Lamentations 1:12

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger? Lam 1:12

This need not be put as a question, but may be read literally thus "Not to you, ye passers by." Sometimes the expression has been taken as an interjection "Oh, all ye that pass by." Zion does not speak to those who are merely passing on; to them she has nothing to say which they can understand. On the other hand, it may be imagined that Zion is complaining because of the indifference with which the world regards her. She is amazed that sorrow like hers can be in the world, and that men can pass by without paying any attention to it. We must beware of unduly magnifying sorrow, and yet we must be equally on our guard against lessening it, and taking out of it the suggestions of its greatness and dignity. Brooding over our sorrow, it may become disproportionately important: neglecting it, or trifling with it, we may lose all its most solemn and tender lessons. He is the wise man who measures his sorrow by right standards, and who asks God to reveal to him its scope and purpose, in order that through his sorrow he may form a truer estimate of his sins. God does not allot punishment to us according to our own estimate of sin, but according to the sin as it appears to him. If there is aught of clemency mingled with judgment it is because of the frailty of our frame, and our simple inability to encounter the judgment which is due even to what we may call our smallest transgressions. Some men have not scrupled to apply these words to Jesus Christ himself, as he was stretched upon the Cross, bearing such agony as neper before tormented the human soul, or rent the human body. According to these interpreters, Jesus Christ is represented as saying, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, that I should be thus crucified? Do ye not understand this agony? Is it not apparent to you that, if I suffer thus for your sin, your sin must have been of infinite hatefulness in the sight of God? Thus Jesus Christ is represented as drawing sympathy towards himself by reason of his sufferings, and is thus indirectly magnifying the grace and love of God in human redemption. Whether this be a legitimate interpretation or not, it is certain that no suffering was like the suffering of Christ; he poured out his soul unto death; he did not suffer for his own sins, but for the sins of others; he was wounded for our transgressions.