The Bible

 

Lamentations 5

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1 Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach.

2 Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers.

3 We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows.

4 We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood.

5 We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us.

6 We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread.

7 Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities.

8 Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.

9 We fetched our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert.

10 Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine.

11 They oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda.

12 The princes were hanged up by their hand: they did not respect the persons of the ancient.

13 They abused the young men indecently: and the children fell under the wood.

14 The ancients have ceased from the gates: the young men from the choir of the singers.

15 The joy of our heart is ceased, our dancing is turned into mourning.

16 The crown is fallen from our head woe to us, because we have sinned.

17 Therefore is our heart sorrowful, therefore are our eyes become dim,

18 For mount Sion, because it is destroyed, foxes have walked upon it.

19 But thou, O Lord, shalt remain for ever, thy throne from generation to generation.

20 Why wilt thou forget us for ever? Why wilt thou forsake us for a long time?

21 Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning.

22 But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry against us.

   

Commentary

 

Weary

  

On the surface, it appears that Swedenborg gives two different representations for “weariness.” In discussing Genesis - where Esau and later Jacob are described as “weary” - he says it represents a state of temptation, an interior spiritual conflict. In discussing passages from several other places, however, he says “weariness” represents a lack of truth, having no concept of how to be good. But these two ideas are not as disconnected as they seem. Temptation arises when the interior, rational parts of our minds - which can be elevated to grasp deeper truths about life and the Lord - come into conflict with the exterior, natural parts of our minds, where we are driven by bodily desires and cling to false ideas that support those desires. Part of the process is clearing those falsities out of the lower parts of our minds so that the deeper truths can enter in. In that in-between stage, when the falsities are being driven away but we have not embraced the deeper truth yet, we can feel pretty empty. people who have been through serious temptations will likely relate to this - at some point along the way you feel like you have no idea what is right and what is wrong. If at those moments we can give up trying to figure it out and trust in the Lord, we'll be OK - but we will likely be pretty tired, too.