Taking Off Clothes

Rejoice and be glad for now, O people of Edom, who reside in the land of Uz.  But the cup of judgment will pass to you also; you will get drunk and take off your clothes. – Lamentations 4:21  (NET)

The Lamentations of Jeremiah spring from the siege of Jerusalem, its eventual fall, the destruction of its Temple, and the taking of a portion of the people of Judah into an exile in Babylon.  These things come about in fulfillment of what God had been understood to have promised to His people in conjunction with His covenant.  If we were to look to the book of Leviticus, chapter twenty-six, and recount what are generally referred to as the Levitical curses, we could see the majority of those curses given voice in Lamentations, as the author, presumably Jeremiah, attempts to process for himself, and on behalf of God’s people, what they have experienced. 

Those Levitical curses, which are prefaced by Levitical blessings, are contingent upon the failure of the people to live up to the charge presented in the first two verses of that chapter.  There, Israel is told “You must not make for yourselves idols, so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before it, for I am the Lord your God.  You must keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary.  I am the Lord” (26:1-2).  Given the detailed presentation of the various commandments throughout both Exodus and Leviticus, adherence to which was to be Israel’s response to their divine covenant, the response to the covenant that God desired from His people, primarily, devolved upon these things.  Failure to respond to the covenant in these areas---proper worship that resisted idolatry, the keeping of the Sabbaths, and the reverence of the sanctuary---would result in God’s execution of judgment against His people. 

While the lament points to Judah’s consistent rebellion against God’s commands, explanation for why this has come upon His people is on offer.  In the third chapter we find valid reason, as we read “To crush underfoot all the earth’s prisoners, to deprive a person of his rights in the presence of the Most High, to defraud a person in a lawsuit---the Lord does not approve of such things!” (3:34-36).  In chapter four we read “Even the jackals nurse their young at their breast, but my people are cruel, like ostriches in the desert.  The infant’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth due to thirst; little children beg for bread but no one gives them a morsel” (4:3-4).  Though we may be tempted to see these things as results of the lengthy siege against Jerusalem, we are able to rightly perceive it as neglectful behavior before the siege, which stemmed from idolatry and the failure to keep Sabbaths and reverence God’s sanctuary, that is part of God’s indictment against Judah.  In support of this assertion, we can immediately go on to read “Those who once feasted on delicacies are now starving to death in the streets.  Those who grew up wearing expensive clothes are now dying amid garbage” (4:5).  Further explanation is provided, as we read that “it happened due to the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who poured out in her midst the blood of the righteous” (4:13). 

There is, however, an undercurrent of hope, realizing that a return to the appropriate response to God and to His obvious covenant faithfulness (demonstrated in the judgment of cursing just as much as in the blessing), will bring restoration.  In chapter three we can read “Remember my impoverished and homeless condition, which is a bitter poison.  I continually think about this, and I am depressed.  But this I call to mind; therefore I have hope: The Lord’s loyal kindness never ceases; His compassions never end.  They are fresh every morning; Your faithfulness is abundant!  ‘My portion is the Lord,’ I have said to myself, so I will put my hope in Him.  The Lord is good to those who trust in Him, to the one who seeks Him… For the Lord will not reject us forever.  Though He causes us grief, He then has compassion on us according to the abundance of His loyal kindness.  For He is not predisposed to afflict or to grieve people” (3:19-25,31-33). 

While the author acknowledges that God has raised up their oppressor and conqueror for the purposes of exacting His justified judgment against His people, referring to Babylon and saying that “Those who pursued us were swifter than eagles in the sky” (4:19a), he also gives a voice to the oppressed, employing apocalyptic language to speak of the God of Israel’s coming judgment against the oppressive regime in a way that will require ears to hear and eyes to see.  As a subject of Babylon, the author cannot speak directly against Babylon, as he would incur more of its wrath.  So he employs veiled language, much like what we can hear from Jesus in the Gospels and from John in Revelation.  Speaking of Babylon and its conquering king, Nebuchadnezzar, but doing so indirectly, the author exclaims “Rejoice and be glad for now, O people of Edom, who reside in the land of Uz.  But the cup of judgment will pass to you also; you will get drunk and take off your clothes.  O people of Zion, your punishment will come to an end; He will not prolong your exile.  But, O people of Edom, He will punish your sin and reveal your offenses” (4:21-22).  Do we ever see this apocalyptic pronouncement on display within Israel’s historic or prophetic tradition?  Indeed we do, and it does so in connection with the traditions associated with the prophet Daniel. 

Nebuchadnezzar, drunk with his own power and “walking around on the battlements of the royal palace of Babylon…uttered these words: ‘Is this not the great Babylon I have built for a royal residence by my own mighty strength and for my majestic honor?’” (4:29b-30).  This is said in the light of having previously been reported to have looked to the God of Israel and declared “How great are His signs!  How mighty are His wonders!  His kingdom will last forever, and His authority continues from one generation to the next” (4:3).  It is written that, upon uttering the words of his own aggrandizement, that “He was driven from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until his hair became long like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails like a bird’s claws” (4:33b).  Nebuchadnezzar, the presumed ruler of the apocalyptic “people of Edom” and “of Uz,” experienced a judgment and is portrayed as having taken off his clothes.  It will not be too much longer, within the Daniel narrative, that Babylon is then conquered by the Medes and the Persians.