_ZION'S APPEAL_
i. 12-22
In the latter part of the second elegy Jerusalem appears as the
speaker, appealing for sympathy, first to stray, passing travellers,
then to the larger circle of the surrounding nations, and lastly to
her God. Already the suffering city has spoken once or twice in brief
interruptions of the poet's descriptions of her miseries, and now she
seems to be too impatient to permit herself to be represented any
longer even by this friendly advocate; she must come forward in person
and present her case in her own words.
There is much difference of opinion among commentators about the
rendering of the phrase with which the appeal begins. The Revisers
have followed the Authorised Version in taking it as a question--"Is
it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?"[115] But it may be treated as
a direct negative--"It is nothing," etc., or, by a slightly different
reading of the Hebrew text, as a simple call for attention--"O all ye
that pass by," etc., as in the Vulgate "_O vos_," etc. The usual
rendering is the finest in literary feeling, and it is in accordance
with a common usage. Although the sign of an interrogation, which
would set this meaning beyond dispute, is absent, there does not seem
to be sufficient reason for rejecting it in favour of one of the
proposed alternatives. But in any case the whole passage evidently
expresses a deep yearning for sympathy. Mere strangers, roving
Bedouin, any people who may chance to be passing by Jerusalem, are
implored to behold her incomparable woes. The wounded animal creeps
into a corner to suffer and die in secret, perhaps on account of the
habit of herds, in tormenting a suffering mate. But among mankind the
instinct of a sufferer is to crave sympathy, from a friend, if
possible; but if such be not available, then even from a stranger. Now
although where it is possible to give effectual aid, merely to cast a
pitying look and pass by on the other side, like the priest and the
Levite in the parable, is a mockery and a cruelty, although
unpretentious indifference is better than that hypocrisy, it would be
a great mistake to suppose that in those cases for which no direct
relief can be given sympathy is of no value. This sympathy, if it is
real, would help if it could; and under all circumstances it is the
reality of the sympathy that is most prized, not its issues.
[115] i. 12.
It should be remembered, further, that the first condition of active
aid is a genuine sense of compassion, which can only be awakened by
means of knowledge and the impressions which a contemplation of
suffering produce. Evil is wrought not only from want of thought, but
also from lack of knowledge; and good-doing is withheld for the same
reason. Therefore the first requisite is to arrest attention. A royal
commission is the reasonable precursor of a state remedy for some
public wrong. Misery is permitted to flourish in the dark because
people are too indolent to search it out. No doubt the knowledge of
sufferings which we might remedy implies a grave responsibility; but
we cannot escape our obligations by simply closing our eyes to what we
do not wish to see. We are responsible for our ignorance and its
consequences wherever the opportunity of knowledge is within our
reach.
The appeal to all who pass by is most familiar to us in its later
association with our Lord's sufferings on the cross. But this is not
in any sense a Messianic passage; it is confined in its purpose to the
miseries of Jerusalem. Of course there can be no objection to
illustrating the grief and pain of the Man of Sorrows by using the
classic language of an ancient lament if we note that this is only an
illustration. There is a kinship in all suffering, and it is right to
consider that He who was tried in all points as we are tried passed
through sorrows which absorbed all the bitterness even of such a cup
of woe as that which was drunk by Jerusalem in the extremity of her
misfortunes. If never before there had been sorrow like unto her
sorrow, at length that was matched, nay, surpassed at Gethsemane and
Golgotha. Still it would be a mistake to confine these words to their
secondary application--not only an exegetical mistake, but one of
deeper significance. Jesus Christ restrained the wailing of the women
who offered Him their compassion on His way to the cross, bidding them
weep not for Him, but for themselves and their children.[116] Much
more when His passion is long past and He is reigning in glory must it
be displeasing to Him for His friends to be wasting idle tears over
the sufferings of His earthly life. The morbid sentimentality which
broods over the ancient wounds of Christ, the nail prints and the
spear thrust, but ignores the present wounds of society--the wounds
of the world for which He bled and died, or the wounds of the Church
which is His body now, must be wrong in His sight. He would rather we
gave a cup of cold water to one of His brethren than an ocean of tears
to the memory of Calvary. If then we would make use of the ruined
city's appeal for sympathy by applying it to some later object it
would be more in agreement with the mind of Christ to think of the
miseries of mankind in our own day, and to consider how a sympathetic
regard for them may point to some ministry of alleviation.
[116] Luke xxiii. 28.
In order to impress the magnitude of her miseries on the minds of the
strangers whose attention she would arrest, the city, now personified
as a suppliant, describes her dreadful condition in a series of brief,
pointed metaphors. Thus the imagination is excited; and the
imagination is one of the roads to the heart. It is not enough that
people know the bald facts of a calamity as these may be scheduled in
an inspector's report. Although this preliminary information is most
important, if we go no further the report will be replaced in its
pigeon-hole, and lie there till it is forgotten. If it is to do
something better than gather the dust of years it must be used as a
foundation for the imagination to work upon. This does not imply any
departure from truth, any false colouring or exaggeration; on the
contrary, the process only brings out the truth which is not really
seen until it is imagined. Let us look at the various images under
which the distress of Jerusalem is here presented.
It is like a fire in the bones.[117] It burns, consumes, pains with
intolerable torment; it is no skin-deep trouble, it penetrates to the
very marrow. This fire is overmastering; it is not to be quenched,
neither does it die out; it "prevaileth" against the bones. There is
no getting such a fire under.
[117] i. 13.
It is like a net.[118] The image is changed. We see a wild creature
caught in the bush, or perhaps a fugitive arrested in his flight and
flung down by hidden snares at his feet. Here is the shock of
surprise, the humiliation of deceit, the vexation of being thwarted.
The result is a baffled, bewildered, helpless condition.
[118] i. 13.
It is like faintness.[119] The desolate sufferer is ill. It is bad
enough to have to bear calamities in the strength of health. Jerusalem
is made sick and kept faint all the day--with a faintness that is not
a momentary collapse, but a continuous condition of failure.
[119] _Ibid._
It is like a yoke[120] which is wreathed upon the neck--fixed on, as
with twisted withes. The poet is here more definite. The yoke is made
out of the transgressions of Jerusalem. The sense of guilt does not
lighten its weight; the band that holds it most closely is the feeling
that it is deserved. It is natural that the sinful sufferer should
exclaim that God, who has bound this terrible yoke upon her, has made
her strength to fail. As there is nothing so invigorating as the
assurance that one is suffering for a righteous cause, so there is
nothing so wretchedly depressing as the consciousness of guilt.
[120] i. 14.
Lastly, it is like a winepress.[121] This image is elaborated with
more detail, although at the expense of unity of design. God is said
to have called a "solemn assembly" to oppress the Jews, by an ironical
reversal of the common notion of such an assembly. The language
recalls the idea of one of the great national festivals of Israel. But
now instead of the favoured people their enemies are summoned, and the
object is not the glad praise of God for his bounties in harvest or
vintage, but the crushing of the Jews. They are to be victims, not
guests as of old. They are themselves the harvest of judgment, the
vintage of wrath. The wine is to be made, but the grapes crushed to
produce it are the people who were accustomed to feast and drink of
the fruits of God's bounty in the happy days of their prosperity. So
the mighty men are set at nought, their prowess counting as nothing
against the brutal rush of the enemy; and the young men are crushed,
their spirit and vigour failing them in the great destruction.
[121] i. 15.
The most terrible trait in these pictures, one that is common to all
of them, is the Divine origin of the troubles. It was God who sent
fire into the bones, spread the net, made the sufferer desolate and
faint. The yoke was bound by His hands. It was He who set at nought
the mighty men, and summoned the assembly of foes to crush His people.
The poet even goes so far as to make the daring statement that it was
the Lord Himself who trod the virgin daughter of Judah as in a
winepress. It is a ghastly picture--a dainty maiden trampled to death
by Jehovah as grapes are trampled to squeeze out their juice! This
horrible thing is ascribed to God! Yet there is no complaint of
barbarity, no idea that the Judge of all the earth is not doing right.
The miserable city does not bring any railing accusation against her
Lord; she takes all the blame upon herself. We must be careful to bear
in mind the distinction between poetic imagery and prosaic narrative.
Still it remains true that Jerusalem here attributes her troubles to
the will and action of God. This is vital to the Hebrew faith. To
explain it away is to impoverish the religion of Israel, and with it
the Old Testament revelation. That revelation shews us the absolute
sovereignty of God, and at the same time it brings out the guilt of
man, so that no room is allowed for complaints against the Divine
justice. The grief is all the greater because there is no thought of
rebellion. The daring doubts that struggle into expression in Job
never obtrude themselves here to check the even flow of tears. The
melancholy is profound, but comparatively calm, since it does not once
give place to anger. It is natural that the succession of images of
misery conceived in this spirit should be followed by a burst of
tears. Zion weeps because the comforter who should refresh her soul is
far away, and she is left utterly desolate.[122]
[122] i. 16.
Here the supposed utterance of Jerusalem is broken for the poet to
insert a description of the suppliant making her piteous appeal.[123]
He shews us Zion spreading out her hands, that is to say, in the
well-known attitude of prayer. She is comfortless, oppressed by her
neighbours in accordance with the will of her God, and treated as an
unclean thing; she who had despised the idolatrous Gentiles in her
pride of superior sanctity has now become foul and despicable in their
eyes!
[123] i. 17.
The semi-dramatic form of the elegy is seen in the reappearance of
Jerusalem as speaker without any formula of introduction. After the
poet's brief interjection describing the suppliant, the personified
city continues her plaintive appeal, but with a considerable
enlargement of its scope. She makes the most distinct acknowledgment
of the two vital elements of the case--God's righteousness and her own
rebellion.[124] These carry us beneath the visible scenes of trouble
so graphically illustrated earlier, and fix our attention on
deep-seated principles. It cannot be supposed that the faith and
penitence unreservedly confessed in the elegy were truly experienced
by all the fugitive citizens of Jerusalem, though they were found in
the devout "remnant" among whom the author of the poem must be
reckoned. But the reasonable interpretation of these utterances is
that which accepts them as the inspired expressions of the thoughts
and feelings which Jerusalem ought to possess, as ideal expressions,
suitable to those who rightly appreciate the whole situation. This
fact gives them a wide applicability. The ideal approaches the
universal. Although it cannot be said that all trouble is the direct
punishment of sin, and although it is manifestly insincere to make
confession of guilt one does not inwardly admit, to be firmly settled
in the conviction that God is right in what he does even when it all
looks most wrong, that if there is a fault it must be on man's side,
is to have reached the centre of truth. This is very different from
the admission that God has the right of an absolute sovereign to do
whatever He chooses, like mad Caligula when intoxicated with his own
divinity; it even implies a denial of that supposed right, for it
asserts that He acts in accordance with something other than His will,
viz., righteousness.
[124] i. 18.
Enlarging the area of her appeal, no longer content to snatch at the
casual pity of individual travellers on the road, Jerusalem now calls
upon all the "peoples"--i.e., all neighbouring tribes--to hear the
tale of her woes.[125] This is too huge a tragedy to be confined to
private spectators; it is of national proportions, and it claims the
attention of whole nations. It is curious to observe that foreigners,
whom the strict Jews sternly exclude from their privileges, are
nevertheless besought to compassionate their distresses. These
uncircumcised heathen are not now thrust contemptuously aside; they
are even appealed to as sympathisers. Perhaps this is meant to
indicate the vastness of the misery of Jerusalem by the suggestion
that even aliens should be affected by it; when the waves spread far
in all directions there must have been a most terrible storm at the
centre of disturbance. Still it is possible to find in this widening
outlook of the poet a sign of the softening and enlarging effects of
trouble. The very need of much sympathy breaks down the barriers of
proud exclusiveness, and prepares one to look for gracious qualities
among people who have been previously treated with churlish
indifference or positive animosity. Floods and earthquakes tame savage
beasts. On the battlefield wounded men gratefully accept relief from
their mortal enemies. Conduct of this sort may be self-regarding,
perhaps weak and cowardly; still it is an outcome of the natural
brotherhood of all mankind, any confession of which, however
reluctant, is a welcome thing.
[125] i. 18.
The appeal to the nations contains three particulars. It deplores the
captivity of the virgins and young men; the treachery of
allies--"lovers" who have been called upon for assistance, but in
vain; and the awful fact that men of such consequence as the elders
and priests, the very aristocracy of Jerusalem, had died of
starvation after an ineffectual search for food--a lurid picture of
the horrors of the siege.[126] The details repeat themselves with but
very slight variations. It is natural for a great sufferer to revolve
his bitter morsel continuously. The action is a sign of its
bitterness. The monotony of the dirge is a sure indication of the
depth of the trouble that occasions it. The theme is only too
interesting to the mourner, however wearisome it may become to the
listener.
[126] i. 18, 19.
In drawing to a close the appeal goes further, and, rising altogether
above man, seeks the attention of God.[127] It is not enough that
every passing traveller is arrested, nor even that the notice of all
the neighbouring nations is sought; this trouble is too great for
human shoulders to bear. It will absorb the largest mass of sympathy,
and yet thirst for more. Twice before in the first part of the elegy
the language of the poet speaking in his own person was interrupted by
an outcry of Jerusalem to God.[128] Now the elegy closes with a fuller
appeal to Heaven. This is an utterance of faith where faith is tried
to the uttermost. It is distinctly recognised that the calamities
bewailed have been sent by God; and yet the stricken city turns to God
for consolation. And the appeal is not at all in the form of a cry to
a tormentor for mercy; it seeks friendly sympathy and avenging
actions. Nothing could more clearly prove the consciousness that God
is not doing any wrong to His people. Not only is there no complaint
against the justice of His acts; in spite of them all He is still
regarded as the greatest Friend and Helper of the victims of His
wrath.
[127] i. 20-2.
[128] i. 9, 11.
This apparently paradoxical position issues in what might otherwise be
a contradiction of thought. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the
righteous judgment of God, against which no shadow of complaint is
raised; and yet God is asked to pour vengeance on the heads of the
human agents of His wrath! These people have been acting from their
own evil, or at all events their own inimical motives. Therefore it is
not held that they deserve punishment for their conduct any the less
on account of the fact that they have been the unconscious instruments
of Providence. The vengeance here sought for cannot be brought into
line with Christian principles; but the poet had never heard the
Sermon on the Mount. It would not have occurred to him that the spirit
of revenge was not right, any more than it occurred to the writers of
maledictory Psalms.
There is one more point in this final appeal to God which should be
noticed, because it is very characteristic of the elegy throughout.
Zion bewails her friendless condition, declaring, "there is none to
comfort me."[129] This is the fifth reference to the absence of a
comforter.[130] The idea may be merely introduced in order to
accentuate the description of utter desolation. And yet when we
compare the several allusions to it the conclusion seems to be forced
upon us that the poet has a more specific intention. In some cases, at
least, he seems to have one particular comforter in mind, as, for
example, when he says, "The comforter that should refresh my soul is
far from me."[131] Our thoughts instinctively turn to the Paraclete of
St. John's Gospel. It would not be reasonable to suppose that the
elegist had attained to any definite conception of the Holy Spirit
such as that of the ripe Christian revelation. But we have his own
words to witness that God is to him the supreme Comforter, is the Lord
and Giver of life who refreshes his soul. It would seem, then, that
the poet's thought is like that of the author of the twenty-second
Psalm, which was echoed in our Lord's cry of despair on the
cross.[132] When God our Comforter hides the light of His countenance
the night is most dark. Yet the darkness is not always perceived, or
its cause recognised. Then to miss the consolations of God
consciously, with pain, is the first step towards recovering them.
[129] i. 21.
[130] See i. 2, 9, 16, 17, 21.
[131] i. 16.
[132] Mark xv. 34.