The list of blessings and curses found in Deuteronomy are a major reason we read the Babylonian's destruction of Jerusalem in the way we do. Just read the following consequences for breaking the terms of God's covenant.
"The LORD will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture... They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down...
— Deuteronomy 28:49 & 52 NLT
Invaders? Check.
Ruined cities? Check.
And why does God bring such calamities upon his own people, even to the point of saying he’ll exile them?
"And all the surrounding nations will ask, 'Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why was he so angry?'
"And the answer will be, 'This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the LORD. That is why the LORD's anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book. In great anger and fury the LORD uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!'"
— Deuteronomy 29:24-28 NLT
Pretty clear cut, right?
This is the story we’re expecting Lamentations to adhere to. And it starts off well. The reporter is blatantly a “Deuteronomy man,” by which I mean the legalistic nature of that book influences his view on how God responds to sin. But then he changes his mind between songs.
By the time Lamentations 2 begins, the reporter has rejected his legalistic stance of the first song and sides with Daughter Zion—and against God—in the second song.
Which is the opposite of clear cut.
Something about Daughter Zion's harrowing story transforms the reporter’s theology. That’s the danger of listening to a victim of God’s supposed wrath against sin. Things can get uncomfortable and we question the things we’ve previously taken for granted.
So what does Daughter Zion say to make him believe her?
