Sometimes we open scripture expecting it to be a photograph and to read as if every single word is “true” in a really narrow sense. At times, it does communicate that way. Other times, the bible is more like an abstract painting than a photograph. It’s communicating something true and real through imagery and metaphor—something that is supposed to help us feel in response. Lamentations is poetry.

This poetry is written in dialogue. One voice is that of a narrator, describing the events from a more detathced, third person perspective. The other voice is the voice of the city of Jerusalem, “the daughter of Zion.” She is grieving—and the narrator bears witness to her grief by mirroring it back to her.

Jerusalem doesn’t view her suffering as random, she believes that her suffering is connected to the choices she’s made to turn away from God and worship idols and her failure to live out her ethical obligations as God’s people. God removes the eternal consequences of our sin, but God might not remove the earthly ones. Therefore, we lament and we confess.

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