Week 34 - Lamentations, Revelation 5 (Aug 20 - Aug 26)
Notes
Lamentations
ABOUT THE BOOK
Date of Authorship: shortly after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC
Author: Jewish tradition maintains that the prophet Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations. There is no indication in the text that this is the case, but Lamentations was likely written during the time of Jeremiah's ministry. Its association with the prophet Jeremiah is the reason that Lamentations appears right after Jeremiah in the Bible, despite the fact that, by genre, it belongs in the poetic literature section.
Purpose: Lamentations is the tragic cry of a people experiencing the horrors of war, humiliation, and exile. The author calls out to God for the Israelite people who have suffered this humiliating and total defeat at the hand of Babylon and wonders aloud if they will ever be restored.
Lamentations: A Hidden Structure
Lamentations: A Concealed Structure
Any time you translate a text from one language to another, the text itself is changed. It is impossible to preserve all the nuances and peculiarities of the text in its original language when that text is translated into the structure and style of a language that it was not written or originally read in. This change or loss is especially harsh in poetic literature. Poetry is the most nuanced form of any particular language. Poetry often employs elements specific to that language that cannot be preserved in translation like rhyme and meter. The Bible translators that produce our English versions have to choose between telling you what the poetic author is saying (the meaning of the words) and making the text sound or feel like the original poetry - they (thankfully) choose the former. Lamentations is poetic literature and it is built on an overt poetic structure that would have been immediately apparent to every Hebrew reader but is impossible for English readers to see.
The text of Lamentations is based on the Hebrew alphabet. each verse of chapters 1, 2, & 4 start with its respective letter of the Hebrew alphabet (which is 22 characters long - see Psalm 119 paragraph headings). Notice that each of these chapters has 22 verses. in chapter 3, the structure changes - here each letter begins a 3-verse section instead of 1 verse-per-letter in the other chapters. the video above offers some insight as to why the text may be divided this way. Chapter 5 - though it is 22 verses (couplets) long - does not follow the Hebrew alphabet structure that the other chapters do. The author is breaking his structure for the same reason a poet might break meter, to say something poignant in a way that will really stick out. The cry of chapter 5 is so morose and heartbroken that the author dispenses with form in order to call out to God
You should notice, in lamentations that the second line of each sentence (sometimes a third as well) is indented. This is because Hebrew poetry is written in couplets (usually) or triplets (these are also called a distich or bicolons - but I will call them couplets) these lines - the A-Line which is left justified and the B-line(s) which follow and are indented are to be understood as a singular unit of meaning - they are one-piece, completely attached to each other. When multiple couplets and triplets are joined together into a singular sense-unit we will call that a strophe. Notice that each verse (letter of the Hebrew alphabet) in chapter 1 begins a 3-couplet strophe. In 2:13 we see our first triplet of the poetry, and in 2:17 is a pair of triplets, instead of a triplet of couplets - is your head spinning yet? It is important to see this structure and read these couplets, triplets, and strophes as singular units of meaning - because they were written that way.
JEREMIAH 52:31-33: HOPE FOR THE KINGDOM OF DAVID
31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah and freed him from prison. 32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 33 So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table.
Jeremiah records the end of the Davidic kingship in chapter 39 when Gedaliah is made ruler, and then, just two chapters later, records the end of Israelite self-rule, when Gedaliah is assassinated. God had promised David that his kingdom would never end. That promise was conditioned on faithfulness, and now Judah's unfaithfulness has led to its demise. However, God is faithful to his promise, the Davidic kingship will one day be restored. Despite all the gloom in the book of Jeremiah, the book ends with a message of hope for the line of David. In exile, the grandson of Josiah, Jehoiachin, is released from prison and given a seat of honor. this late and brief conclusion to the book shows the reader that God is remaining faithful to his promise, even through the punishment he has brought upon his people.
Revelation 5: The Lion is a Lamb
Chapter 5 Seamlesley continues the throne scene of chapter 4. God on the throne is holding a throne with 7 seals. NT Wright suggests (and I agree) that this scroll is the plan of God to bring salvation and justice (always linked in Scripture) to the world. No one is worthy to open the scroll - which essentially means that no one could bring God’s plan to bear upon the world. But one of the elders tells John in verse 5 that the “lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to pen the scroll and its seven seals.”
But, curiously, the character that does so is not depicted as a lion, but as a Lamb. Here is Scott McKnight commenting on the significance of this imagery:
Something odd happens in chapter 5 that transforms the message of the book of Revelation. One of the elders informs John that only the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, had triumphed and so only he can crack open the scroll (perhaps "little scroll).
John wants us to see with the eyes of our imagination again-to picture the Lion romping forward to grab hold of the scroll. But no, that's not how it happens. Instead, there is a morphing, a transformation: "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne" (5:6, italics added). G. B. Caird highlights the reversal. "What John hears is couched in the traditional messianic imagery of the Old Testament; what he sees constitutes the most impressive rebirth of images he anywhere achieves." The Lion becomes the Lamb. And it is a bizarre lamb, with three sevens: "seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth" (5:6). The Lamb "took the scroll from the right hand" of God (5:7). Then two groups (four living creatures and twenty-four elders) erupt into worship of the Lamb.
Why the transformation? It's easy to follow a fierce lion, but who wants to follow a lamb? The Lamb, they sing, is worthy, not because he headbutted someone off the stage. No, he is worthy because he was slain, and by being slain, the Lamb "purchased" a universal people of God, and they- not Babylon's lords-will be a "kingdom and priests to serve our God." What's more, the Lamb's followers "will reign on the earth" (5:10). The Lord of Revelation 1:5, you will remember, is the "ruler of the kings of the earth." That Lord, that Lion, is the Lamb. The four living creatures and twenty-four elders with innumerable angels along with "every creature" in all creation praise the Lamb. The original two groups then close the worship service down with a responsive "Amen!" (5:14). And this is not the only time the throne room's choir praises the Lamb (cf. 7:10; 14:1, 4; 15:3).
-Revelation For the Rest of Us, P 76-77
McKnight notes that this is not a normal-looking lamb at all:
(Revelation 5:6b) The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
I don’t think that John’s point here is to get us to imagine what a lamb with 7 horns and 7 eyes would actually look like. Much less to describe the actual, anatomical visage of Jesus in heaven. With these features (horns and eyes) John is using imagery to tell us something about Jesus, namely that he is all-powerful and all-seeing, by using the number of completeness to depict these features of his appearance.
For more on the symbolic meaning of numbers in the book of Revelation see the images below from Michael Gorman’s Reading Revelation Responsibly:
