BY HAROLD LEE
Good Morning, Everyone! It was interesting during the sermonette that Mr. Staggs mentioned the Olympics. I don’t know how many of you—we were able at least watch about an hours worth of it and, of course, thanks to TIVO, I’ve got the rest of it, but that was just—it’s just incredible, the opening event. I just don’t think that will be topped in the future, those of you that saw it, at least part of it.
It was interesting that Mr. Staggs mentioned ping-pong. For those of you that would go back into the
late sixties and early seventies, our original opening with
And I was just reflecting on that as he was talking about
the Olympics and I found that interesting that it’s obvious China, from a
nationalistic standpoint, is very, I think, very ready to come in on the world
scene. It’s kind of interesting when you
look around the world. China has always
been this great country that sort of gets passed over. I was thinking most nations are very
aggressive and they go out to expand.
And yet, if you think about
But I just think this is the time—at least the way it affects me, with the Olympics coming on and that—it’s the time to sort of sit back and watch the way the nations interact with one another. I also thought it was interesting when they were seating the dignitaries last night that President Bush and Laura Bush came in and seated and they were seated next to Vladimir Putin and his wife. And they had a scene of them talking. And one said, “Well, they must be talking about the drums.” And I said, “I don’t think they’re talking about the drums.” But, anyway, I just think that there’s a lot that goes on.
Just like in business, a lot of business gets done over dinners and things like that. It’s not all just in the boardroom. And I think a lot of relationships are made. Anyway, it just bears watching and I also plan on enjoying and seeing what it holds. It has nothing to do with the sermon, but anyway.
Turn over to Jeremiah chapter 52. I’m going to do something different
today. This sermon is really going to be
more maybe akin to a Bible study. This
is something that I’ve been working on actually for a couple of years, not
constantly, but it was just something that I think with the times, as you’ll
see as we go on, I hope it will be something that will be contemporary now and
you’ll find interesting. Jeremiah 52. This is the last chapter of Jeremiah and it
sort of records, I guess, the outcome of the nation of
Jeremiah 52:1. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became
king, and he reigned eleven years in
Now this is not this Jeremiah. This was another one. If you’ll remember, Jeremiah in, I think
Jeremiah 16, God told him, “Don’t marry and don’t have children,” because
remember he was called for a very special purpose. God said, “I knew before you were born.” And that was to be this warning, to be this
voice to the nation of
It says
Jeremiah 52:2. He also did
evil in the sight of the Lord,
according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3) For because of the anger of the Lord
this happened in
And just take note of these.
Jeremiah 52:4. Now it came
to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of
So they moved in. They walled the city off, isolated them. And, of course, there was no commerce in. There was no food. They were, what we would say, they were going to starve them out.
Jeremiah 52:5. So the city
was besieged until the eleventh year
So they went in on the ninth year.
Jeremiah 52:5b. until the
eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6) By
the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine had become so
severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
So eighteen months later, they were starving.
Jeremiah 52:7. Then the city
wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city
at night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden, even though the Chaldeans were near the city all around. And they went by way of the plain. 8) But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the
king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of
So the entire king lineage was destroyed.
Jeremiah 52:11. He also put
out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of
And, of course, we know that God had promised David there would always be an heir on the throne. And, if you just take this at the face value, it ended. And yet, we know one of the other commissions to Jeremiah was to “pluck up and to plant.” I know you’ve read that. We won’t go into it, but that was another was to make sure that that promise to David was kept.
Jeremiah 52:12. Now in the
fifth month, on the tenth day
And, again, take note of these months and days.
Jeremiah 52:12. Now in the
fifth month, on the tenth day of the
month (which was the nineteenth year
of King Nebuchadnezzar king of
So here’s an account of the destruction of
It’s interesting when you first start to read the Bible. You feel better than all of them. And I think if we mature properly, you end up feeling worse than all of them, because you’ve come to understand what they went through and the fact that we’re all just humans.
As I mentioned, God said He knew Jeremiah before he was
formed in the womb and had a special commission for him, but part of that was
Jeremiah was also the prophet that went to
And that’s the subject of the sermon. And I’ll go ahead and give you the title for today’s sermon. It’s A Survey Of Lamentations, Part I. Again, I hope this is not like watching paint peel, but today what we’re going to do is we’re going to not really get into Lamentations, because to understand the book we have to put it in the historical and the social context of when it was given. And I want to spend today developing that concept and giving us a context of the book of Lamentations. And in the next sermon actually go into the context of it and what was written. And I think we will find it’s a very important, very contemporary book to what we in God’s Church are going through today when we’re done. I hope to be able to convey that to you.
Just flip over one page to the book of Lamentations. It follows Jeremiah. Although in the original, it wasn’t there, but Lamentations.
I just want to—if you’ve ever gone to—I don’t know one of these—again, this is probably boring to many, but—go to one of these book club meetings or something and they’re going to read a book. The first thing they do is you get the book and you look at it. You read the cover, the interleaf, and the back, and you read about the author. In other words, you try to, again, try to understand it.
And I just want to call your attention to a couple of things. First, notice that the book of Lamentations has five chapters. And also notice that chapters 1, chapter 2, chapter 4, and chapter 5 all have exactly twenty-two verses in it. The very center one, chapter 3, has exactly sixty-six verses in it. So there’s twenty-two, twenty-two, sixty-six, twenty-two, and twenty-two.
Also notice that chapters 1, chapter 2, and chapter 4 all start with the same word, “How.”
Now all that being said, this is not about hidden Bible codes. It’s not hidden meanings to the sermon. And I think you’ll see that there’s a purpose to all of this and perhaps, I hope it will become more apparent.
But I think we will see it’s important to understand this. And I’m going to use the word “seldom read book.” I’ve said, I think even here, and I feel this, the three most seldom read books in the Bible are Lamentations, Song of Solomon, and Philemon in the New Testament. Don’t know why, but that, at least that’s my opinion. I think when you listen to people quoting out them those three are probably the least quoted as well. So it is a book that’s oft overlooked. And yet, I think it’s a book that we will see during different periods of history has become very important. And I feel that we’re coming into a period in the history of the Church that this book is going to become more important. More of that later.
In the early days of the Church, again going back to some of you perhaps the fifties, for some of the rest of us the sixties, some the seventies, eighties, whenever, I recall many times in sermons or in the broadcasts that the Bible was likened to the instruction manual that God had for mankind. In other words, what’s written in the Book was the instruction manual.
And we, if you think about it, we at the end of this age are unique in that we have, and I’m going to say “complete Bible.” We know there’s speculation that like the book of Acts didn’t end in “Amen,” so there’s going to be maybe some additional things, but we have the complete Bible that no other group of God’s people in history had.
Now to be sure, remember Paul told Timothy—he was talking about the Scriptures making him wise unto salvation. And at that time all there was was the Old Testament. So the Old Testament does contain the plan of God to the point that those before were able to receive salvation out of the writings of the Old Testament. Of course, the New Testament, we know, was added to witness to what Christ did while He was on the earth.
But here we are at the end of the age and we have the Old and the New Testament. We have more information than previous generations. And when I say, “we,” I’m talking about over the last five or six hundred years. But ones that we read about in the Bible didn’t have the access to what we have. And in some ways that’s very unique. And I think it also should cause us to be humbled by that, to feel very blessed that God has given us that.
Again, it’s outside the scope of the sermon today, but if
you go through and read what had happened for some of the things and, of
course, God intended for it to be preserved, but people literally gave their
lives for the preservation of the Bible.
And it was an extremely important and valuable. And if you’ll remember even when Paul was in
prison and I think he told Timothy, ‘Bring me the parchments. Bring me my cloak and bring me the
parchments.” In other words, some of the
writings, because he saw they needed to be preserved.
But coupled with God’s Spirit, Brethren, we’ve had the most complete set of tools that previous generations going back to Adam just simply have not had. And we should feel very blessed and very—not proud—but, in fact, very humbled by the fact that God has given that to us, a gift.
We know that the Bible is the written word of God where God reveals Himself to us. It reveals God’s very mind and God’s nature to us. And by studying the Bible and letting it teach us how to live and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, to understand God’s thoughts and the values that we’re supposed to be developing, that helps us literally take on God’s mind. That, with God’s Spirit and the Bible, the Word of God, that literally helps us to take on His mind through our thoughts. Through our study of God’s Word, we know what God wants of us. We understand. We know what He loves and what He hates. And we also know that we’re supposed to take on those. And we should love the same things that He loves and hate the same things that He hates.
Every one of us wants Jesus Christ to live in us and to take on His mind. Look over in Isaiah chapter 66. And one of the primary ways we do that is by studying His Word and trying to come to a fuller understanding of His Family, and, as we understand, is currently made up of two Beings. Isaiah 66 and verse 1, it says
Isaiah 66:1. Thus [says] the
Lord: The heaven
is my throne, and earth is my
footstool: where is the house that [you] build unto me? and where is
the place of my rest? 2) For all those things [has my] hand made, and all those
things have been, says the Lord:
but to this man will I look,
In other words, “if you want to have a special place, or you want to be after My heart.”
Isaiah 66:2b. even to him that is poor [or of a humble] and of a contrite spirit,
Which is extremely—well, it’s impossible without God living in us.
Isaiah 66:2 cont. and [trembles] at my word.
I don’t think there’s anybody today that fully keeps that or fills that. I think in the past we watered that word “tremble” down. Even some of the translations, even The Tanakh says, “Concerned about My word.” I looked up that word “trembles” and it’s only used six times in the Old Testament. And it means fearful. It does mean reverential. But the six times: four times it’s related to God’s Word of trembling before His Word; the other two, once in Samuel where Samuel was trembling before the Ark of God and that was physically trembling; and the other was in Judges where if you will remember when God was reducing Gideon’s army and He said, “If there’s anybody that’s afraid, they can go home,” and that was one way, that’s the same word. So, again, it means to literally tremble at it.
We’re all very familiar—don’t even turn there—to 2 Timothy
2 Timothy 3:16. All
Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
And again, it goes on to say
2 Timothy 3:17. That the man
of God may be complete, thoroughly [furnished unto all] good works.
What that’s telling me is is we look at this and these are
historical accounts, but no where in 2 Timothy
2 Timothy 3:16b. for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, [and] for instruction in righteousness,
Let’s do a review of a writing style that we’ve touched on and we’ve talked about this before. I think I gave a sermon last year on Psalm 45, but it’s very germane to what we’re going to cover.
Look over in Psalm 119. Again, I’ve touched on this before, but I think it bears perhaps a repeat. We know that Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, a hundred and seventy-six verses. And we’re going to examine, not what this chapter says, but the manner it says it. And, if we are to reverence God’s Word, we should understand not only what it says, but how it says it, because it gives us an insight into God and the way He thinks.
We know Psalm 119 has a hundred and seventy-six verses. And you can ask, “Why is it so long? Why does it have a hundred and seventy-six verses?” It’s because there are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And, if your Bible is like mine, at the top of Psalm 119, it says first, “Aleph,” which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And then there are eight verses. Then “Beth,” which is the second and then there are eight verses, and then “Gimel,” and eight verses, and “Daleth,” and eight verses, and on and on and on through the entire chapter. It goes through the entire Hebrew alphabet of twenty-two characters. And each character has exactly eight verses associated to it and eight times twenty-two is a hundred and seventy-six.
Now these letters, the aleph, the beth, the gimel, were added by translators later, because this arrangement was not apparent to those that didn’t have the original Hebrew. And so they added that so that people would understand and they added that to make the meaning clearer, because, again, any language other than Hebrew it’s just not apparent.
And this chapter of Psalms is called an “acrostic” Psalm. And in the original inspired text, that is literally God breathed, each stanza of this Psalm begins with that letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And each line in that began with the same letter. So in other words, verses one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, the first word in each one of those started with the “A” or the aleph, and then nine through sixteen started with the beth or the “B,” and on and on. So the acrostic format was they had the letters of the alphabet that preceded those.
One of the attributes, I think, that has been lost to us through translations—and I’m going to say modern typesetting techniques—is not just what is said, but how it’s said. I’m sure if you have picked up an old book or seen a replica of an older book, you’ll remember that the first letter in the paragraph was very ornate. It was very large. I think back the first time I was exposed to that was my grandmother had given me a set of, I think, children’s stories or I don’t know, fairytales or something. But each one of those started off with, if it was like, it was usually, “In the beginning.” That’s the way. And the first letter was very large and it was very decoratively penned. And that first letter really stood out.
Remember the Bible, which was originally copied by scribes, that had not just words, but it had styles of the original translation. And those had to be faithfully reproduced. A person that was given the responsibility for copying, making a copy of the Word of God, not only had to be a faithful—I don’t want to use the word “translator,” but a faithful—copyist. In other words, they had to faithfully reproduce the words. They also had to be fine artists that could make faithful reproductions of the documents down to the very style of the writing of the original author. And it took a long time. So it wasn’t just, “Here, copy this.” It was, “Make a copy of this.” And I hope you can see the difference. It was much more tedious.
It’s interesting in the New Testament where Christ talks about the jot and the tittle. And, of course, we have, I think, the, if I’m not mistaken the dot over an “i” is called a jot and the crossing of the “t” is called a tittle. Of course, we today say, “Make sure you dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s.” It’s sort of the same thing. It has to be accurate down to the jot and the tittle, the dotting of the “i.”
So again, they were charged not with just making, just copying the words, but actually making a copy.
Now, if we’re to accept that this is the Word of God—and it is—and we accept that it’s literally God breathed—and I believe it is—then we need to ask ourselves, why did God inspire it to not only be written, by inspired how it was written? God inspired it. This wasn’t somebody that said, “Hey, I think I’ll write a poem.” This wasn’t an old rap song or something that they put together. God was very specific in how this was written. And, here is my opinion that I believe the answer and that’s all it is is an opinion.
You all know that the Bible is the bestseller. I don’t know for how long, but there’s more
copies of the Bible sold than any other book that’s written. Modern printing techniques and I followed
that back. Of course, we know the
original printing was the Gutenberg Press.
And Johann Gutenberg who lived in
And if you go north from
But
Let me just read what Wikipedia says.
In 1455, Gutenberg demonstrated the
power of the printing press by selling copies of a two volume Bible
And that was the first thing that was produced! I also think that’s interesting. It wasn’t a newspaper. It wasn’t whatever. It was the Bible and it was called Biblia Sacra or the Sacred Bible.
… for three hundred florins. [That’s the price that he sold them for.] This is equivalent to approximately three years wages for the average clerk
So he brought this price way down to three years wages.
… but it was significantly cheaper than the handwritten Bible that could take a single monk twenty years to transcribe.
So he could turn one of these out in perhaps—I don’t know—a week or two. And brought it down from twenty years, but that was the beginning of modern printing. And, of course, we know where it’s gone from there. And today the Bible is in the hands of almost anyone that wants one.
Prior to this time, access to God’s Word was very limited. They were scarce. And only a few even had access to God’s Word. You couldn’t just get up in the morning and go to your Bible Study that day from one of the ten or fifteen Bibles that you have on your shelf. There was no such a thing. The priest would have these scrolls, but the idea of having a Bible that the average person was just unheard of. And still, fewer could read. If they had access to it, they were illiterate and they couldn’t read.
I think if you think back, the custom was in Israel and Judah, because they were not these, a king, when a king was crowned, the first thing, one of the first things he had to do was he had to personally write and possess God’s Law. He had to write it and then that became his copy. But God wanted those kings to take note of and to understand. And no one could ever say, “I didn’t know that.” They had written it.
There’s two—I’m going to use “channels,” I guess is the word—that God’s Word is passed from generation to generation. And first is the written word. The second is the oral law. We’re going to discuss that later in the sermon.
But see, I believe God inspired Psalm 119 to be written in the manner because He wanted people to remember. First, information that’s in the form of a song, I think, is a very effective means of remembering something.
I’m going to take you back fifty years or so. In some of the early marketing techniques that were used and they capitalized on the fact that songs, jingles if you will, made things very easy to remember. What was that? “Plop. Plop. Fizz. Fizz. Oh, what a relief it is!” Fifty years later and I still remember that! And it was Alka-Seltzer. It was a little guy with a flat head or something that sat on the edge of a glass and sang that.
But again, it’s very effective. You put something to a rhyme or to a song and it’s easy to remember. I think it’s due to the way your mind stores and processes information. And if it can cross-index things, because there is a connection, it’s easier to remember.
I said this before and I’m going to apologize. I don’t want to embarrass Eric, but I am. I remember his YOU lessons. And we were trying to teach him the books of the Bible. Somebody had—I think it was Jeff that had talked about the lessons here a couple weeks ago. Here’s what the kids had to do, the first one and the second. And I’m sitting back there. I’m not thinking about what the kids had to do. I’m thinking about the pain that the parents went through trying to make sure they did those things. But trying to get Eric to remember the books of the Bible and we’re having no luck. And Freda turned it into a song. And he learned the books of the Bible. She made a song out of it. Of course, when he recited it, he had to sing the song. Genesis, Exodus, anyway, but, and don’t ask Eric to sing it now. I don’t know if he would remember, but again, I apologize to him. Maybe he’s already pulled the plug on me here.
But the point is, Brethren, is it works! If you started each stanza with something you know, like the alphabet, you could memorize greater quantities of information that was arranged like that.
I’m not a musician, but I know the scale because of the acrostic song that was written to The Sound of Music. And I can still see Julie Andrews out there with her “Do, a deer, a female deer; Re, a drop of ….” I know Do, Re—and I’m not a musician. But because it was set to music, it’s something that you can relate to and it’s something that you can remember. I hope that’s not stuck in your head the rest of the day.
Here’s the point, Brethren: a chapter that’s written in acrostic style, I believe, God inspired in that manner because He wanted to make sure people remembered what was written at a higher level. He wanted people to take note of it and to remember it. And He made it because He made man and He knew what would be aids for us, He made it so it would be easier for us to remember it.
The second reason, and, again, this is maybe a little more abstract, but I think it can be a reason. I believe perhaps some parts were written in the acrostic for Scripture integrity. Modern data storage and transmission, data as you know can sometime be corrupted and the data would be changed due to everything. And, of course, that’s unacceptable. You wouldn’t want to wake up the next morning and your bank would be empty, your bank account due to some data error. Of course, I don’t know. Maybe you’d wake up and there’d be a million dollars in it! I don’t know.
But there is a complete field of science of data storage and transmission called Error Detection and Correction or EDAC. And there are very complex mathematical manipulations that are performed on data to ensure that that data is valid, to make sure that it’s correct. One of the simpler methods, and, again, there are extremely complex methods.
In fact, it’s even carried over into those of you that are familiar with MP3’s. Those are actually data compression algorithms that are mathematical which allows you to take that information and compress it down. A whole sermon here on an MP3 is on the order of, I don’t know, 15 Meg. And if it’s uncompressed, it’s 30 gigabytes of data.
So, again, it’s the same thing, but one of the simpler methods of data integrity checking is called checksum. And a checksum is it stores either a single byte, a single word, or a single bit that represents the sum of all the other bits, bytes, or words. And when data is received, it receives the data, and if that checksum agrees with what was sent, it goes, “Okay, it’s okay.” If it’s not, it’s a, “Ah, this data’s been corrupted and we have to send it through something to correct that data.” Sometime it’s send it again. Sometimes there’s crosschecking and they can actually repair bits that have become lost. But, anyway.
An acrostic verse, if you think about it, lends itself to having integrity because if I know that these are all going to start with a certain word that’s a certain one and it’s been changed, it’s pretty obvious. So, again, I don’t know if that’s one of the reasons, but it does lend itself. Anything that follows a pattern, like an acrostic verse or Scripture or a chapter, would lend itself more to Scripture integrity. Not that I think that others are lacking in it, but we know there have been some manipulations in the Scriptures through time.
We’re going to look into this more later when we get to the specific part, but what’s more important is there are areas, I believe, that God wanted them, us, to remember not just the gist of what He was saying, but very precisely what’s said.
Now it’s outside the scope of the sermon, but with that information I would encourage you to look back and read Psalm 119 and look at each of the eight verse stanzas and try to understand the central point or theme to them. You’ll see that they’re centered around a desire to know and understand God’s way. That God’s way is a source of life, or His Word. That God is there in time of need. That God’s Word is a light and a lamp to a person’s feet. That God’s Word is a great treasure. And the chapter ends with, “Do not forget God’s commandments.” So, again, there is a theme in this acrostic form that helps you break that down into central thoughts. Again, I would encourage you in your own study with that in mind to study Psalm 119.
There’s actually other parts of the Bible that are written acrostically. And let me just read. This is out of a commentary.
An acrostic is a poem in which the initial letters of each successive line form a word, phrase, or pattern. The acrostic Psalms tend to use the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Many of them are now imperfect. That is each line or stanza no longer uses all the letters in the correct order. There are nine acrostic Psalms; Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, and 145.
And they say, “Psalm 119 is the most complete acrostic Psalm.” And then they go on to say
Acrostics tend to be hidden in the
English translations. The King James
Version of Psalm 119 marks the stanzas with the Hebrew letter.
Okay. Where are we headed with all of this? There is one entire book of the Bible that’s written in acrostic style. Only one, of all of the books of the Bible, there’s only one. Now, if, as I believe, God wanted to place emphasis on a section of the Bible that everyone would understand or remember to a different level, why would one book be written in the acrostic style and that be one of the least read, least quoted books?
Whether or not we like to admit it, I think we relegate different amounts of importance to different parts of the Bible. I do it. You do it. We all do it. It’s just we have our favorites. I don’t know if you can—I’m sure all of you have the Bible and you can sort of look where you spend most of the time by the thumbprints as you scan through. That’s just the way we are. I don’t think that’s wrong. I don’t think that’s bad. I just think that’s a fact, but, again, I think we spend very little time in Song of Solomon, very little time in Lamentations, and Philemon, although Philemon is just a letter, a very short letter.
But that brings us back to Lamentations made up of five chapters. Chapter 1 has twenty-two. Chapter 2 has twenty-two verses, and 3 has sixty-six, which is three times twenty-two. Chapter 4 has twenty-two, and chapter 5 has twenty-two.
The book of Lamentations is a historical account of the,
let’s say the post-destruction of the
Now the book named “Lamentations” is not the original name. Actually the Septuagint Version, which was written from 100 to 300 BC, was the first one to use that term, “Lamentations.” And it means a dirge, a funeral warning. And that was the connotation because that’s what the book of Lamentations was to lament something.
But, as I mentioned before, the original book, the title of it was “How.” Chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 4 all start with that term “How.” And the book was titled in the original Hebrew. In the original Hebrew, it was entitled, “How.” The word in the Hebrew Canon is akawkah. Of course, it would have to start with an aleph since it’s acrostic. I hope I’m pronouncing it right, but it means “How.” And it’s the formula for the commencement of a song of wailing.
Look over in 2 Samuel verse 1 just to see that word. 2 Samuel 1 verse 19, because “How” can be both an interrogative, in other words, “How” question mark, and it can be an exclamation and an interjection, “How!” to exclaim something. 2 Samuel 1:19, it says
2 Samuel 1:19. The beauty of
And notice this whole tone of 2 Samuel. It is a time of mourning. It’s a time of want. It’s a time of emptiness, of failure of the normal society.
2 Samuel 1:21b. for there
the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. 22)
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan
turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. 23) Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they
were not divided: they were swifter than
eagles, they were stronger than lions.
24) [You] daughters of
So again, this was lamenting and mourning the death of Saul and Jonathan.
2 Samuel 1:26. I am
distressed for [you], my brother Jonathan, very pleasant [have you] been unto
me: [your] love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women. 27) How
are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!
It means an astonishment and a wailing, again, usually associated with the death of and the funeral or the eulogy given to someone.
As I mentioned, it can be an interrogative, “How question mark.” It can be an interjection, “How exclamation point.”
To this day in the middle east in Persia the expression of astonishment—and I can remember very clearly going into a village where they had never seen electricity and we had a generator and we started the generator and we plugged a light in and this light came on. In fact, the truck that we went in on was only the second vehicle that they had ever seen in this village. And the whole village, of course, was standing around and when the light came on, they all went, “Wah! Wah! Wah!” It was an amazement of seeing something that they couldn’t even conceive of before. And literally translated, it means, “How! How! How!” or “Why? Why? Why?” It’s “Wah! Wah! Wah!” Anything that was unexplained.
I’ll tell another one, because, again, this was two young
boys and they had come up to me and I had a pair of binoculars. We were putting antennas up and we had to be
able to see a long distance. So I had
this pair of binoculars and I had them around my neck. And this one boy wanted to see them. So I handed them to him. And he put them up to his eyes, and he told
the other boy—I don’t remember, but balah
means very close and pine means very
far. No, nastik means close. So he
looked at those and he went, “Wah!
Wah!” And the other boy said,
‘Well, what it is?” And he said, “These
make things look very close.” “Well, let
me see.” And he picked them up and, of
course, he didn’t turn them around. “No,
it makes them look very far.” “No, it’s
very near.” And, of course, they went
back and forth till I finally took them and turned them around for the one. But they were just astonished at that and
they had never seen that before. Again,
these were probably eight, nine year old boys and they just couldn’t even
conceive of an instrument that could make things look very close in one end and
very far in the other end. Anyway.
But that’s a very common term, “Wah, wah, wah,” which just meant to astonishment or not able to grasp something.
Now before we go into Lamentations, which we are as I said in the next sermon, I want to make some additional associations that we’re going to be using later in the sermon. I want to maybe bring out and maybe tie up the relationship between—and there’s terms that we’re all familiar with—the Torah, the Tanakh, the Mishnah, and the Talmud. And those are four things that we’ve heard and perhaps they may be fuzzy, but I want to just spend a little bit of time.
We know that the Torah is the Pentateuch, which were the
first five books that were written by Moses.
That is the Torah. That is the
scroll that was in the
Now in addition to the Torah, there are two more sections of Scripture that make up the Tanakh. The Tanakh is what we would think of as the Old Testament. So the Torah is contained within the Tanakh. But there’s two more sections. And, of course, the books of the Bible have different order, but there’s three divisions. And that’s the Torah, and then there is the Nevi’im and the Prophets. And those are made up of two sections, the Major and the Minor Prophets. The third division is called the Kethuvim—and again I’m going to apologize to anyone who can pronounce that—but this third division means the Writings. So there’s the Torah, there’s the Prophets, the Major and the Minor, and then there are the Writings. The Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings make up the Tanakh.
Now there’s three sections in the division called the Writings. There’s the Poetic Books and that’s Psalms, Proverbs, and the book of Job. It’s interesting that the book of Job is a poetic book. I never thought about it, but it is lumped in with those Poetic Books. And then the second is called the Five Scrolls. And these are the books that are read during the Holy Day Seasons as well as two additional periods that are related to Hebrew history. The Song of Songs is read on Passover. That was, again, a book that we spend very little time. Perhaps as Passover approaches next year, we can spend some more time, but, again, that’s one that’s traditionally read on Passover. The book of Ruth was read on the Feast of Weeks. Ecclesiastes was read during the Feast of Tabernacles. So, again, the three Holy Day Seasons, there is a book that is read. Then the other two, the book of Esther is read on Purim, a national. And then the one who we know the least about is the ninth of Av—or as they call it Tisha B’Av, which Lamentations is read. And more on that later.
Let me just recount. Torah is the law, the first five books. The Tanakh is made up of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.
Now, as I mentioned before, there’s two channels perhaps that the laws are passed down. There’s the written law and then there is the oral law, because, again, Purim is not something that we—we’ve heard about it. It’s mentioned in the Bible, but it’s not something God commands us. It was a national day. And we know even less about the ninth of Av or Tisha B’Av. But in the oral law, which we have heard of as the Mishnah, that is the oral law that was written down. During the time of the Levitical priesthood, one of their duties was to learn and teach both the written law and the oral law.
When the Israelites went into Babylonian captivity, the
Levitical system, as you know, was disrupted.
The
And the Mishnah was made up of six divisions that dealt with
everyday life situations. And, I’ll just
read them. The first order was Zeraim
which means “seeds,” and it deals with the agricultural laws and prayers. The second order is called Moed or Festivals
and it pertains to the laws of the Sabbath and the Festivals. The third order is Nashim and it concerns
marriage and divorce. The fourth order
deals with the civil and criminal law.
And the fifth order involves the sacrificial rites, the
Now what does the Mishnah have to do with us today? Do we—and let me tell you, I’m not suggesting we take up this new book and start to study the Mishnah. That’s not what I’m saying. But we do have an interest in it, because first the Mishnah does contain parts of the accepted law that we can’t find today in the Bible. For example, let me just give you an example.
The third section Nashim that deals with marriage, divorce, and lineage. Look over in Deuteronomy chapter 25. I guess this doesn’t because we don’t have Leverite marriages anymore. So I say it deals with us today, but I’ll bring that out later. Deuteronomy 25 and verse 5, it says
Deuteronomy 25:5. If
brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of
the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her,
and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto
her. 6) And it shall be, that the firstborn which she [bears]
shall succeed in the name of his brother which
is dead, that his name be not put out of
Because remember the Jubilee. Everything had to go back to the families. And this ensured there was a lineage that did that. So here was a law that was put in place to make sure that the lineage of a family wouldn’t be broken. But notice this!
Deuteronomy 25:7. And if the
man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to
the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother [refuses] to raise up
unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s
brother.
So here’s a complaint brought against the brother by the widow.
Deuteronomy 25:8. Then the
elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if
he stand to it, and say, I like not
to take her;
And we know there is Onan. There was a case of this in the Bible.
Deuteronomy 25:9. Then shall
his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his
shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So
shall it be done unto the man that will not build up his brother’s house. 10) And his name shall be called in
So, in other words, if he didn’t do that, then that was very serious.
Now turn over to Ruth chapter 4. This, of course, is Boaz and Ruth. It says then in verse 1 of Ruth 4. It says
Ruth 4:1. Then went Boaz up
in the gate, and sat him down there:
and, behold the kinsman of whom Boaz spoke came by; unto whom he said,
Ho, such a one!
Now remember, he had already. Ruth had come into him, but because of the kinship that he had to make sure that he had the right to that.
Ruth 4:3. And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is
come again out of the country of Moab, [sells] a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech’s: 4) And I thought to advertise [you] saying,
Buy it before the inhabitants, and
before the elders of my people. If [you
will] redeem it, redeem it:
but if [you will] not redeem it,
then tell me, that I may know: for there
is none to redeem it beside
[you]: and I am after [you]. And he said, I will redeem it.
5) Then said Boaz, What day [you buy] the field of the hand of Naomi,
[you] must buy it also of Ruth the
Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his
inheritance. 6) And the kinsman said, I
cannot redeem it for myself, lest I
mar mine own inheritance:
Now verse 7.
Ruth 4:7. Now this was the manner in former time in
Now, Boaz was not in the line. He was a kinsman. And remember in the other one, it was the widow that brought the complaint. This is different. This is not written in the Bible. This is called a Leverite marriage where a kinsman can redeem and do it by taking the shoe and giving it to person that turned it down. That’s no where found in the Bible. It’s in the Mishnah. It’s in the oral tradition that this was covered.
Ruth 4:8. Therefore the kinsman
said unto Boaz, Buy it for
[you]. So he drew off his shoe.
So again, the point is the Bible gives instructions for the widow to go and resolve the issue, but no where does it instruct the kinsman to initiate it and do it. But it was practiced and it was part of the oral law that was addressed in the Mishnah. And again, it’s called the Levirate marriage laws. And you can find them. They’re very specific. So again, it was something that was written about. It was something that practiced, but no where can you find the command in the Bible or the procedure written down. Again, it was part of the oral law.
There’s two sections in the Mishnah dealing with the state of betrothal. And it helps us understand the customs better when it comes to Mary and Joseph, because those are contained in the Mishnah.
So the traditions of the Mishnah, even though they’re not part of the canon, don’t mean to us that they’re of no use. Let me give you a more contemporary example. We know that the Bible doesn’t instruct us how to reckon the Holy Days. It’s been said. They’re based on the Hebrew calendar and they’re all derived from the molad of Tishri which is the new moon starting in the seventh month. But the Mishnah is the place that has the information. So whether we study it or not, the part called the Moed which deals with the calendar and how to calculate it and the laws relating to the postponements, whether we know it or not, those are contained in the Mishnah in that written. Again, today we rely on those areas in regards to keeping the Holy Days and they’re not part of the canonized Bible. I’ve heard Mr. Buchanan say, “You know you can through the Bible and you can’t come up with when to keep the Holy Days, because it’s not there.” God gave it to them. They understood it. There was no arguments. It was written down. It was practiced and it’s been passed down. And we accept that, but again, it’s not part of the canonized. Now to keep them, it tells us very specifically how, but the when is left up to the other.
And the reason I say this is sometime we in a sermon make a
point that we mention something as a tradition.
For example during the days of Unleavened Bread, I previously mentioned
that the tradition was the Israelites crossed the
So the Mishnah is not part of the canonized Bible, but it does contain essential information that we use today. Even for doctrine, again, when we meet on the Holy Days, as well as information that we can use to help us fill out our understanding of the Bible.
Now the last term I want to cover—and then I’ll try to make this relevant—is the Talmud. The Talmud is the rabbinical discussion of the Torah and the Mishnah.
Consider it this way: we have a set of laws in this country that govern all aspects of our lives. We have a three branch system. We have the legislative branch that makes the laws. We have the executive that, of course, enforces them. And we have the judicial branch that interprets those. Lawyers and judges spend their time writing briefs and setting legal precedent on how to apply those laws that were legislated by the legislative branch.
The Talmud is the collection of those legal briefs written by the rabbinical leaders which lay out how to apply those laws. And just like our system today, the Talmud is very legalistic, very difficult approach to something that was meant to be very simple.
Look over in Mark chapter 7 and verse 1. Mark 7 and 1, it says
Mark 7:1. Then came together
unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from
These were the interpretations of.
Mark 7:8. For laying aside
the commandment of God, [you] hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups:
and many other such like things [you] do. 9) And he said unto them, Full well [you]
reject the commandment of God, that [you] may keep your own tradition.
And then notice what He goes on to say.
Mark
Written in the Torah! That’s my comment.
Mark
Written in the Talmud! In other words, they took the law that was written in the Torah, that they put their own spin on it.
Mark
He was discussing with them that the Talmud was a perversion of what was originally intended when God gave the Law of Moses.
Today in this country, we see laws, particularly relating to the nation’s worship of God, that have become perverted to the point that the Ten Commandments can’t be displayed in a public building. There’s no prayer in schools and on and on. Just before services, you can’t see this. It’s a Mother Goose and Grimm. But there’s Moses standing here with the Ten Commandments and the Pharaoh says, “Okay, but just don’t put them in public places.” So it’s sad, but it’s true. That’s what we’ve come to. We’ve perverted what the founding fathers even in this country to the point that that’s what we’re seeing. Lawyers have taken the law and twisted it, much the same way the Pharisees did to God’s Law.
I think before we go on that a clear understanding of the Torah, the Tanakh, the Mishnah, and the Talmud is an important understanding of our historical backdrop of the Bible.
And I mentioned the book of Lamentations was read on the
ninth of Av or as the Jews call it Tisha B’Av.
And it’s actually fast days for the Jews. It’s a day of national reflection, a day of
mourning, a day of remembrance. Now it’s
not a commanded fast from God. It’s a
nationally recognized day. And, in fact,
it’s been observed nationally even before the destruction of the
Zechariah 7:2. When the people sent Sherezer, with
Regem-Melech and his men, to the
house of God, to pray before the Lord, 3) And
to ask the priests who were in the
house of the Lord of hosts, and
the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done
for so many years?”
And that fifth month is the ninth of Av, Tisha B’Av.
Zechariah 7:4. Then the word
of the Lord of hosts came to me,
saying, 5) “Say to all the people of the
land, and to the priests:
In other words, they wanted to know, “Do we keep fasting?” He said
Zechariah 7:5b. “When you
fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months
during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?
Tanakh says, “Was it for Me that you fasted?”
Also skip down to chapter 8 of Zechariah. And I’ve mentioned this in previous sermons, verse 17.
Zechariah 8:17. Let none of
you think evil in your heart against your neighbor; and do not love a false
oath. For all these are things that I hate,’ says the Lord. 18) Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 19) “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘The
fast of the fourth month, the fast of
the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be joy and
gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.’
Just briefly, the fasts mentioned here—and you can find these in most any commentary. We read about them in Jeremiah.
The seventeenth of Tammuz is a fast
day commemorating the fall of
Now coincidently the ninth of Av is tomorrow. So tonight at sundown, Jews around the world are going to start a fast and tomorrow they will be meeting together and the book of Lamentations will be recited.
The fast of the fifth month is the
burning of the
And there’s more. In fact, I’m just going to skip through some of this.
What had been their past practice,
not only during the seventy years of captivity, but to this time, which was
twenty years after the liberty proclaimed that they kept solemn stated fast for
humiliation and prayer which they religiously observed. In the case here, they mention only one, the
fifth month, but it appears by Zechariah 8:19 that they observed four
anniversary fasts: one in the fourth
month in the remembrance of the breaking of the wall of
We read that.
… another in the fifth month, the
remembrance of the burning of the
Now he was the last governor of
… which completed their dispersion;
and another in the tenth month in remembrance of the beginning of the siege of
And, again, we read about three of those over in Jeremiah. The beginning of the siege, the breaking down
of the wall on Tammuz 17, and then, of course, the destruction of the
But again, tomorrow, the tenth of August, is Tisha B’Av and the Jews are going to be fasting and reading this book that they have been doing for thousands of years. It’s a day of reflection and mourning for the Jews.
Again, there’s been many historical events that have been
attributed to happening on the ninth of Av.
Now according to the Mishnah, there were five calamities that happened
on this day. And the five calamities
were: and this was the first, the twelve
scouts sent by Moses to observe the
Now the post-Mishnah times, there are seven things that are
attributed—actually eight—to this day.
The first Crusades against the Jews were on this. The English when they expelled the Jews was
on the ninth of Av. The Spanish
expulsion in 1492 when Ferdinand signed the pogrom to expel the Jews was on the
ninth of Av. The start of World War I
was on the ninth of Av. The liquidation
of the Warsaw Ghetto—remember the Jews when the liquidation, when they started
moving them out—was on the ninth of Av.
Well, Brethren, I’m out of time. Let me just ask and then say, “What does that have to do with us in God’s Church in 2008?” The book of Lamentations, which was read on the darkest days of the Jews’ history, written during a time of decline, destruction of the Temple, scattering of God’s people, and they were bewildered, disheartened, confused, and wondering if God had abandoned them. The book of Lamentations was written in a form that the individual separated from an organized, structured worship system could remember and realize what they were going to go through, but to have hope beyond what was immediately ahead.
We in God’s Church find ourselves in a very similar situation: a time of separation, a time of scattering, removed from the comfort of a stable, dependable system to serve and to teach us. We can become disheartened and bewildered and feeling that God’s forgotten us. The words that are contained in the book of Lamentations should and will give us hope and encouragement with what we’re to go through and we will go through in the future. And we’ll cover that in more detail in the next sermon.
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