Lord? How about (you fill in the blank)?
74 out of 150 psalms have some form of prayer or hope or statement about a desire to see the wicked punished. How can we not feel the same? Have we not seen enough consequence in our world when the wicked have no restraint put upon them? Do we not long for our so called leaders to be judged, and righteousness to take its place? What do we think Jesus is coming back to earth to do? Give us a better Sunday school lesson? First he comes to slaughter billions. Then he comes to set up a throne, where he will rule with a rod of iron. His judgment will be swift, his mercy not found to those who wilfully rebel.
Don’t be afraid to pray for the destruction of the wicked. Not for the lost, but for the wicked. Those who have made their choice long ago, and have no intention of ever changing. Sadly, the world is filled with creatures such as this.
May the Lord lead us back to the old paths, the paths of truth and justice and revelation, as we rediscover what the bible really has to say.
Solitary Man
https://solitaryman.substack.com/
