Week 31 Lamentations 5
Right near the end of his lament Jeremiah says: it was our ancestors who sinned, but they died before the hand of punishment fell. We have suffered the punishment they deserved.
I wonder what Jeremiah is getting at here.
Is he saying that a guy breaks the law and doesn’t suffer any consequences?
Does Guy #1 break the law and then – later in time – Guy #2 gets punished instead of Guy #1?
Does guilty Guy #1 get off scot-free but Guy #2 – who’s maybe an innocent guy – just suddenly get hit with Guy #1’s consequences?
Breaking it down this way makes no sense to me. Quite a few times I’ve read that every single individual person gets the benefit of a personal review and assessment. What I’ve worked at deserving is what I’ll get.
It’s possible that Jeremiah was thinking here about how things play-out on a more macro-scale. For instance a government can make an evil law that works out pretty well for some people in the short-term (a bad law can be rewarding). But it’s still a bad law. And over the long-haul it’s badness ends up damaging people.
One of the Basic Rules in the bible is that I get to input a whole bunch of consequential actions over the course of my life. And eventually my consequences come full circle.
I don’t think Jeremiah is arguing against that. But I’m just not sure what he is arguing.
Note: quote from Lamentations 5:7 (NLT)