PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We find the siege of Jerusalem described, once again, in graphic terms.  You hear about the thirst of the children which was not to be assuaged, and left the children’s tongues clinging to the roof of their mouths.  We find this destruction even greater than the one that we read about with Sodom in Genesis.  We read about women who were deemed highly respectable were left to boil their own children for food.  

Once again the author points to a direct causal attribution in vs. 13 where he states: “It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of the priests.”  The blame is placed directly in the lap of the religious leaders of the day, which is where it belonged, and probably where it belongs today as well.  If the religious leaders do not speak up and encourage the people to see things through the lenses of Scripture and the eyes of a gracious God, then how are  the people to be blamed if they follow an immoral and ungodly course?

If you go to vs.20 you will see that it refers to the Lord’s anointed as being taken to their pits.  This probably refers to King Zedekiah who was the last king of Judah, whose defeat signals the failure of the Davidic dynasty to protect the people.  This showed that they were no longer protected by God’s anointed, because the people had turned their back on God.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eQ1oal44wU

You may be wondering from where the words to this hymn come.  Who would have guessed it came from Lamentations 3?  Sure enough if you look at vs.22-24 you can see the lines from the hymn right there.  I’m not sure if the last time that you sang that hymn you were thinking of the context in which it took place.  Jeremiah is bemoaning the fall of Jerusalem, and yet somehow he is able to speak about the faithfulness of God.  He is able to speak about the newness every morning of the presence of God and so as a result: “I will hope in him.”  Even in the face of unspeakable tragedy he is able to say: “The Lord is my portion.”  We can’t forget from where these words find their origin.  It is in the midst of the unfathomable suffering that the prophet is able to write these words.  Wow, just wow.

Starting at vs.19 things get pretty disturbing.  We find a full description in this chapter of the destruction which took place to Jerusalem.  The description was pretty bad up to this point, but then starting at vs.19 it just gets graphic.  If you read vs. 20 you hear the questions asked: “should women eat their offspring?  Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?”  It continues in vs.21: “The young and old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword.”  This has to be what it looked like when the Babylonians came and invaded Jerusalem.  

This must be the most difficult time in the history of the Jewish people.  The Holocaust was certainly the most tragic in recent history, but this description points not to just a loss of life, which unfortunately the Jewish people have experienced time after time in history, but also a loss of the religious way of life with the destruction of the temple.  The loss of the temple had to have been the most tragic blow to the people of Israel in history.  This is why there is still conflict and emotion tied into the Wailing Wall and the entire Temple Mount in Jerusalem to this day.  

But even in the face of this misery we do not read the author blaming God or asking for deliverance because they are in this position without any fault of their own.  They do attribute to the Lord the hand that allowed this invasion to take place, but not in a way that they were angry at God.  It was more of a recognition that because we were not faithful, the Lord responded in kind.  Real similar to the argument that Job’s friends were making to Job, that somehow he had to have done something wrong or God would not have treated him the way that he did.  Job stayed firm in his faith, as did the people of Israel here.

It is interesting how the prophets are spoken of as being deceptive in their casting of visions.  You see that in vs.14.  They were misleading in their oracles, they gave the people of Israel a wrong vision.  I’m not sure things are going to get any better in this book of the Bible.

The title of this book of the Bible describes very accurately its content.  The title Lamentations comes from the Greek translation, while the Hebrew simply had the word “How” as its title.  That would have been the first word of this book of the Bible as it begins: “How lonely sits the city…”.  It was thought historically that Jeremiah was the one who wrote this book in the Bible.  Again, it is very fitting, considering that Jeremiah is called the “weeping” prophet.

The historical context for this Scripture is the destruction of the temple and the Babylonians having not only invaded the land and taken over Jerusalem, but had also taken the people into captivity, or as we would say, into slavery.  As soon as you dive into this Scripture you can tell that something has gone terribly wrong.  A psalm that you can read to go alongside this book of the Bible is Psalm 137 where we read that people laid down their harps and wept.  Again, this is thought to have happened in the Babylonian conquest when the people were taken out of Jerusalem into captivity.

The personification of Jerusalem as a “she” is not unusual at all in Scripture.  Judah and “daughter Zion” are all seen as having been ravaged and completely laid bare by the invading marauders.  But interestingly enough no blame is placed at the feet of  God.  Instead we read: “Jerusalem sinned grievously, so she has become a mockery” in vs. 8.  We also read: “The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word” in vs. 18.  There is a recognition that Jerusalem is receiving what is due to them.  But it is still painful.

Often we object to what we receive because we don’t feel as if we deserve what we get.  We often complain about our state of being simply because we don’t recognize how our actions have contributed to that state and we live often in a state of denial of our own responsibilities.  That is not what we are called to be or to do.  We are called to claim the responsibilities of falling short of the glory of God as Romans 3:23 reminds us.  This is a great example of a tragedy that has taken place and those in the center of that tragedy looking back over their life and seeing the events that led up to the tragedy and how they were contributing factors to that tragedy.  We need more people to be held accountable and feel responsible in these kinds of situations.  

We find ourselves in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes so we are approaching the last days of our 90 Day Challenge.  I automatically go to vs.12b, so the second half of vs. 12 which reads: “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”  So I was someone who always loved to study, I loved to be in the library, I love to learn period.  I remember when I was a kid I read this verse and I wasn’t sure what to make of it because I certainly did not feel weary to my flesh in the midst of my studies.  I think it does fit within his vanity approach that even if we do learn many things, there are still many more which we will never know.

We read the calling card of Ecclesiastes in vs.8 where we hear that vanity of vanities, all is vanity.  We heard the same proclamation in chapter 1:2 so these words really frame the entire chapter.  We read in the next verses how this author was also a teacher and filled other people up with knowledge.  So if anyone could say that much study is weariness to the flesh it is someone who had more wisdom than anyone else who walked the face of the earth.  

The final verse is a bit sobering as we read that God will bring every deed under judgment, whether it is good or bad.  God knows all things and will judge all things.  This proclamation is not a threat, but it is a brush with reality which allows us to recognize that we are not alone in this world, and nothing can disappear without it being know.  I personally do not think all things are vanity, but I do know that if we don’t have a relationship with Jesus, then then vanity in our life can only be exacerbated.  

We cover a lot of ground in this chapter, yet I don’t feel like we make any progress.  The first few verses contain wisdom that farmers have known for years.  We hear that clouds contain rain, don’t let your hands be idle in the evening because your crops may fail, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  This is great advice, but it comes kind of in a random, non linear way.  The rest of the chapter is kind of the same.

We find whom we think is the old King Solomon telling youth to enjoy their young age because it will not last forever.  But also recognize that in whatever way you misstep, and however you do not fulfill God’s desires, at some time and in some day that will come into judgment.  In your young days you think you are invincible and that nothing can stop your momentum.  Solomon says that it will all catch up to you.  On that note we will  move on to the next chapter.

This chapter begins with something very small that can ruin a whole lot of good.  Just like it only takes on bad apple, so it only takes on dead fly to ruin perfume.  But he moves on to equate that to our lives as we go about our business there is inherent risk in all that we do.  This morning I went over to a member’s house and helped cut and carry off some wood.  It wasn’t that big of a job, but in all things, even in this, there is inherent risk.

I tend to be more of a risk taker than I am risk averse.  He speaks about a ruler that reigns and is at heart a fool, or as vs.16 states a child.  Vs. 16 can be translated as either a child or a servant.  As vs.9 tells us there is nothing inherently wrong with splitting logs or quarrying stones.  But with all of that, as with all of life, there are inherent risks that come from that exercise.

If a fool is in power then the assumption that is that even in the normal course of life you are more in danger because the person who is in charge, well, isn’t competent.  So you can go about splitting logs and everything would be fine with a strong ruler.  But if you have a fool for a ruler then even when you are splitting logs it can impact you in a negative way.  Something to think about.

I don’t mind the line that we find in vs.4: “But whoever is joined  with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”  That is as practical and earthy as you can get.  It doesn’t matter who you think you are/were, just be sure that who you are/were has significance in the here and now.  The mighty stop being mighty as soon as their heart stops beating and their mind stops thinking.  Another nugget of truth is this in v s.11: “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but time and chance happen to them all.”  There is a sense that no one can feel a sense of entitlement that will last them their whole life long.  Life comes to those who carpe diem.

There is an interesting little parable at the end with a bumbling loud ruler and a wise old man who was poor.  It seems like just out of sheer power the ruler takes the day, even if the words of the wise old man were more true and more accurate to what the ruler was spewing.  But, because of the status of the poor man, he did not have the power to be heard.  The statement we are almost left with is found in vs.16: “yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.”  What a sad state of affairs it is in which we find ourselves.  This is truth spoken within a context where the powerful actually do rule, while the weak and the poor are subject to those in power.

The more things change the more they stay the same…

I got lost in vss.12-13…it has to be the most powerful song for me at this time and in this place.  There is something about the statement “It is Well”, that ties everything together.   Emotively there is also a power in seeing my daughter sing it.  I can’t think of a more worshipful experience than to be in the midst of that.

When you begin this chapter you almost fall into a deep, deep depression.  I mean who says that it is better to die than it is to be born?  I mean who says that it is better to go to the house of mourning than it is to the house of feasting?  I know, a person who is in the final years of their life and sees the vanity of life as a pursuit of tenuous pleasures and knows that there has to be more to life than that.  That really is who Solomon must have become at the end of his life.  But then he throws in vs.18 and we have to pause and say: You go boy!  “It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.”  This is a precursor to Paul’s Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.