Listen up, little ones
Listen for the word he.
Reading
Lamentations 3:1-3 I Have Seen Affliction
Keys for kids
- The author is lamenting his suffering.
- The author is Jeremiah, but he seems to be speaking as Jesus.
- Jesus suffered beyond what we can imagine.
Questions
- What is the form of Lamentations?
- What is the theme of Lamentations?
- Who is speaking in chapter 3?
Notes
(See last page for authors)
As Fee and Stuart note, Lamentations consists of five laments written in response to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The laments, which correspond to the five chapters, are carefully composed pieces of literature, similar in form and content to Psalms 74 and 79 (cf. Ps 89). Together they express deep anguish over Zion’s desolation and Israel’s exile—recognized to be well deserved—and mourn the sorry plight of those who were left in the now desolate and dangerous city, while raising some larger questions about justice and the future. The whole is written basically from the perspective of those who have been left behind.
The most striking literary feature of these poems is that they are a series of acrostics, where the first letter of each verse starts with a succeeding letter of the (22-letter) Hebrew alphabet. The first two poems thus have 22 stanzas…The third poem also has twenty-two stanzas, but in this case all three lines in each stanza begin with the same letter. The fourth poem returns to the form of the first two,…while the fifth, although not an acrostic, is nonetheless composed of 22 lines. …throughout the whole, the lament form itself implicitly encourages hope—though nothing is guaranteed—in the midst of suffering.
How do you respond to deep suffering? Where do you find hope?
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 16d, 85a
Prayer
- Ask the Lord to give you hope in suffering.
- Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s word this Sunday.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.