The Purposes of Lamentations — Bible Study by Dr Peter Masters on Lamentations 1.1

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8th October 2026 • The Word in Your Ear • Metropolitan Tabernacle

The Purposes of Lamentations

Lamentations chapter 1, verse 1: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” A vassal state, a slave state.

Our subject is the purposes of Lamentations, which we shall seek to do in a single study, just to encourage the reading of the book and to get a grasp of its total purpose before God.

Now, Lamentations: it’s from the Latin, the Latin Vulgate, and it means loud cries, lamentations. But the Hebrews knew it, or called it, by a different name, though it’s not actually named in the ancient manuscripts in the Bible. But they called it by a Hebrew word which can be best translated as “How”, with an exclamation mark, simply because that word occurs in chapter 1, verse 1; chapter 2, verse 1; chapter 4, verse 1.

“How”, not as a question: “How did Jerusalem come to be in this captive, desolate state?” But “How” as an exclamation: “How great, how awful, how devastating is the destruction of Jerusalem!” So “How”, as an exclamation, that was the Hebrew name for it, taken from the text. But we have the Latin-derived Lamentations, which is perfectly adequate for us.

If you were to consult most study Bibles, you find a rather sad summary of the purposes of this book of Lamentations. It’s described most commonly as a memorial to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. A memorial. And that roughly sums up all that they have to say about it. It is a funeral dirge.

It’s most unusual in its structure in the Hebrew, but this doesn’t concern us very much. It’s structured and built on an acrostic method: chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4. Well, chapters 1, 2 and 4 have 22 verses, and the Hebrew alphabet has 22 characters. They’re all consonants. And in chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 4, each verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

In fact, chapter 1 does it, overdoes it, because each verse in the original is akin to three sentences or three lines, and each of the lines begins with the Hebrew letter for that verse, and sequentially through the 22 verses.

Chapter 3 has 66 verses because a Hebrew letter begins every third verse. And chapter 5 at the end also has 22 verses, but they run freely. No acrostic.

Why this elaborate alphabetical, acrostical system through this book? Well, that’s been debated, and the most common answer is because, presumably, it was to aid the memorisation of the book. Well, that may be so. It’s probably more likely that it just indicates the great precision and care with which this particular book was written.

Well, all the Bible is inspired of God, and it’s all exactly as He intended. But in the original this acrostic system is followed, lest anyone should say, because it’s all poetry, “Well, the poet is running away with himself with these descriptions of the tragic state of the captives from Judah and Jerusalem.” So this method pins it down to being a book so meticulously and closely woven and constructed.

It is a funeral dirge because the Hebrew poetry adopts a kind of one-two, one-two style of a plodding funeral dirge.

You could see why people call it a memorial to the fall of Jerusalem. It’s all about that, after all. But they forget. And you wonder: who coins these things? Who sets them up in the first place? This is the prophet Jeremiah. This isn’t just a memorial. This is prophecy. This has to do not only with history, but with all time.

“These things are written,” says the apostle Paul, “for our learning, upon whom the ends of the earth have come.” This is relevant to us, and we must look at the book with that in mind. So the purpose is not just to memorialise the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. The purpose is to warn and to teach and to throw light on what will happen repeatedly through history, what will happen to the church of the New Testament order and time.

So we will speed on, on that basis, and I’ll try to show you some of the principal contents to take away any hesitation you may have in reading the book of Lamentations.

So, chapter 1, and this certainly does cover the state of Jerusalem. “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” That’s a glimpse of the ruin, I suspect, of Jerusalem, with only a few desperately poor, scavenging people left in it. “How is she become as a widow!” Not provided for, abandoned by God. “She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” A slave city, a vassal state.

So she’s been utterly rejected now. And these verses go on, and they describe this. Verse 2: “She weepeth sore in the night.” But look at verse 3: “Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction.”

The book of Jeremiah attributes the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon. The book of Lamentations shifts the issue along, and it attributes the fall of Jerusalem to God. Jeremiah has moved from Babylon, the immediate enemy, to the One who permitted and allowed and orchestrated that this should happen: Almighty God.

“Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen.” The people have been taken, killed or taken into slavery in the Babylonian Empire. “She findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her.”

“The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts.” Jerusalem as a city is silent, and the temple is abandoned, destroyed, in fact. So there are no sacrifices. There’s no worship for Judah. “All her gates are desolate: her priests sigh”, and so on.

And then it goes on to describe, in verse 5, that her enemies have triumphed. And verse 6, her beauty is departed. There were believers in Jerusalem. It was a disobedient city. The believers were in a minority, but they were there. There were some sincere teachers. There was faith practised. The old order was maintained, even if it wasn’t believed in by the majority. But now all that’s gone. Even that has been taken away.

And verse 7: “Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things.” She remembered, but no one helped, and she was isolated, now broken up into slavery.

Verse 8, the cause: “Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed.” After so long, many warnings, such centuries of the patience of God for her idolatry and her unbelief. “All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness.” Her sham, her lack of faith has now been ripped open, on display to the world; her hypocrisy laid bare. She’s grievously sinned and been removed.

Well, we have similar warnings in the book of Revelation to disobedient churches, that the lampstand could be removed and all glory taken. And you can go through these verses in chapter 1, and by verse 12 the tone has switched a little, because instead of being a description of Jerusalem, Jerusalem speaks for herself. She’s personified.

Of course, Jerusalem now isn’t in Jerusalem. She’s in captivity in Babylon, but she’s still considered as Jerusalem, although she’s living in a hundred towns and villages. And she’s given this voice.

Verse 12: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.” That’s what they feel and say, but they don’t yet repent.

And this is an interesting verse. As you no doubt know, Charles Wesley spotted this, and it didn’t take him long, with his poetic sensitivity, to write:

“All ye that pass by,

To Jesus draw nigh:

To you is it nothing that Jesus should die?

Your ransom and peace,

Your Surety He is:

Come, see if there ever was sorrow like His.”

What right did he have to base the verse on this verse? Every right. Because here is Jerusalem personified, complaining about her sorrow and her agonies and her losses. But that is only a picture of what is due to everyone, to us, to all people throughout the world, who will one day reflect exactly this.

And when Christ came to be a substitute and a sin-bearer for us, He had to take our share, that is the share of all believers, true believers in the history of the world, upon Himself. And so, quite rightly, Charles Wesley saw that these words should be applied to Christ, because He would come and bear justice for us, all that we deserved for our sin.

“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.” No wonder George Whitefield took this as a text one day on Moorfields, when he preached to many thousands, and revival underway and the blessing of the spirit.

Well, verse 13: “From above hath he sent…” Jerusalem is speaking, but Christ can be seen to be speaking for us. “From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands.”

Well, and Jeremiah, or rather Jerusalem, says, “From whom I am not able to rise up.” But Christ was, of course.

Well, the laments of Jerusalem go on. Verse 15: “The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men.” Verse 16: “For these things I weep.” And she’s suffering. She says in verse 18, “The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow.” But she’s still not given to repent. And the release of the remnant didn’t come for 70 years.

Verse 19: “I called for my lovers”, and friends, “but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city”, where there was terrible trouble and distress, and she was forsaken by all. Well, that’s chapter 1.

But now you come to chapter 2, and just select some verses. I come down to verse 6: “And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly”, caused the solemn feasts and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and despised, and so on.

But you have to start thinking about the purpose of this, because, as I mentioned, this applies to our own time. And we’ve seen, looking across recent centuries, how churches that were zealous and used of God, whole denominations of them, have collapsed and fallen and gone into unbelief, and come under the desolation and judgement of God. And nobody attends them any more, or few. And any glory they may once have had, the glory of the Word and the presence of the Spirit and souls saved, has all gone and disappeared.

They’re just tragic and derided. And this repeats itself when, after long appeals and times of patience, God removes a lampstand and withdraws blessing, and that whole denomination or group or congregation goes into decline and into decay. And you see this described in these verses, because this is the prophet Jeremiah. There is a purpose in these passages.

There’s model praying here. We’ll see it. There are verses to encourage trust and faith here. But overall, it’s God’s judgement on disobedience and spiritual adultery, and a warning for the future.

“The Lord hath”, verse 7 of chapter 2, “cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary.” No wonder Jeremiah wept and wept and wept through this funeral dirge. Not surprising. This was Jerusalem desolate, destroyed, and Jerusalem, the people, scattered through Babylon as slaves and deprived.

Jerusalem, where was the house of God! The representative place, the place that represented the one true and living God in the world, was in this state. The place of history, the city of David, the city where there has been awakening and blessing and true worship, and so many benefits delivered and given: the revelation of the Word, the exercise of prophecy inspired by God. “The Lord hath cast off his altar.” No more a representative place.

Verse 8: “The LORD hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion.” Her gates, verse 9, have sunk into the ground. Those glorious gates that would be wide open to worshippers and seeking sinners. No more. Her kings and princes, they’re among the Gentiles. “No vision”, end of verse 9, “from the LORD.”

And, of course, in this second chapter, Jeremiah is not just looking at the desolate geographical city. He’s looking at the people. They’re all, in his mind, Jerusalem spread throughout Babylon.

Verse 11: “Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels”, my inner being, “is troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.” He preached to them for four decades and warned them. He’d been scorned and rejected by them. They wouldn’t listen. And so we find the same today.

And to a small extent, we all share a little bit of the sorrows of Jeremiah. We try to warn people on every hand about letting the world flood into the church, letting the enemy through the gates, which will pull everything down, and God will withdraw His blessing and ultimately judge. And people scorn us for that. Doesn’t matter what spirit we adopt, how kindly, how careful we may be, we’re scorned and derided for any word of warning or any pleading. And we can see just a little into what happened on a massive scale to Jeremiah.

And sometimes you think, well, we’re moving into the book of Revelation era of the two witnesses. The church is getting reduced to almost nothing. And the two witnesses are slain, and they’re on the ground, but they’ll rise again, and there’ll be a final testimony before the coming of the Lord. And we feel as though we’re moving into that. And this book of Lamentations is not only an historical record, but a prophecy of all this which is coming, even in our time.

Verse 14: you think of prosperity gospel and the extreme charismatics. “Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity.” They haven’t preached about sin and repentance and atonement and the need of God’s forgiveness and renewing grace. “But have seen for thee false burdens”: “Pay up, pay up, pay up”, and the causes of banishment.

“All that pass by clap their hands at thee”, “they hiss”. And that’s what happens when God is forsaken. And so you can move through chapter 2, and you see so much of this covered and dealt with. Just move on to verse 15. Although I think I’ll move to chapter 3 straight away, where the tone changes again, and Jeremiah now speaks of himself.

And he certainly seems to be calling in mind, though he’ll mention them more explicitly a little further on. He certainly has in mind his sufferings, his imprisonment, his dungeon, and all the rest of it. “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.” He doesn’t put it down to the rebellious people, though they are immediately to blame. But God has permitted it because, yes, God’s servants who stand for Him will often get the wrath and the annoyance of the unconverted or those that are hostile to truth.

But he seems to be, Jeremiah at this point, overcome by his recollection of all that he passed through. It doesn’t last for long, to his great credit. Verse 2: “He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.” This isn’t speaking about his personal spiritual light. It’s talking about his ministry. His ministry didn’t bring light to the nation. They didn’t repent. They didn’t seek after the God he preached.

“Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.” Sometimes it became intolerable for the prophet. He speaks of his skin and his bones. Verse 6: “He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out.” There seemed no relief, no way out.

“Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.” Not his personal prayer, you understand, but his constant praying for the people. It didn’t seem to be answered. No, because it would only be answered in a few cases. God was still blessing a remnant, but the majority had already been consigned to judgement.

The appealing was being made by God through Jeremiah to the people, so that God may be just, and the people may be without excuse. And Jeremiah was the instrument, the evangelist, if you like, the prophet who must appeal to them fruitlessly, because God means this to be clear. “I warned you,” He would say. “I pleaded with you, and you would not turn.” And Jeremiah’s got the tough job of carrying that message to them. He will have fruit, but only a remnant, like Isaiah.

So it’s not his prayer and his appeals for personal grace that are being unheard. It’s his ministry. He speaks of his whole work and labour. And now, although he knows that this is why, it is proving too much.

And so he describes this in the passage we read for our Scripture reading. I just read verse 14 of chapter 3: “I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.” They made comic songs about him. “He hath filled me with bitterness.” Their bitterness, not from God, but the bitter things they threw at him and the insults. “And has made me drunken with wormwood.” They’d even thrown things at him, and he forgot prosperity. He didn’t know anything about plenty.

And he came to the point, verse 18, the lowest: “I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD.” But verse 19 refers to his reflection, remembering mine affliction and my misery and all the negatives. Verse 20: “My soul hath them still in remembrance”, and these are the key words, “and is humbled in me.”

It’s a little phrase, but it’s huge there. It marks the end of the negative statements and the beginning of something altogether different. Verse 21: “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” And the hope word indicates anticipation.

And then the famous words which were made especially memorable by an American hymn writer, Thomas Chisholm, and beautifully constructed from the biblical text: “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”

And Jeremiah knows that he, as an individual, will… He doesn’t deserve the goodness of the Lord. It’s His compassion sees him through. “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” Oh, how lightly the hymn version of this can be sung! It can be sung by prosperous Christians, complacent Christians, comfortable Christians, and they can claim the blessing: “Great is thy faithfulness.” Isn’t it wonderful being a Christian?

But these words are especially for the Jeremiah, for the toilers, for those who are being disdained, for those who are ready to pay a price for their witness, wherever it is; for those who carry on, who do difficult things, who want to please the Lord. However humble the things they’re doing, they’re doing them for Him, and their life is a sacrifice for Him. They’re the people to whom these promises apply, not the comfortable Christians.

“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed.” People who feel their sinfulness and their need of His grace. “Because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” They’re the people who prove this. “The LORD is my portion.”

That’s rooted right back in the book of Numbers. The portions of land that were given to the people. But Aaron and the priests, they didn’t get a portion. And the explanation back then was: the Lord is their portion. And the psalmist takes this up, David, and so does Jeremiah here in Lamentations. “The LORD is my portion.”

“I am not working,” he says, “for a splendid house”, but what is reasonable for him. “The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.” Those are the people who prove that His blessings are new every morning, and that the Lord is gracious.

Verse 25: “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” And look at this, verses 26 and 27: “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”

How interesting! You know, that’s not the way today. Youth today is the time to have fun. Youth today is not the time to be bearing the yoke. That’s the culture of today. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” There’s a personal testimony here from Jeremiah.

When you look on: “He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach. For the Lord will not cast off for ever.” And he’ll prove the Lord and be blessed. Yes. But this is the person who bore the yoke in his youth. He had early Christian service, early responsibility, early burdens.

When he went to university, he didn’t go to play. Central London is full of student churches that claim to be evangelical, and it’s all beanfeasts and fun and discussion groups. No prayer meetings, only one service, and all light and happy, weekends out and away and fun together. They’re not places where the young, with their capacities, are brought to teach a Sunday school class early and get down to it.

But here in Lamentations we say it’s the man who is proved early, and the woman, who throughout their life will be prepared to bear the reproach of the Lord and stand for Him and carry on the witness and never give up. They bore the yoke in their youth. And verses 28, 29, 30 and 31 say they will stand, and stand up, when the time of testing and the burden comes.

Isn’t that an absolute nugget of true Christian psychology, sitting in the middle of Lamentations? Well, our time is running out.

“Wherefore doth a living man complain?” For the punishment which God metes out. But nevertheless, verse 48: “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission.”

How we need to learn sympathy for lost sinners from Jeremiah, and even those who are wandering away within churches. Utmost sympathy and regret and desire for something better to take place and to happen.

And very quickly then, chapter 4 returns to the state of Jerusalem, now that she’s scattered. Verse 2, she’s just like the pagans: “The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!” Absolute earthlings. And that’s what churches will get like as the result of inviting the world in. That’s what will become of churches.

And look at verse 6. What a solemn verse in chapter 4! “For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.” Because of her homosexuality, Sodom was destroyed quickly, in a moment, and left.

But Jerusalem was punished and destroyed quickly, and then punished on and on and on in slavery and abject misery. Why? Because spiritual adultery, in the sight of Almighty God, is vastly worse than even physical adultery and homosexuality. And we see spiritual adultery wholesale today in the crass worldliness and Baal worship which is allowed into so many evangelical churches.

There could be nothing more foolish, and nothing more unspiritual, and nothing more disobedient than the pollution of divine worship and witness. It’s so serious. Verse 6, this is for the future. I’m sorry that it is dismal, that aspect of things. And you could go through chapter 4 and see verses of that kind.

And finally, chapter 5 focuses on the captives. The awareness of sin dawns down in verse 7: “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.” Seventy years of captivity. They’re not speaking about the patriarchs or the monarchy. They’re talking about their own fathers. And they’re seeing it because of the sin of Judah and Jerusalem.

And verse 16: “The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!” Precious, precious words. Things are going to change. Now, at last, there’s repentance.

Verses 19 and 20: “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.” That’s a statement of subjection. They’re on their knees before the Lord. They’re recognising His authority and His greatness.

Verse 20: “Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever?” Our translators have put it in the form of a question, and so it is. Will You forget us for ever? “Forsake us so long time?” That hints at the promises. They’re remembering the might and majesty of God. It’s implied. They seem to be remembering His covenant and promises of old.

Verse 21: “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned.” They’re asking Him to turn them and work a work in their hearts. “Renew our days as of old.”

And verse 22. Our translators have put it as a statement, but really it would have been better if they kept the reasoning they used for verse 20 and left it as a question. I firmly believe it is undoubtedly a question: “Hast thou utterly rejected us? Hast thou… Art thou utterly, or very, or for ever wroth against us?” Can’t be possible. This is a repentance. Surely it’s almost faith. You haven’t utterly rejected us. There’s hope. We can be heard.

And so it was. Remember, Jeremiah was a prophet, and this is for our time as well as for them.

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