Lam 3-5 - so... that's that...

The readings - Day241 - Lamentations 3-5

I guess I should have known that grief like Lamentation have a limited run - as it should - but I didn't expect/remember/whatever that it was such a short book. Shows how much I've been paying attention, I suppose.

Anyway, here in the second bit of Lamentations we get another "alternate view" of something we often hear about, but (I think) usually fail to grasp the actual horror of: the siege.

I was really struck in Jeremiah when it talks about the eventual conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, in that it was far from a quick slash-and-burn affair, but rather a 2-year siege. It's a tactic that's been used for millennia, and continued well into the modern era, with shocking stories of what people went through in WWII in the Siege of Leningrad and others.



Basically, in order to picture it, try to imagine how long your particular down would be able to sustain itself without being able to access anything outside of its boundaries. No food, medical supplies or resources can come in, and no garbage, sick/injured people or (eventually) dead bodies can get out. How long would it take for reserve fuel supplies to run out? Assuming the enemy hasn't cut the power, how long can generators last? How long until food supplies run out? What happens to all the garbage (rats)? What happens to all the bodies of people who've died? (Rats)

It gets messy (literally and figuratively) pretty quickly.

Given pretty much any city, a two-year stretch without any transit across the city limits would equal some pretty appalling conditions.

Possibly the two most poignant Bible verses are in Lamentations 4:

"9 Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field. 10 The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people."

That's bad.

But for all its sorrow, and it's hardly unique in painting a pretty bleak picture of current events in the Bible, it does seem to carry with it a sense of hope, like many of the Psalms of despair, or the various prophetic books that often also include promises of redemption.

However, despite the fact that the author clearly remains faithful to God and hopeful for eventual redemption and restoration, there is an unmistakable, and striking, caution to that hope, as demonstrated by the... hedging way the book ends:

"21 Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old-- 22 unless you have utterly rejected us, and you remain exceedingly angry with us."