An Appeal for Tears Lamentations 2:18

As the enemies and neighbors of Jerusalem taunted them for their troubles, we can imagine the additional grief that the people who remained there suffered. After all the devastation which was among them we would not blame them for crying relentlessly. In chapter two and verse eight Jeremiah addresses their weeping where he wrote:

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give yourself no rest; let not the apple of your eye cease.

The verse begins, “Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion,...” If we use our mind's eye we can see the people's heart crying out to the Lord, and let's notice what it was toward “O wall of the daughter of Zion”. In verse eight of this chapter we read:

The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion: he has stretched out a line, he has not withdrawn his hand from destroying: therefore he made the rampart and the wall to lament; they languished together.

Now Jeremiah added that the wall has become the object to which the people lament. They turn their faces toward the very part of the city that God purposed to destroy.

The verse goes on to say, “let tears run down like a river day and night:” By using personification, Jeremiah calls for the wall to “let tears run down” as if the wall was to join the sorrowful display. Notice the extent to which he desires the tears would flow-“like a river day and night”. As waters that flow through a torrent or wadi, the wall was called upon to pour forth sorrowful tears.

The verse continues, “give yourself no rest; let not the apple of your eye cease.” In addition to the tears that were to flow like a river, Jeremiah desired that the wall have “no rest” or “be without ceasing” from the crying that it was to make. “The apple” or “pupil” of the eye of the wall was to have a continual flow of tears that only began to express the sorrow of the people whom the wall surrounded. No doubt the grief of the people was great, and the tears showed an outward demonstration of what they felt inside.

Have we ever been so sorrowful over an area in our lives that we desired that walls join in with our weeping? Have we ever felt the depth of the anguish these who lived in Jerusalem experienced? Perhaps we feel this way and wonder if anything will be done about it. We can know this, in the book of Psalms in chapter fifty-six and verse eight we read:

You tell my wanderings: put my tears into your bottle: are they not in your book?

Every tear we cry, God is putting into His bottle, and one day according to the book of Revelation chapter twenty-one and verse four:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Even so come and wipe away our tears Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.

Next time we see the people of Jerusalem crying over their troubles, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

 

Until tomorrow...there is more...

 

Look for the daily devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation”, the marriage book “So, You Want to Be Married”, and the new devotional “One Year in the Sermon on the Mount” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore