_DESOLATION_
i. 1-7.
The first elegy is devoted to moving pictures of the desolation of
Jerusalem and the sufferings of her people. It dwells upon these
disasters themselves, with fewer references to the causes of them or
the hope of any remedy than are to be found in the subsequent poems,
simply to express the misery of the whole story. Thus it is in the
truest sense of the word a "Lamentation." It naturally divides itself
into two parts--one with the poet speaking in his own person,[108] the
other representing the deserted city herself appealing to passing
strangers and neighbouring nations, and lastly to God, to take note of
her woes.[109]
[108] i. 1-11.
[109] i. 12-22.
The poem opens with a very beautiful passage in which we have a
comparison of Jerusalem to a widow bereft of her children, sitting
solitary in the night, weeping sorely. It would not be just to read
into the image of widowhood ideas collected from utterances of the
prophets about the wedded union of Israel and her Lord; we have no
hint of anything of the sort here. Apparently the image is selected in
order to express the more vividly the utter lonesomeness of the city.
It is clear that the attribute "solitary" has no bearing on the
external relations of Jerusalem--her isolation among the Syrian hills,
or the desertion of her allies, mentioned a little later;[110] it
points to a more ghostly solitude, streets without traffic, tenantless
houses. The widow is solitary because she has been robbed of her
children. And in this, her desolation, _she sits_. The attitude, so
simple and natural and easy under ordinary circumstances, here
suggests a settled continuance of wretchedness; it is helpless and
hopeless. The first wild agony of the severance of the closest natural
ties has passed, and with it the stimulus of conflict; now there has
supervened the dull monotony of despair. This is the lowest depth of
misery, because it allows leisure when leisure is least welcome,
because it gives the reins to the imagination to roam over regions of
heart-rending memory or sombre apprehension, above all because there
is nothing to be done, so that the whole range of consciousness is
abandoned to pain. Many a sufferer has been saved by the healing
ministry of active duties, sometimes resented as an intrusion. It is a
fearful thing simply to sit in sorrow.
[110] i. 2.
The mourner sits _in the night_, while the world around lies in the
peace of sleep. The darkness has fallen, yet she does not stir, for
day and night are alike to her--both dark. She is statuesque in
sorrow, petrified by pain, and yet unhappily not dead; benumbed, but
alive in every sensitive fibre of her being and terribly awake. In
this dread night of misery her one occupation is weeping. The mourner
knows how the hidden fountains of tears which have been sealed to the
world for the day will break out in the silent solitude of night;
then the bravest will "wet his couch with his tears." The forlorn
woman "weepeth sore"; to use the expressive Hebraism, "weeping she
weepeth." "Her tears are on her cheeks"; they are continually flowing;
she has no thought of drying them; there is no one else to wipe them
away. This is not the frantic torrent of youthful tears, soon to be
forgotten in sudden sunshine, like a spring shower; it is the dreary
winter rain, falling more silently, but from leaden clouds that never
break. The Hebrew poet's picture is illustrated with singular aptness
by a Roman coin, struck off in commemoration of the destruction of
Jerusalem by the army of Titus, which represents a woman seated under
a palm tree with the legend _Judæa capta_. Is it too much to imagine
that some Greek artist attached to the court of Vespasian may have
borrowed the idea for the coin from the Septuagint version of this
very passage?
The woe of Jerusalem is intensified by reason of its contrast with the
previous splendour of the proud city. She had not always appeared as a
lonely widow. Formerly she had held a high place among the
neighbouring nations--for did she not cherish memories of the great
days of her shepherd king and Solomon the magnificent? Then she ruled
provinces; now she is herself tributary. She had lovers in the old
times--a fact which points to faults of character not further pursued
at present. How opposite is the utterly deserted state into which she
is now sunk! This thought of a tremendous fall gives the greatest
force to the portrait. It is Rembrandtesque; the black shadows on the
foreground are the deeper because they stand sharply out against the
brilliant radiance that streams in from the sunset of the past. The
pitiableness of the comfortless present lies in this, that there had
been lovers whose consolations would now have been a solace; the
bitterness of the enmity now experienced is its having been distilled
from the dregs of poisoned friendship. Against the protests of her
faithful prophets Jerusalem had courted alliance with her heathen
neighbours, only to be cruelly deserted in her hour of need. It is the
old story of friendship with the world, keenly accentuated in the life
of Israel, because this favoured people had already seen glimpses of a
rich, rare privilege, the friendship of Heaven. This is the irony of
the situation; it is the tragic irony of all Hebrew history. Why were
these people so blindly infatuated that they would be perpetually
forsaking the living waters, and hewing out to themselves broken
cisterns that could hold no water? The question is only surpassed by
that of the similar folly on the part of those of us who follow their
example in spite of the warning their fate affords, failing to see
that true friendship is too exacting for ties spun from mere
convenience or superficial pleasantness to bear the strain of its more
serious claims.
Passing on from the poetic image to a more direct view of the drear
facts of the case, the author describes the hardships of the
fugitives--people who had fled to Egypt, the retreat of Jeremiah and
his companions. This must be the bearing of the passage which our
translators render--
"Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of
great servitude."
For if the topic were the captivity at Babylon it would be difficult
to see how "affliction" and "great servitude" could be treated as the
_causes_ of that disaster; were they not rather its effects? Two
solutions of this difficulty have been proposed. It has been suggested
that the captivity is here presented as a consequence of the
misconduct of the Jews in oppressing peoples subject to them. But the
abstract words will not readily bear any such meaning; we should have
expected some more explicit charge. Then it has been proposed to read
the words "out of affliction," etc., in place of the phrase "because
of affliction," etc., as though in escaping from trouble at home the
Jews had only passed into a new misfortune abroad. This is not so
simple an explanation of the poet's language as that at which we
arrive by the perfectly legitimate substitution of the word "exile"
for "captivity." It may seem strange that the statement should be
affirmed of "Judah," as though the whole nation had escaped to Egypt;
but it would be equally inexact to say that "Judah" was carried
captive to Babylon, seeing that only a selection from the upper
classes was deported, while the majority of the people was probably
left in the land. But so many of the Jews, especially those best known
to the poet, were in voluntary exile, that it was quite natural for
him to regard them as virtually the nation. Now upon these refugees
three troubles fall. First, the asylum is a heathen country,
abominable to pious Israelites. Second, even here the fugitives have
no rest; they are not allowed to settle down; they are perpetually
molested. Third, on the way thither they are harassed by the enemy.
They are overtaken by pursuers "within the straits," a statement which
may be read literally; bands of Chaldæans would hover about the
mountains, ready to pounce upon the disorganised groups of fugitives
as they made their way through the narrow defiles that led out of the
hill country to the southern plains. But the phrase is a familiar
Hebraism for difficulties generally. No doubt it was true of the Jews
in this larger sense that their opponents took advantage of their
straitened circumstances to vex them in every possible way. This is
just in accordance with the common experience of mankind all the world
over. But while the fact of the experience is obvious, the inference
to which it points like an arrow is obstinately eluded. Thus a
commercial man in financial straits loses his credit at the very
moment when he most needs it. We cannot say that this is a proof of
spite, or even a sign of cynical indifference; because the needy
person is really most untrustworthy, though his moral integrity may be
unshaken, seeing that his circumstances make it probable that he will
be unable to fulfil his obligations. But now it is the deeper
significance of this fact that is so persistently ignored. There is
perceptible at times in nature a law of compensation by the operation
of which misfortune is mitigated; but that merciful law is frequently
thwarted by the overbearing influence of the terrible law of the
"survival of the fittest," the gospel of the fortunate, but the
death-knell for all failures. If this is so in nature, much more does
it obtain in human society so long as selfish greed is unchecked by
higher principles. Then the world, the Godless world, can be no asylum
for the miserable and unfortunate, because it will be hard upon them
in exact proportion to the extremity of their necessities. Moreover,
the perception that this bitter truth is not a fruit of temporary
passions which may be restrained by education, but the outcome of
certain persistent principles which cannot be set aside while society
retains its present constitution, gives to it the adamantine strength
of destiny.
Coming nearer to the city in his mental vision, the poet next bewails
deserted roads; "those ways of Zion" up which the holiday folks used
to troop, clad in gay garments, with songs of rejoicing, are left so
lonely that it seems as though they themselves must be mourning. It is
in keeping with the imagery of these poems which personify the city,
to endow the very roads with fancied consciousness. This is a natural
result of intense emotion, and therefore a witness to its very
intensity. It seems as though the very earth must share in the
feelings of the man whose heart is stirred to its depths; as though
all things must be filled with the passion the waves of which flow out
to the horizon of his consciousness, till the very stones cry out.
As he approaches the city, the poet is struck with a strange, sad
sight. There are no people about the gates; yet here, if anywhere, we
should expect to meet not only travellers passing through, but also
groups of men, merchants at their traffic, arbitrators settling
disputes, friends exchanging confidences, idlers lounging about and
chewing the cud of the latest gossip, beggars winning for alms; for by
the gates are markets, _al fresco_ tribunals, open spaces for public
meetings. Formerly the life of the city was here concentrated; now no
trace of life is to be seen even at these social ganglia. The
desertion and silence of the gateways gives a shock of distress to the
visitor on entering the ruined city. More disappointments await him
within the walls. Still keeping in mind the idea of the national
festivals, and accompanying the course of them in imagination, the
poet goes up to the temple. No services are proceeding; any priests
who may be found still haunting the precincts of the charred ruins can
only sigh over their enforced idleness; the girl-choristers whose
voices would ring through the porticoes in the old times, are silent
and desolate, for their mother, Jerusalem, is herself "in bitterness."
In this part of the elegy our attention is directed to the cessation
of the happy national assemblies with their accompaniment of public
worship in songs of praise for harvest and vintage and in the awful
symbolism of the altar. The name "Zion" was associated with two
things, festivity and worship. It was a happy privilege for Israel to
have had the inspired insight as well as the courage of faith to
realise the conjunction. Even with the fuller light and larger liberty
of Christianity it is rarely acknowledged among us. Our services have
too much of the funeral dirge about them. The devout Israelite
reserved his dirge for the death of his worship. It does not seem to
have occurred to the poet that anybody could come to regard worship as
an irksome duty from which he would gladly be liberated. Are we, then,
to suppose that the Israelites who practised the crude cult that was
prevalent before the Exile, even among the true servants of Jehovah,
were indeed more devout than Christians who enjoy the privileges of
their richer revelation? Scarcely so; for it must be remembered that
we are called to a more spiritual and therefore a more difficult
worship. Inward sincerity is here of supreme importance; if this is
missing there is no worship, and without it the miserable unreality
becomes inexpressibly wearisome. No doubt it is the failure to reach
the rare altitude of its lofty ideal that makes Christian worship to
appear in the eyes of many to be a melancholy performance. But this
explanation should not be permitted to obscure the fact that true,
living, spiritual worship must be a very delightful exercise of the
soul. Perhaps one reason why this truth is not sufficiently
appreciated may be found in the very facility with which the outward
means of worship are presented to us. People who are seldom out of the
sound of church bells are inclined to grow deaf to their significance.
The Roman Christian hunted in the catacombs, the Waldensian hiding in
his mountain cave, the Covenanter meeting his fellow members of the
kirk in a remote highland glen, the backwoodsman walking fifty miles
to attend Divine service once in six months, are led by difficulty and
deprivation to perceive the value of public worship in a degree which
is surprising to people among whom it is merely an incident of
every-day life. When Zion was in ashes the memory of her festivals was
encircled with a halo of regret.
In accordance with the principle of construction which he follows
throughout--the heightening of the effect of the picture by presenting
a succession of contrasts--the poet next sets the prosperity of the
enemies of Jerusalem in close juxtaposition to the misery of those of
her people in whom it is most pitiable and startling, the children and
the princes. Men with any heart in them would wish above all things
that the innocent young members of their families should be spared;
yet the captives carried off to Babylon consisted principally of boys
and girls torn from their homes, conveyed hundreds of miles across the
desert, many of them dragged down to hideous degradation by the vices
that luxuriated in the corrupt empire of the Euphrates. The other
class of victims specially commented on is that of the princes. Not
only is the present humiliation of the nobility in sharp contrast to
their former elevation of rank, and therefore their sufferings the
more acute, but it is also to be observed that their old position of
leadership has been completely reversed. The reference must be to
Zedekiah and his courtiers.[111] These proud princes who formerly
exercised command over the multitude have become a shameful flock of
fugitives. In the expressive image of the poet, they are compared to
"harts that find no pasture"; they are like fleet wild deer, so cowed
by hunger that they meekly permit themselves to be driven by their
enemies just as if they were a herd of tame cattle.
[111] Jer. xxxix. 4, 5.
In the middle of this comparison between the success of the conquerors
and the fate of their victims the poet inserts a pregnant sentence
which suddenly carries us off to regions of far more profound
reflection, touching upon the two sources of the ruin of Jerusalem
that lie behind the visible hand of Nebuchadnezzar and his hosts, her
own sin and the consequent wrath of her God. It flashes out as a
momentary thought, and then retires with equal suddenness, permitting
the previous current of reflections to be resumed as though unaffected
by the startling interruption. This thought will reappear, however,
with increasing fulness, shewing that it is always present to the mind
of the poet and ready to come to the surface at any moment, even when
it would seem to be inappropriate, although it can never be really
inappropriate, because it is the key to the mystery of the whole
tragedy.
Lastly, while the sense of a strong contrast is excited objectively by
a comparison of the placid security of the invaders with the
degradation of the fugitives, subjectively it is most vividly realised
by the sufferers themselves when they call to mind their former
happiness. Jerusalem is supposed to fall into a reverie in which she
follows the recollection of the whole series of her pleasant
experiences from far-off bygone times through an the succeeding ages
flown to the present era of calamities. This is to indulge in the
pains of memory--pains which are decidedly more acute than the
corresponding pleasures celebrated by Samuel Rogers. These pains are
doubly intense owing to the inevitable fact that the contrast is
unnaturally strained. Viewed in the softened lights of memory, the
past is strangely simplified, its mixed character is forgotten, and
many of its unpleasant features are smoothed out, so that an idyllic
charm hovers over the dream, and lends it an unearthly beauty. This is
why so many people foolishly damp the hopes of children, who, if they
are healthily constituted, ought to be anticipating the future with
eagerness, by solemnly exhorting them to make hay while the sun
shines, with the gloomy warning that the sunny season must soon pass.
Their application of the motto _carpe diem_ is not only pagan in
spirit; it is founded on an illusion. Happily there is some unreality
about most of our yearning regrets for the days that have gone. That
sweet, fair past was not so radiant as its effigy in the dreamland of
memory now appears to be; nor is the hard present so free from
mitigating circumstances as we suppose. And yet, when all is said, we
cannot find the consolation we hunger after in hours of darkness among
bare conclusions of common-sense. The grave is not an illusion, at
least when only viewed in the light of the past though even this
chill, earthy reality begins to melt into a shadow immediately the
light of the eternal future falls upon it. The melancholy that laments
the lost past can only be perfectly mastered by that Christian grace,
the hope which presses forward to a better future.