Hi friends and welcome to Robcast 96.

Is it 96? That is incredible.

This is part five of a series called Learning to Lament.

I'm essentially reflecting on these poems that are called Lamentations.

They're in the middle of the Bible. They're very easy to miss if you're just

giving through. But they're about the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.

And there's these three characters, a narrator, a woman who is essentially

the personification of the city. She lies deserted. She was once full of people.

She's a widow. She's an orphan. She's a mother. The city is seen as a she.

And the narrator just tells you all the horrible things that have happened to the

she. There's a third character, a man who shows up in poem three, but you know,

we haven't gotten to him yet. But there's this one line about skirts.

And then there's a later line about a virgin. And the relationship between

the two, because they happen in different chapters, it's easy to miss what the

poet is doing here. This poet, so brilliant. And there's a couple of illusions

that illusions, not illusions, that references to the earlier history of this tribe,

that sort of unlock all sorts of deeper meanings. So the narrator is going on

about how, how bad it's gotten. And is essentially saying,

Jerusalem, he says, verse eight, has sinned greatly. And so has become unclean.

The poet's essentially saying, Jerusalem brought this destruction on herself.

All who honored her despise her for they have seen her nakedness. She herself

groans and turns away. Now in the line after the nakedness, it says this,

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