Lamentations 1:19 – I called for those who love me, but they betrayed me. My priests and leaders breathed their last breath in the city, looking for food to keep themselves alive.
It’s a sad truth: many times the ones we give our time to don’t have the time for us. But isn’t that what we do to Yahweh also? He is calling us and we betray him. And yet he keeps calling us.
Lamentations 3:44 – You covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer could get through it.
It is a sobering though that we have strayed so far from Yahweh that he covers his face (whether in shame or to prevent his anger from showing it’s full face). With his face covered, our prayers don’t go through, except a prayer of genuine repentance. Then he will happily uncover his face. (vs 55: I call your name from the deepest pit, O Lord.).
Lamentations 4:17 – We are still straining our eyes, trying in vain to find help. We waited and waited for a nation that didn’t save us.
In all this, they kept looking EVERYWHERE ELSE but Yahweh to save them. Our help comes from the Lord, not from those around us or those who betrayed us.
Lamentations 4:20 – The person the Lord anointed as king, who is the breath of our life, was caught in their pits. We had thought that we would live in our king’s shadow among the nations.
The danger of ascribing what belongs to Yahweh to a person, even one who is anointed by Yahweh. “The king who is the breath of the life…” The breath of our life is the Holy Spirit. His name literally means “breath”: pneuma. He is the one who gives life, not the earthly king no matter how anointed they are. We are to abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1), not the shadow of the earthly king. What is due to Yahweh is only to Yahweh.