Lamentations 1:20

JERUSALEM PRAYS FOR GOD'S VENGEANCE UPON HER ENEMIES

"Behold, O Jehovah, for I am in distress; my heart is troubled;

My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled:

Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is death.

They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me;

All mine enemies have heard of my trouble;

they are glad that thou hast done it:

Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed,

and they shall be like unto me.

Let all their wickedness come before thee;

And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions:

For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint."

God indeed answered this prayer, in time, bringing an even more terrible judgment upon Babylon than upon Jerusalem. The awful destruction of Jerusalem actually made the destruction of all the pagan nations surrounding her an urgent necessity from God's viewpoint, because the ancient idea was that the defeat of any nation meant also the defeat of their God. Thus, the apostasy of God's people and the necessity of their destruction put the purpose of the Almighty absolutely back to square one as far as convincing all nations of his righteous reign among men was concerned.

"At home there is death" (Lamentations 1:20). "Jeremiah spoke clearly of this: `Death is come up into our windows; he hath entered our palaces, to cut off the infants without, and the young men in our streets' (Jeremiah 9:21)."[31] "These terrible conditions were exactly what God through Moses had prophesied in case Israel rebelled against him (Deuteronomy 32:25)."[32]

"This prayer amounts to a prophecy that God would indeed destroy the idolatrous nations of antiquity)."[33] It was a prayer; but it was also a prophecy which was most circumstantially fulfilled.

"Although this prayer falls far below the plane of the Sermon on the Mount, it is nevertheless justified upon the basis of the recognition within it that wickedness is offensive to God; and that God will most certainly punish it."[34]