| LAMENTATIONS |
| Explanatory Footnotes |
| 1:10 The Temple Destroyed In order to keep God's house holy, non-Jews were not allowed to enter. But when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, they not only entered the temple, they looted and burned it. This shook devout Jews deeply; more than anything else it showed that God had given them up. 2:12 Pity the Children Everyone suffered in the destruction of Jerusalem, rich and poor, young and old, male and female. Lamentations grieves for them all, but especially for the children, who were dying of hunger. During the long siege, hunger grew so fierce that mothers ate their own children (2:20; 4:10). Compassion for children had disappeared (4:3-4). 3:33 Hope for the Grieving Lamentations bares the full horror of suffering, yet offers hope based on the character of God. He has let some survive (3:22), and he is not a God to be angry with them forever. Their duty is to accept fully their grief, and quietly meditate on its meaning while waiting for the Lord. 4:17 False Hope In the last decades before Jerusalem was conquered, Judah's kings frequently tried to play Egypt, another superpower, against Babylon. Right to the end they expected Egypt's armies to rescue them. But as Jeremiah had warned, Egypt proved to be an unreliable ally (Jeremiah 2:36-37; 37:5-8). |