THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS – PART 14 – DWELLING IN DARKNESS, WALLED IN WITH A HEAVY CHAIN – PRAYERS BOUNCE AND WAYS BLOCKED AND CROOKED - CHAPTER 3:6-9
We are in the section where blame is attributed to God for the disasters that have overtaken the nation. Judah is in despair because of its long-practiced sin but it did not repent so God stepped in. Now misery is all around. We have the use of “He” over and over again, that being the LORD. There is much lament and misery and dejection all through this section.
[6]. DEPOSED TO OBSCURITY
{{Lamentations 3:6 “In dark places HE has made me dwell, like those who have long been dead.”}}
The beginning of the last message began this way – {{“HE has driven me and made me walk in darkness and not in light.”}}. In a place of darkness there is no light and light is often used as an expression for understanding and direction. The LORD caused the survivors to live in coma almost – no direction, no vision, no insight to know what to do. Life had lost its purpose and they may as well be dead, for their lives are like those of zombies.
Darkness often means rejection and banishment in scripture. Judas went out into the night. God shrouded the judged earth in darkness in Genesis. The New Testament speaks of outer darkness where there is gnashing of teeth. We read of walking in light not in darkness. So great was this destruction on Judah, it seemed they were in the dark place of God’s forgetfulness.
This is a meaningless situation for the people, for there is nothing enlightened and all is obscure. We could say the nation was banished in forgetfulness (but not really because God will never forget His people). They are reaping what they have sown, and take heed, today’s world, for YOUR time is coming. God’s day of grace right now will quickly come to an end with the removal of His Church and then will descend the Tribulation detailed in Revelation. It also will be a time of horror and revulsion. The Tribulation is not allegory or myth, and Revelation can not be spiritualised away. It is an abuse of God’s word to do that.
A state of darkness (not physical darkness) that the nation was enduring is a terrible isolation from a distant God. Life no longer had any meaning, and the nation, torn and dispersed, was drifting to obscurity. What could the prophet do with such people? The nation laments but the prophet feels their pain and suffering.
[7]. WALLED IN AND CHAINED UP
{{Lamentations 3:7 “HE has WALLED ME IN so that I cannot go out. HE has made my chain heavy.”}}
What freedom do you have when you are walled in, confined with no escape? As well as that, a heavy chain is attached to the legs. Yes, a dismal prisoner with no reasonable prospect. Left in prison to languish away when no one cares or shows mercy. It was that way for the people of Jerusalem who survived. That is how they felt all the time. They were subjugated by the enemy with no escape from their predicament. It was no better than being locked up in prison.
The feeling that is coming from all these verses is HOPELESSNESS for the nation had been battered and ruined – one part killed, one part taken to captivity and one part languishing in hopelessness.
In the verse this state of affairs is attributed to the LORD for the people knew it was the anger of God that had done this to them. Usually when you have your foundation taken away and nowhere to go, you think into what caused all that and the people were realising all this was done by the LORD because of their sin and failure to repent and change their ways. If only we could see repentance come from our Governments and society – what a whole different nation we would have.
Confined in a straight jacket is the loss of freedom. The person is “walled in”. Convicts used to wear irons and chains on their legs. The Jews were restricted with nowhere to go. Here is an interesting passage from the Psalms:
{{Psalm 107:10-15 “There were THOSE WHO DWELT IN DARKNESS and in the shadow of death, PRISONERS IN MISERY AND CHAINS, because THEY HAD REBELLED against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore He humbled their heart with labour. They stumbled and there was none to help. THEN THEY CRIED OUT TO THE LORD IN THEIR TROUBLE. He saved them out of their distresses. HE BROUGHT THEM OUT OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH AND BROKE THEIR BANDS APART. Let them give thanks to the LORD for His loving-kindness and for His wonders to the sons of men.”}}
That Psalm was written centuries before the overthrow of Judah, yet it applies so well to them. We have mentioned the darkness. The Jews felt the shadow of death in their descriptions. They felt the heavy chain of misery, and ALL this because they had rebelled against the LORD their God. These Jews cried out to the LORD as we see in Lamentations.
What a wonderful release happened for them in the Psalm verses. I do not know how effective that was in the time of Lamentations. Certainly some not only cried out, but came out of the darkness and the shadow of death.
However this is prophetic, because on the eve of the Second Coming, Jerusalem is “in bands” from the enemy – {{Zechariah 12:2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when THE SIEGE IS AGAINST JERUSALEM, it will also be against Judah.” Zechariah 14:2-3 “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and THE CITY WILL BE CAPTURED, the houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle.”}}
{{Zechariah 12:9-10 “And it will come about in that day that I WILL SET ABOUT TO DESTROY all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, THE SPIRIT OF GRACE AND OF SUPPLICATION, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.”}}
The repentant Jews being delivered at the Second Coming will have the Holy Spirit poured out on them. They will be sorry for the sinfulness over 3,000 years, and in remorse when they realise they put to death their Messiah.
Lamentations is suggestive of much to come.
[8]. PRAYERS BOUNCE FROM THE CEILING AND SKY
{{Lamentations 3:8 “Even when I cry out and call for help, HE SHUTS OUT MY PRAYER.”}}
The whole section continues with God placed as the Operative in Judah’s miseries. There are many reasons for man crying out, and crying to God. The causes may be for repentance and delivery from sin and eternal banishment from God; for delivery without repentance, in remorse, in confusion, as a last resort in a miserable situation, for divine help beyond ourselves.
None of us can speak as to why an individual may cry out to the LORD. In considering that verse we had much earlier – “In wrath remember mercy” – I can’t see that a man and woman in genuine repentance is rejected by God, yet here God shuts out the prayer. Jeremiah certainly is not speaking of himself. This would be the nation stating this. Was there not genuine repentance, or was it all a blame game? All rests in God’s hands and the reason for not answering, lies with Him. {{Psalm 145:18 “The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”}}
Isaiah wrote something very precious – {{Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek the LORD while He may be found. CALL UPON HIM WHILE HE IS NEAR. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the LORD, and He will have COMPASSION on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly PARDON.”}}. These are mighty verses but verse 6 depends on verse 7. Genuine turning in repentance results in compassion and pardon. I believe many turned to the LORD after their defeat when everything was stripped from them except their God. God is a very present help in time of trouble. He will never reject a genuine call for help or disregard a repentant soul.
All commentators say surprisingly very little about this verse so we have to conclude that it is a universal mystery to be more precise than what I have written.
[9]. BLOCKED PATHS WITH NO DIRECTION
{{Lamentations 3:9 “HE has BLOCKED MY WAYS with HEWN STONE. HE has made my paths CROOKED.”}}
Nothing is more frustrating than driving along and there is a great tree fallen across the road, or there has been a landslide and big rocks have blocked off the road. Because God has given crooked paths then there will be no progress. I think what is said here, is that the national prospects are dark and absent. There is no direction for a people who have been defeated.
Sin is an awful thing and brings only destruction, and left to him/herself, each one would have no hope, and no future. In Christ, all that has changed for the Lord makes the pathway clear and His directions are printed in bold signage. A Christian’s directions begin at the cross and go forward to the celestial city as John Bunyan portrayed in Pilgrim’s Progress.
I am quite intrigued here with the description of “hewn stone”. These are not random rocks blocking off the path. Because they have been fashioned then the action has been deliberate. They form something similar to a wall that impedes and also blocks off the way. Of course the road to Babylon was open and filled with captives in lament, and directionless.
The hewn stones were used in the pyramids and other great buildings and some of those were massive. There was no getting over them except by ladders. For these suffering Jews, it was like coming face to face with a great cliff in front of you. It was like the way to God was blocked as if God had expelled them and closed gigantic doors behind them. It was no good trying to find some bypass because those ways were crooked and led nowhere. It was a terrible state the defeated nation was in.
Hewn stones are not random and have been placed there deliberately. These survivors have presented a lot of images so far – hemmed in by hewn stones; walled in and chained up; in darkness; broken bones with flesh wasting away. Taken as a whole, it is a picture of utter confinement and hopelessness. What a continuing lament all this is and there are more serious ones to come.
The word “crooked” is used through the Old Testament especially often in Proverbs. Here is a verse – {{Deuteronomy 32:5 “They have acted CORRUPTLY toward Him. They are not His children because of their defect, but are a PERVERSE AND CROOKED GENERATION.”}} This is the people in departure from God. Israel was corrupt almost all of its time. The ways were crooked because the people were crooked.
The Preacher declared this – {{Ecclesiastes 1:15 “WHAT IS CROOKED CANNOT BE STRAIGHTENED, and what is lacking, cannot be counted.”}} However – Man can not straighten what is crooked in the highway to God, but the Lord can – (KJV) {{Isaiah 54:2 “I will go before thee, AND MAKE THE CROOKED PLACES STRAIGHT: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:”}}. That is a glorious promise in the future restoration of Israel when Messiah returns at the Second Coming. He will make the ways straight.
One very famous piece from Handel’s Messiah features these next two verses speaking of what happens when Messiah returns as was just said in the last verse. The crooked indeed will be made straight!
(KJV) {{Isaiah 40:4-5 “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and THE CROOKED SHALL BE MADE STRAIGHT, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”}}
