_CONTRASTS_
iv. 1-12
IN form the fourth elegy is slightly different from each of its
predecessors. Following the characteristic plan of the Book of
Lamentations, it is an acrostic of twenty-two verses arranged in the
order of the Hebrew alphabet. In it we meet with the same curious
transposition of two letters that is found in the second and third
elegies; it has also the peculiar metre of Hebrew elegiac poetry--the
very lengthy line, broken into two unequal parts. But, like the first
and second, it differs from the third elegy, which repeats the
acrostic letters in three successive lines, in only using each
acrostic once--at the beginning of a fresh verse; and it differs from
all the three first elegies, which are arranged in triplets, in having
only two lines in each verse.
This poem is very artistically constructed in the balancing of its
ideas and phrases. The opening section of it, from the beginning to
the twelfth verse, consists of a pair of duplicate passages--the first
from verse one to verse six, the second from verse seven to verse
eleven, the twelfth verse bringing this part of the poem to a close by
adding a reflection on the common subject of the twin passages. Thus
the parallelism which we usually meet with in individual verses is
here extended to two series of verses, we might perhaps say, two
_stanzas_, except that there is no such formal division.
In each of these elaborately-wrought sections the elegist brings out a
rich array of similes to enforce the tremendous contrast between the
original condition of the people of Jerusalem and their subsequent
wretchedness. The details of the two descriptions follow closely
parallel lines, with sufficient diversity, both in idea and in
illustration, though chiefly in illustration, to avoid tautology and
to serve to heighten the general effect by mutual comparisons. Both
passages open with images of beautiful and costly natural objects to
which the _élite_ of Jerusalem are compared. Next comes the violent
contrast of their state after the overthrow of the city. Then turning
aside to more distant scenes, each of which is more or less
repellent--the lair of wild beasts in the first case, in the second
the battle-field--the poet describes the much more degraded and
miserable condition of his people. Both passages direct especial
attention to the fate of children--the first to their starvation, the
second to a perfectly ghastly scene. At this point in each part the
previous daintiness of the upbringing of the more refined classes is
contrasted with the condition of degradation worse than that of
savages to which they have been reduced. Each passage concludes with a
reference to those deeper facts of the case which make it a sign of
the wrath of heaven against exceptionally guilty sinners.
The elegist begins with an evident allusion to the consequences of the
burning of the temple, which we learn from the history was effected by
the Babylonian general Nebuzar-adan.[234] The costly splendour with
which this temple at Jerusalem was decorated allowed of a rare glitter
of gold, such as Josephus describes when writing of the later temple;
gold not like that of the domes of St. Mark's, mellowed by the climate
of Venice to a sober depth of hue, but all ablaze with dazzling
radiance. The first effect of the smoke of a great conflagration would
be to cloud and soil this somewhat raw magnificence, so that the
choice gold became dull. That the precious stones stolen from the
temple treasury would be flung carelessly about the streets, as our
Authorised Version would seem to suggest, is not to be supposed in the
case of the sack of a city by a civilised army, whatever might happen
if a Vandal host swept through it. "The stones of the sanctuary,"[235]
however, might be the stones with which the building had been
constructed. Still, even with this interpretation the statement seems
very improbable that the invaders would take the trouble to cart these
huge blocks about the city in order to distribute them in heaps at all
the street corners. We are driven to the conclusion that the poet is
speaking metaphorically, that he is meaning the Jews themselves, or
perhaps the more favoured classes, "the noble sons of Zion" of whom he
writes openly in the next verse.[236] This interpretation is confirmed
when we consider the comparison with the parallel passage, which
starts at once with a reference to the "princes."[237] It seems likely
then that the gold that has been so sullied also represents the
choicer part of the people. The writer deplores the destruction of his
beloved sanctuary, and the image of that calamity is in his mind at
the present time; and yet it is not this that he is most deeply
lamenting. He is more concerned with the fate of his people. The
patriot loves the very soil of his native land, the loyal citizen the
very streets and stones of his city. But if such a man is more than a
dreamer or a sentimentalist, flesh and blood must mean infinitely more
to him than earth and stones. The ruin of a city is something else
than the destruction of its buildings; an earthquake or a fire may
effect this, and yet, like Chicago, the city may rise again in greater
splendour. The ruin that is most deplorable is the ruin of human
lives.
[234] 2 Kings xxv. 9.
[235] iv. 1.
[236] iv. 2.
[237] iv. 7.
This somewhat aristocratic poet, the mouthpiece of an aristocratic
age, compares the sons of the Jewish nobility to purest gold. Yet he
tells us that they are treated as common earthen vessels, perhaps
meaning in contrast to the vessels of precious metal used in the
palaces of the great. They are regarded as of no more value than
potter's work, though formerly they had been prized as the dainty art
of a goldsmith. This first statement only treats of insult and
humiliation. But the evil is worse. The jackals that he knows must be
prowling about the deserted ruins of Jerusalem even while he writes
suggests a strange, wild image to the poet's mind.[238] These fierce
creatures suckle their young, though not in the tame manner of
domestic animals. It is singular that the nurture of princes amid the
refinements of wealth and luxury should be compared to the feeding of
their cubs by scavengers of the wilderness. But our thoughts are thus
directed to the wide extent, the universal exercise of maternal
instincts throughout the animal world, even among the most savage and
homeless creatures. Startling indeed is it to think that such
instincts should ever fail among men, or even that circumstances
should ever hinder the natural performance of the functions to which
they point with imperious urgency. Although the second passage tells
of the violent reversal of the natural feelings of maternity under the
maddening influence of famine, here we read how starvation has simply
stopped the tender ministry which mothers render to their infants,
with a vague hint at some cruelty on the part of the Jewish mothers. A
comparison with the supposed conduct of ostriches in leaving their
eggs suggests that this is negative cruelty; their hearts being frozen
with agony, the wretched mothers lose all interest in their children.
But then there is not food for them. The calamities of the times have
staunched the mother's milk; and there is no bread for the older
children.[239] It is the extreme reversal of their fortunes that makes
the misery of the children of princely homes most acute; even those
who do not suffer the pangs of hunger are flung down to the lowest
depths of wretchedness. The members of the aristocracy have been
accustomed to live luxuriously; now they wander about the streets
devouring whatever they can pick up. In the old days of luxury they
used to recline on scarlet couches; now they have no better bed than
the filthy dunghill.[240]
[238] iv. 3.
[239] iv. 4.
[240] iv. 5.
The passage concludes with a reflection on the general character of
this dreadful condition of Israel.[241] It must be closely connected
with the sins of the people. The drift of the context would lead us to
judge that the poet does not mean to compare the guilt of Jerusalem
with that of Sodom, but rather the fate of the two cities. The
punishment of Israel is greater than that of Sodom. But this is
punishment; and the odious comparison would not be made unless the sin
had been of the blackest dye. Thus in this elegy the calamities of
Jerusalem are again traced back to the ill-doings of her people. The
awful fate of the cities of the plain stands out in the ancient
narrative as the exceptional punishment of exceptional wickedness. But
now in the race for a first place in the history of doom Jerusalem has
broken the record. Even Sodom has been eclipsed in the headlong course
by the city once most favoured by heaven. It seems well nigh
impossible. What could be worse than total destruction by fire from
heaven? The elegist considers that there are two points in the fate of
Jerusalem that confer a gloomy pre-eminence in misery. The doom of
Sodom was sudden, and man had no hand in it but Jerusalem fell into
the hands of man--a calamity which David judged to be worse than
falling into the hands of God; and she had to endure a long, lingering
agony.
[241] iv. 6.
Passing on to the consideration of the parallel section, we see that
the author follows the same lines, though with considerable freshness
of treatment. Still directing especial attention to the tremendous
change in the fortunes of the aristocracy, he begins again by
describing the splendour of their earlier state. This had been
advertised to all eyes by the very complexion of their countenances.
Unlike the toilers who were necessarily bronzed by working under a
southern sun, these delicately nurtured persons had been able to
preserve fair skins in the shady seclusion of their cool palaces, so
that in the hyperbole of the poem they could be described as "purer
than snow" and "whiter than milk."[242] Yet they had no sickly
pallor. Their health had been well attended to; so that they were also
ruddy as "corals," while their dark hair[243] glistened "like
sapphires." But now see them! Their faces are "darker than
blackness."[244] We need not enquire after a literal explanation of an
expression which is in harmony with the extravagance of Oriental
language, although doubtless exposure to the weather, and the grime
and smoke of the scenes these children of luxury had passed through,
must have had a considerable effect on their effeminate countenances.
The language here is evidently figurative. So it is throughout the
passage. The whole aspect of the lives and fortunes of these
delicately nurtured lordlings has been reversed. They tell their story
by the gloom of their countenances and by the shrivelled appearance of
their bodies. They can no longer be recognised in the streets, so
piteous a change has their misfortunes wrought in them. Withered and
wizen, they are reduced to skin and bone by sheer famine. Sufferers
from such continuous calamities as these fallen princes are passing
through are treated to a worse fate than that which overtook their
brethren who fell in the war. The sword is better than hunger. The
victims of war, stricken down in the heat of battle but in the midst
of plenty, so that they leave the fruits of the field behind them
untouched because no longer needed,[245] are to be counted happy in
being taken from the evil to come.
[242] iv. 7.
[243] iv. 7. "Hair," According to a slight emendation of the text
recommended by recent criticism.
[244] iv. 8.
[245] So perhaps we should understand ver. 9, applying the last clause
to the fallen warriors. In the Revised Version, however, rendered so
as to refer to the famished people who pine away for lack of the
fruits of the earth. Yet another rendering is "fade away ... like the
growth of the fields."
The gruesome horror of the next scene is beyond description.[246] More
than once history has had to record the absolute extinction, nay, we
must say the insane reversal, of maternal instincts under the
influence of hunger. We could not believe it possible if we did not
know that it had occurred. It is a degradation of what we hold to be
most sacred in human nature; perhaps it is only possible where human
nature has been degraded already, for we must not forget that in the
present case the women who are driven below the level of she-wolves
are not children of nature, but the daughters of an effete
civilisation who have been nursed in the lap of luxury. This is the
climax. Imagination itself could scarcely go further. And yet
according to his custom throughout, the elegist attributes these
calamities of his people to the anger of God. Such things seem to
indicate a very "fury" of Divine wrath; the anger must be fierce
indeed to kindle such "a fire in Zion."[247] But now the very
foundations of the city are destroyed even that terrible thirst for
retribution must be satisfied.
[246] iv. 10.
[247] iv. 11.
These are thoughts which we as Christians do not care to entertain;
and yet it is in the New Testament that we read that "our God is a
consuming fire;"[248] and it is of our Lord that John the Baptist
declares: "He will throughly purge His threshing-floor."[249] If God
is angry at all His anger cannot be light; for no action of His is
feeble or ineffectual. The subsequent restoration of Israel shows that
the fires to which the elegist here calls our attention were
purgatorial. This fact must profoundly affect our view of their
character. Still they are very real, or the Book of Lamentations would
not have been written.
[248] Heb. xii. 29.
[249] Matt. iii. 12.
In view of the whole situation so graphically portrayed by means of
the double line of illustrations the poet concludes this part of his
elegy with a device that reminds us of the function of the chorus in
the Greek drama. We see the kings of all other nations in amazement at
the fate of Jerusalem.[250] The mountain city had the reputation of
being an impregnable fortress, at least so her fond citizens imagined.
But now she has fallen. It is incredible! The news of this wholly
unexpected disaster is supposed to send a shock through foreign
courts. We are reminded of the blow that stunned St. Jerome when a
rumour of the fall of Rome reached the studious monk in his quiet
retreat at Bethlehem. Men can tell that a severe storm has been raging
out in the Atlantic if they see unusually great rollers breaking on
the Cornish crags. How huge a calamity must that be the mere echo of
which can produce a startling effect in far countries! But could these
kings really be so astonished seeing that Jerusalem had been captured
twice before? The poet's language rather points to the overweening
pride and confidence of the Jews, and it shows how great the shock to
them must have been since they could not but regard it as a wonder to
the world. Such then is the picture drawn by our poet with the aid of
the utmost artistic skill in bringing out its striking effects. Now
before we turn away from it let us ask ourselves wherein its true
significance may be said to be. This is a study in black and white.
The very language is such; and when we come to consider the lessons
that language sets forth with so much sharpness and vigour, we shall
see that they too partake of the same character.
[250] iv. 12.
The force of contrasts--that is the first and most obvious
characteristic of the scene. We are very familiar with the heightening
of effects by this means, and it is needless to repeat the trite
lessons that have been derived from the application of it to life. We
know that none suffer so keenly from adversity as those who were once
very prosperous. Marius in the Mamertine dungeon, Napoleon at St.
Helena, Nebuchadnezzar among the beasts, Dives in Hell, are but
notorious illustrations of what we may all see on the smaller canvas
of every-day life. Great as are the hardships of the children of the
"slums," it is not to them, but to the unhappy victims of a violent
change of circumstances, that the burden of poverty is most heavy. We
have seen this principle illustrated repeatedly in the Book of
Lamentations. But now may we not go behind it, and lay hold of
something more than an indubitable psychological law? While looking
only at the reversals of fortune which may be witnessed on every hand,
we are tempted to hold life to be little better than a gambling bout
with high stakes and desperate play. Further consideration, however,
should teach us that the stakes are not so high as they appear; that
is to say, that the chances of the world do not so profoundly affect
our fate as surface views would lead us to suppose. Such things as the
pursuit of mere sensation, the life of external aims, the surrender to
the excitement of the moment, are doubtless subject to the
vicissitudes of contrast; but it is the teaching of our Lord that the
higher pursuits are free from these evils. If the treasure is in
heaven no thief can steal it, no moth or rust can corrupt it; and
therefore since where the treasure is there will the heart be also, it
is possible to keep the heart in peace even among the changes that
upset a purely superficial life with earthquake shocks. Sincere as is
the lament of the elegist over the fate of his people, a subtle thread
of irony seems to run through his language. Possibly it is quite
unconscious; but if so it is the more significant, for it is the irony
of fact which cannot be excluded by the simplest method of statement.
It suggests that the grandeur which could be so easily turned to
humiliation must have been somewhat tawdry at best.
But unhappily the fall of the pampered youth of Jerusalem was not
confined to a reversal of external fortune. The elegist has been
careful to point out that the miseries they endured were the
punishments of their sins. Then there had been an earlier and much
greater collapse. Before any foreign enemy had appeared at her gates
the city had succumbed to a fatal foe bred within her own walls.
Luxury had undermined the vigour of the wealthy; vice had blackened
the beauty of the young. There is a fine gold of character which will
be sullied beyond recognition when the foul vapours of the pit are
permitted to break out upon it. The magnificence of Solomon's temple
is poor and superficial in comparison with the beauty of young souls
endowed with intellectual and moral gifts, like jewels of rarest
worth. Man is not treated in the Bible as a paltry creature. Was he
not made in the image of God? Jesus would not have us despise our own
native worth. Hope and faith come from a lofty view of human nature
and its possibilities. Souls are not swine; and therefore by all the
measure of their superiority to swine souls are worth saving. The
shame and sorrow of sin lie just in this fact, that it is so foul a
degradation of so fair a thing as human nature. Here is the contrast
that heightens the tragedy of lost souls. But then we may add, in its
reversal this same contrast magnifies the glory of redemption--from so
deep a pit does Christ bring back His ransomed, to so great a height
does He raise them!