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Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, apparently didn't get all his whining done in the big book with his name on it, so we have this little addendum, which is (according to the title) more of his whining. Plus a fair sized dose of interesting things!
Lam 2:20,21 - Look, O LORD, and consider! To whom have you done
this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne?
Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the LORD? The
young and the old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young
women and my young men have fallen by the sword; in the day of your
anger you have killed them, slaughtering without mercy.
Here's the result of believing that God is in
complete control of the march of history. Eventually, bad things
happen to your community, and since war victories come from God, so
also must defeats. This situation causes people to question their
belief in a benign God. I should think any other time would be just
as appropriate for such questions!
Lam 3:1-3 - I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of
God's wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any
light; against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day
long.
He certainly became self-centered pretty
quickly, didn't he? Is he saying that all the disasters experienced
by Israel were done just to make him miserable?
Lam 3:31-33 - For the LORD will not reject forever. Although he
causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of
his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve
anyone.
EXCUSE ME!? Did I read that right? God (the
all-powerful) is forced against his will to punish people? So who is
the guy forcing God's hand? Maybe we should be talking to him (or
her?) instead!
Lam 3:38 - Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and
bad come?
Seeing as the writer thinks that God caused the
defeat of Israel (and this Satan guy was never mentioned), it seems
perfectly clear that this refers to God as the cause of both good and
bad events. If the devil existed, you'd think this inspired writer
would have said something about it! But remember - the character of
Satan does not appear in the Old Testament, except in those books
written after the beginning of the captivity in Babylon, where he was
a pretty common belief!
Lam 3:43-45 - You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that
no prayer can pass through. You have made us filth and rubbish among
the peoples.
I think this summarizes in a nutshell the image
I have of the God of the Old Testament: hard-hearted, aloof, and
impossible to deal with. In addition, it appears to be the goal of
the Bible to make people view themselves as dirty, offensive, nasty
things. This is not what a being who loves someone will tell those he
loves.
Lam 3:64-66 - Pay them back for their deeds, O LORD, according to
the work of their hands! Give them anguish of heart; your curse be on
them!
Once again, a man of God takes to asking God to
act as a hit man. Very moral, no?
Lam 5:7 - Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear
their iniquities.
Now, why would descendants be expected to take
the punishment for the sins of dead ancestors? Especially if those
ancestors were being punished for their sins in hell? This is yet
another example of the older Hebrew belief that death was the end of
existence. And it's an example of their unproductive view of justice
- that a sin must be punished, regardless of whether the actual
sinner got it or not!
