THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 8 – DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE, WALL AND GATES OF JERUSALEM, THE WHOLE JEWISH CEREMONIES GONE - CHAPTER 2:6-9
Jeremiah laments the overthrow of his nation by Babylon’s ruthless army and all around him is destruction. The people had been warned over and over to turn from their sin and repent, but they refused and turned on the prophet in persecution. Jeremiah even advised them to go out to the Babylonians in a defection so their lives would be spared. They again refused, so who is to blame for the distress and misery that happened to them? In these verses we are considering, Jeremiah attributes all this destruction to the LORD and he does that according to the permissive will of God. We continue looking at what the LORD allowed to happen to the nation.
[1]. THE PERMISSIVE WILL OF GOD IS RESPONSIBLE
We continue this list of attributions to the LORD for the destruction that happened to Judah. In the last message we had 15 of them. In our next verse there are 4 more all using the word “HAS”, and it does not stop there, because the verse following has more, and the verse following that has 1.
{{Lamentations 2:6 “HE HAS VIOLENTLY treated His tabernacle LIKE A GARDEN BOOTH. He HAS DESTROYED His appointed meeting place. The LORD HAS CAUSED the appointed feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and HE HAS DESPISED king and priest in the indignation of His anger.”}}
Violence is attributed to the LORD, as is destruction, and the despising of king and priest. The king was wicked and the priests were persecutors of the true prophets, and also wicked. Jeremiah sets that out in his prophecy. Because God did not intervene against Judah’s enemies, then God is considered to be the perpetrator of all that happened.
How the world today likes to blame God for disaster and tragedy in mockery. I have been told, “How can there be a God when that child is in so much pain?” People want an excuse or reason for the ugliness in the world, but they won’t take the step of recognising the cause of it, which is sin, and turn in repentance to God to become born again with the whole new perspective of eternal values. Whoever is in Jesus Christ is a whole new creation with a whole new understanding.
Most of this verse is taken up with the things pertaining to the Law and the Temple. The Temple was destroyed with Nebuchadnezzar taking an enormous fortune back to Babylon. As a result the appointed feasts were hacked away and there was no sacred place for the remnant in the land to come together. This was all their own doing. They had themselves made the Temple meaningless through idolatry and sin in high places.
Of course Jeremiah would be concerned about the Temple. Why he would be concerned about the King (Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin) and the priests I do not know because they were at the root of the problem. The godly and wonderful King, Josiah, had these three sons who reigned after him and they were so wicked, especially Jehoiakim. It is one of the mysteries why a godly parent/s can have such evil offspring. I know it all goes back to the person’s own sin and standing before God. Still, it is a difficulty.
“Like a garden booth” – one commentator says – [[“We get the thought that the Temple was destroyed and broken up with as much ease as a garden that had failed to please its owner,”]] while another sees it this way – [[“As if it had been no better than a tent or cottage set up in a garden, or vineyard, just while the fruit was gathering, and then to be taken down again.”]]
The Temple was the whole centre of the Jewish identity for the Judeans but they had made a mockery of it and rendered it a worthless thing. It was to be a holy place but Judah made it a nest of vipers with their continual sin. Even the priests followed idols. Little wonder why the LORD threw them all out and allowed their defeat by the enemy.
[2]. THE TEMPLE IS FINISHED, OVERRUN BY THE ENEMY
{{Lamentations 2:7 “The Lord HAS REJECTED HIS ALTAR. HE HAS ABANDONED His sanctuary. HE HAS DELIVERED the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a NOISE in the house of the LORD as in the day of an appointed feast.”}}
Three more times we have the “HAS”, the action of the LORD against His own. This is the first of the last three three verses attributing the blame for Judah’s destruction to the LORD, but the writer Jeremiah did not believe that. He knew Judah was reaping what it had sown, and Babylon was the harvest that was gathered in. His lament is for what has been lost. He knows it is all covered by the permissive will of God.
This verse is similar to the previous one with the focus being on the Temple. On the surface, the destruction of the Temple meant God’s great disapproval of the nation and His withdrawing from them. That is what hurt Jeremiah very much. In reality it is probably true to say the LORD had withdrawn from Judah long before its destruction. God was ejected from His Temple by the idolatrous people and its priests. The Lord had been put outside the Laodicean church to stand at the door and knock in pleading, and how many churches today have excommunicated the Lord and adopted a socialist agenda bound up in WOKE policies, and God-denying liberalism?
The verse say, “He has rejected His altar.” This is similar to the rejection of Cain’s sacrifice on his altar. It was humanism that got Cain rejected, and it is idolatry that got Judah rejected. The LORD rejected His sanctuary because it had become a den of idolatrous thieves, and Jesus had to do the same in His Father’s House in reprimand.
Sacrifice means nothing when godlessness is present. It means nothing when all is pretense and sham. It means less than nothing when one hand claims to serve God and the other hand openly serves Baal. God speaks clearly about that – {{1 Samuel 15:22-23 Samuel said, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE, and to heed, than the fat of rams, for rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because YOU HAVE REJECTED THE WORD OF THE LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”}}
Making a noise in the Temple comes from the shouts of the enemies in their triumph, perhaps even the shouts of their worship. The hallelujahs of the “solemn feast” became the barbaric shouting of the heathen in the sanctuary of the LORD. That was monstrous to Jeremiah but he would have understood the relevance of it all and the cause. When people trash the holy things of God, they are no longer holy. God had departed the Temple long ago so the heathen in the Temple meant nothing except great regret.
Asaph was also grieved at what had happened – {{Psalm 74:3-4 “Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins. THE ENEMY HAS DAMAGED EVERYTHING WITHIN THE SANCTUARY. YOUR ADVERSARIES HAVE ROARED IN THE MIDST OF YOUR MEETING PLACE. They have set up their own standards for signs.”}}
[3]. THE LORD DETERMINED AND HE HAS NOT RESTRAINED
{{Lamentations 2:8 “The LORD DETERMINED to destroy the wall of THE DAUGHTER OF ZION. HE HAS stretched out a line. HE HAS NOT RESTRAINED His hand from destroying and HE HAS caused rampart and wall to lament. They have languished together.”}}
Three times more we have the words “He has”, in the destruction of Jerusalem. Yes, it is all of the LORD’S doing when He lifted up His hand against His wicked people, for there was no other choice. Warning after warning was rejected and sinful idolatry worsened. The nation’s fate was greater than just the subjects of the kingdom suffering destruction. It means the whole structure of Jerusalem. {{2 Kings 25:10 “So all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the bodyguards tore down the walls around Jerusalem.”}} Her walls were broken down, the same ones in later years, Nehemiah came to rebuild.
Nothing was left untouched by Babylon. The Temple was a real delight to them for its value – {{2 Chronicles 36:18 “All the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his officers, he brought them all to Babylon.”}} {{2 Chronicles 36:7 “Nebuchadnezzar also brought some of the articles of the house of the LORD to Babylon and put them in his temple at Babylon.”}} {{2 Kings 25:9 “and he burned the house of the LORD, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. Even every great house he burned with fire.”}} Sin causes the loss of all things, but the most severe, because it is eternal, is the loss of one’s life in the lake of fire. It is tragic but is preventable. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation while God allows you the time, because the end of the age is upon us.
It is said that when a building project is to commence then the measuring line is used, but for the work of destruction, the line is also used. The “wall lamenting” seems to indicate, at least figuratively, that the stones of the wall were crying out at their destruction and their falling down. The whole of Jerusalem was a place of death and destruction. Sadness was like a pall that hung over the whole area.
Matthew Poole stated it quite colourfully – [[“God had gone on in destroying them, and had made their walls and ramparts feeble, and to shake like a man under some languishing distemper, that had no strength left.”]] Sin destroys not only humans, but perfection and majesty as well. Our current world is collapsing under the weight of fast increasing sin, and shortly, the Man of Sin will head up the revived Roman Empire in the Tribulation.
In this verse we have the words “the daughter of Zion”. I thought I would just check up where Jeremiah used word “daughter” which is very meaningful and tender. He used it deliberately. I was surprised how often he used it in the book. I suppose it contrasts with the harshness of destruction. This is the list I found:-
The daughter of Zion – Lamentations 1:6
The virgin daughter of Judah - Lamentations 1:15
The daughter of Zion – Lamentations 2:1
The daughter of Judah - Lamentations 2:2
The daughter of Zion - Lamentations 2:4
The daughter of Judah - Lamentations 2:5
The daughter of Zion - Lamentations 2:8
The daughter of Zion - Lamentations 2:10
The daughter of my people – Lamentations 2:11
Daughter of Jerusalem – Lamentations 2:13
Virgin daughter of Zion – Lamentations 2:13
The daughter of Jerusalem – Lamentations 2:15
The daughter of Zion – Lamentations 2:18
The daughter of my people – Lamentations 3:48
The daughters of my city – Lamentations 3:51
In chapter 4, three times we have “the daughter of my people” (3, 6, 10)
The last reference is Lamentations 4:22 “daughter of Zion”.
Incidentally, in his prophecy Jeremiah uses the same expressions 12 or 13 times. I think this speaks of his own tenderness, care and love for his people.
[4]. RUIN – ALL THAT WAS HELD DEAR
{{LAMENTATIONS 2:9 “Her gates have sunk into the ground. HE HAS DESTROYED and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations. The law is no more. Also, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.”}}
This is the last verse of the LORD’S directive hand against the nation. In this series of verses the actions that are attributed to the LORD ends with this verse. In all there are 28 “has” as in “He has”, of direct actions using “HE HAS”. Jeremiah outlines the thoroughness of the destruction and altered conditions. The gates have fallen. The city’s gates were a major aspect of the rebuilding some hundred years later. With the support gone the gates fell and the prophet says they have sunk into the ground which would indicate they were heavy, and that they appeared to be sunken because of all the debris built up around them.
“Her king and her princes are among the nations.” As alluded to before these were all evil rulers and Nebuchadnezzar took them away to Babylon, and others also – {{Jeremiah 52:15 “Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguards, led into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city, and the deserters who had deserted, to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the people.”}} Jerusalem was left empty, deserted, like a broken down ruin in history. BUT God had not forgotten His glorious city.
Since that time until the late 1940s, Jerusalem lay in the hands of foreigners who pillaged, set up Islamic idolatry and terrorism, saw the ruthless Ottoman Empire, but all the time was under the eye of God. There is coming a day, and it is in the Tribulation, when Jerusalem will be the focus of the world (this is even true today). However when the Lord Messiah returns then Jerusalem is from where He will reign, and it will be the head of all cities in the world. In the Old Testament there are many names for Jerusalem. Here are some, many of them yet future –
“The city of David” 2 Samuel 6:12; “The city of the great king” Matthew 5:35, Psalm 48:2; “The joy of the whole earth” Psalm 48:2; “The holy city” Isaiah 48:2, 52:1, Matthew 4:5; “Salem, which means ‘peace’” Genesis 14:18, Psalm 76:2; “The city of (our) God” Psalm 46:4, 48:1, 87:3; “The city of the Lord of hosts” Psalm 48:8; “The city of righteousness” Isaiah 1:26; “The city of truth” Zechariah 8:3; “The city of the Lord” Isaiah 60:14; “The perfection of beauty” Lamentations 2:15; “The joy of the whole earth” Lamentations 2:15; “The Lord our righteousness” Jeremiah 23:6, 33:16; “The Lord is there” Ezekiel 48:35; “Ariel”, i.e. Lion of God Isaiah 29:1; “The Holy Mountain” Zechariah 8:3; “The Throne of the Lord” Jeremiah 3:17; “Zion” Psalm 76:2; “The faithful city” Isaiah 1:26; “Hephzibah” i.e. “My delight is in her” Isaiah 62:4.
For a fuller cover of the glorious names for Jerusalem, here is my article on it – https://sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-restoration-of-israel-jeremiah-part-10-chapter-33-15-the-incredible-names-for-jerusalem-in-the-bible-ron-ferguson-sermon-on-restoration-288519
The Law is no more and the prophets find no vision. That is because heaven is closed and the LORD has withdrawn from the sinful city. However the LORD takes up His people in Babylon, and the great prophet Daniel is raised up. God hears all those who humble themselves and call on Him. It took destruction to wake the people up. I still think God works in that way in the world. Some people will turn to God only in disaster.
