Lamentations 101 (Lamentations 1:1)

What book begins “How lonely sits the city that was full of people?” Lamentations

The Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and its citizens’ subsequent deportation represents a watershed moment in biblical history. This military loss not only marks a horrifying political defeat but also carries profound sociological and theological overtones. Jerusalem is far more than a mere city to its residents; it connotes the nation’s religious core and is viewed as the very residence of the divine presence. As such, when the blow is struck not only is the disaster itself felt but also the seeming indifference of God. The magnitude of the crippling loss cannot be underestimated.

Paul Joyce (b. 1954) assesses:

Israel’s entire symbol system had been torn away, and the people had experienced a complete loss of meaning. That structure of belief was centred on divine election, and, pressing the image of the bereaved widow [Lamentations 1:1c], we could even say that Israel had lost her “husband,” God himself. (Joyce, “Lamentations and the Grief Process: A Psychological Reading”, Biblical Interpretation, 1 (3), 310)

Lamentations is a response to this catastrophe. The book is a compilation of five poems which correspond to its five chapter divisions. The anonymous anthology is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah (presumably based upon II Chronicles 35:25). The first four entries are acrostics formatted around the Hebrew alphabet as if to chronicle the nation’s pain from A to Z. This arrangement also lends itself to corporate worship.

Eugene H. Peterson (b. 1932) recaps:

The lament...goes through the disaster, over and over, five distinct times, line by line in excruciating detail: rape, humiliation, mockery, sacrilege, starvation, and worst of all, cannibalism (mothers boiling the their babies for supper!)...The lament continues to be chanted still in the prayers of the Jewish community in August of each year (Ninth of Ab in the Hebrew calendar) on the anniversary of the terrible event. (Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way, 151)

Naturally, the tone of the book is grim. God is silent, the degree of suffering is presented as unwarranted and the prospects of redemption are kept at a minimum. The desolation seems complete.

The chronology of Lamentations’ entries is unknown though R.B. Salters suspects:

We do not know which of the five poems was the first to be written, but chapter 1 is, perhaps, the most striking, and it may be for this reason that it is placed at the beginning of the group. (Salters, Lamentations: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary), 30)

This opening stanza is divided evenly into two parts (Lamentations 1:1-11, 12-22). Paul W. Ferris, Jr. (b. 1944) delineates:

Lamentations 1:1-11 ...[is] set...off as a subunit of the twenty-two verse poem by the prevalent use of the third-person feminine singular, referring to the shamed, devastated, and abandoned city. Jerusalem is personified as a widowed queen [Lamentations 1:1] and an unfaithful spouse now bereft of her children [Lamentations 1:2]. This subunit of the lament is presented by a third party, an observer, until the last clause, which transitions to the first person. (Tremper Longman III [b. 1952] and David E. Garland [b. 1947], Jeremiah~Ezekiel (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary), 585)

Hetty Lalleman understands:

In Lamentations 1:1-11 the poet speaks about Jerusalem and laments her fate. In Lamentations 1:12-22 Jerusalem is speaking, and me and my refer to the city. However, these two voices merge and we cannot tell one apart from the other. Throughout the whole chapter someone is voicing the disaster and distress that has come to the fallen city. (Lalleman, Jeremiah and Lamentations (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 335)

Robert Martin-Achard (1919-1989) analyzes:

We can observe in this poem a certain psychological progress. It moves from an objective, external form to a subjective one, because the poet changes his attitude from that of a sympathetic onlooker to being the voice of Zion herself. Even throughout the first part of the narrative there breaks forth in an ejaculatory prayer a deep feeling of distress; ‘O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed (Lamentations 1:9c) and then, ‘Look, O Lord, and behold, for I am despised’ [Lamentations 1:11]. This prayer contains, as it were, a silent reproach to the Almighty: ‘Lord, how could you permit such a terrible thing to happen?!’(Martin-Achard and S. Paul Re’emi, Amos & Lamentations: God’s People in Crisis (International Theological Commentary), 83)

John Guest (b. 1936) infers:

Judging from his passion and the richness of his detail, we can assume that the writer was an eyewitness to the fall of Jerusalem and was most likely recording his impressions within a reasonable time frame of the actual event. He watches the city from the perspective of the third person for the first half of the dirge and then performs a literary stoke of genius by switching the perspective to the second person in the last half of the work. The shift carries with it a powerful intimacy that invites a personal response from the reader or the listener. (Guest, Jeremiah/Lamentations (Mastering the Old Testament), 356-57)

The dirge’s initial verse relays the city’s plight (Lamentations 1:1).

How lonely sits the city
That was full of people!
She has become like a widow
Who was once great among the nations!
She who was a princess among the provinces
Has become a forced laborer!(Lamentations 1:1 NASB)

Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984) summarizes:

In Lamentations 1:1 Jeremiah speaks of the city of Jerusalem: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!” Jerusalem, a city which used to be close to God, has been changed by the choice of significant men. They have turned away from Him when they knew Him, and now their city is under siege. There is death in the city. (Schaeffer, Death in the City, 35)

The opening verse establishes the book’s tone. F.B. Huey, Jr. (b. 1925) discloses:

Lamentations begins on a mournful note that is sustained throughout the book. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians. The once-thriving nation’s commercial and religious center was now devastated and largely deserted. (Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentationshe (The New American Commentary), 450)

The verse is well conceived. Delbert R. Hillers (1932-1999) praises:

The opening stanza (Lamentations 1:1) is one of the most carefully worked out in the book from a formal point of view. The three lines are parallel to each other (so-called “external parallelism”). The first two are linked by repetition of rabbātī...and the third is closely joined to them by the parallel word śārātī...This formal elaborateness marks the importance of the themes introduced. (Hillers, Lamentations (Anchor Bible), 80-81)

Lamentations begins with a discussion of the emptiness of an anonymous city (Lamentations 1:1). The once prosperous locale is deserted, a ghost town as empty as the morale of its former inhabitants. Though names and dates are lacking, it is a thinly veiled reference to the Babylonian exile. There is no doubt that the city in question is Jerusalem.

Tremper Longman III (b. 1952) declares:

The poet does not name Jerusalem at the start, but simply speaks of the city. The name of the city does not have to be spoken; poet and readers would know the identity of the now deserted city of Jerusalem. As today there is no doubt when a New Yorker refers to “the city,” so there is no secret concerning the identity of the city among Judeans. This once bustling place (a city “closely compacted together” [Psalm 122:3]) is now eerily deserted. (Longman, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series))

Though much has changed since the writing of Lamentations, some things in Jerusalem have remained constant. Harvey Cox (b. 1929) notes the irony:

Today, paradoxically, Jerusalem is hardly lonely, and she may now have too many lovers. In fact, her sadness is that so many people “love her to death.”...Today, as in the era of Jeremiah, it is not easy to separate the religious from the political conflicts that fuel disagreements about Jerusalem...The “Jerusalem question” has exasperated the international community for nearly a century...Today Jerusalem’s political status is still in question. (Cox and Stephanie Paulsell [b. 1962], Lamentations and the Song of Songs (Belief: a Theological Commentary on the Bible), 152-54)

This city will remain a focal point throughout book. Erhard S. Gerstenberger (b. 1932) sketches:

[A] phenomenon in Lamentations, except for chapter 3, is the focus on Jerusalem and Zion, with frequent female personifications of the city, so that her lamenting and pleading voice is quoted directly. The ancients quite easily gave voice and character to various entities...Cities...were incorporated symbols of the people living within the walls. In the ancient Near East they were governed and represented by the main deity of the settlement, often a goddess, like Inanna of Ur, or Ishtar or Isin. Some scholars suppose that personification of Jerusalem also has to do with divine representation. A few Akkadian laments are put into the mouth of the city-goddess, who has to flee and see her temple in shambles. In a similar way Jerusalem mourns the death and suffering of her inhabitants and the destruction of her edifices. (Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2 and Lamentations (Forms of the Old Testament Literature), 472)

The unit’s form is no more unique than its impetus. It fits within a genre known as city lament. Tremper Longman III (b. 1952) situates:

Lamentations is best understood as a corporate lament bemoaning the destruction of a city, that is, a “city lament.” As such, the book does not exist in a generic vacuum. There is a well-established genre of city laments known in particular from five compositions that derive from the period of the destruction of the Ur III dynasty (ca. 2100-2000 B.C.) at the hands of invaders from the east and the west. This destruction had a catastrophic effect on the minds of those who survived it. The highly developed and civilized kingdom was the result of a Sumerian renaissance after a period of Akkadian rule that may have considered itself impregnable from attack from the outside world. Ibbi-Sin, the last ruler of the dynasty (ca. 2028-2004 B.C.), actually started his reign in a relatively strong position, but soon he was under siege and was perhaps explanted by Ishbi-Irra of Mari...The destruction of Ur, its temples, and surrounding cities worked deep into the psyche of those who witnessed it. Indeed, five compositions survive that lament the fall of the city. (Longman, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series))

John H. Walton (b. 1952), Victor H. Matthews (b. 1950) and Mark W. Chavalas (b. 1954) add:

As the fall of Jerusalem became a pivotal point in the history, theology and literature of Israel, the fall of Ur (to an army from the east) at the end of the Ur III Dynasty (about the year 2000) served in the ancient Near East as an illustration of the divine abandonment of a city, resulting in its destruction. The lamentations that memorialize the weeping and the theological reflection on those two great falls are preserved in their respective literatures. Two separate works lament the fall of Ur (known as The Lament over the Destruction of Ur and The Lament over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur). Other city laments exist for Nippur, Uruk, Eridu and Ekimar (though the last three of these are fragmentary). These date to the twentieth century B.C. Unlike biblical lamentations, each of the ancient Near Eastern works includes a decision of the gods to restore the city. Literarily they played a role in the attempts to legitimize a new dynasty...The major theme of these works is that the gods have abandoned the city, thus exposing it to destruction at the hands of the enemy. In poetic detail the distress of the population is described...This despair is reflected in the wondering questions of why they have been treated in this way by the gods and how long their condition will persist. When explanations are offered, the fall of the city is not blamed on offense but simply reflects the fact that change and the shifting of political power is inevitable. (Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, 686)

J. Andrew Dearman (b. 1951) compares:

There are city limits in ancient Near Eastern literature, which are also related to the book of Lamentations...In some of them a prominent place is given to the patron goddess of the city, who mourns the fall of her city. Since there is no counterpart to the patron goddess in Judah (at least not among the circles responsible for the Old Testament), it is possible that the prominence given to personified Jerusalem as “Daughter...Zion” and the symbolic mother of the faithful is the Israelite counterpart to the broader ancient Near Eastern tradition of patron goddesses. Recognition of Jerusalem’s voice and personification is crucial to an adequate grasp of the book’s style and its message. (Dearman, Jeremiah, Lamentations (The NIV Application Commentary))

Lamentations’ personification of the city as a female is normative. Adele Berlin (b. 1943) informs:

The personification of a city as a woman is a common image in prophetic literature, with possible antecedents in Mesopotamian literature and successors in Greek literature—but nowhere is it developed more effectively than in the personification of Jerusalem in this chapter. Here a kaleidoscope of images turns quickly from a lonely widow, to a degraded princess, to a whore, to a rape victim, to a betrayed lover, to an abandoned wife. (Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary (Old Testament Library), 47)

This analogy complies with its Hebrew grammar. Paul M. Joyce (b. 1954) and Diana Lipton relate:

The personification of Zion as a woman characterizes the first two chapters of the book. It is a feature facilitated by the fact that ir (the Hebrew word for city) is feminine, and is a motif shared with some other biblical books (cf. J.F.A. Sawyer [b. 1938] 1989 on Isaiah). Parallels to the presentation of Jerusalem as a widowed city are to be found in other ancient Near Eastern literature (Chayim Cohen 1973). (Joyce and Lipton, Lamentations Through the Centuries, 27)

The transition is smooth. Adele Berlin (b. 1943) tracks:

Lamentations 1:1-11...[is] a portrait of Jerusalem, destroyed, shamed, and dejected. The picture opens with the unnamed city, sitting empty and alone, in contrast to the thriving metropolis she once was. The image of the city as widow leads to the idea of mourning and abandonment, and it evokes pity. But almost immediately a different set of associations impinges: this apparently pitiful woman had taken lovers, she had acted immorally, and she deserved her punishment. These ideas are not contradictory, but they generate a cognitive and emotional tension that is in play throughout the chapter. (Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary (Old Testament Library), 49)

Not surprisingly given its condition, the city assumes the posture of mourning. Leslie C. Allen (b. 1935) relates:

In the first line, sits describes a mourning posture. A parallel comes from the experience of Nehemiah who likewise “sat down and wept. For some days I mourned” (Nehemiah 1:4). (Allen, A Liturgy of Grief: A Pastoral Commentary on Lamentations, 35)

R.B. Salters parses this verb:

ישבה...Qal perfect 3rd feminine singular because ‘city’ is feminine. The perfect is to be understood in the sense of the present...The contrasting dirge-like images which follow make it probable that the poet here contrasts the present state of affairs (or at least, the image he wishes to convey) with the past. The verb can have the meaning ‘dwell’ (Psalm 133:1) or ‘remain’ (Genesis 24:55)—and according to the Syrohexapla margin, Symmachus [Second century] understood it as ‘remain’ (ἔμεινεν)—but the poet goes on to paint a picture of a grieving female figure; and sitting (on the ground) characterized ancient mourners (cf. Isaiah 47:1; Ezekiel 26:16). (Salters, Lamentations: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary), 35-36)

The city finds itself isolated (Lamentations 1:1). It is characterized as “lonely”(ESV, NASB, NKJV, NRSV, RSV), “deserted” (CEV, NLT), “solitary” (ASV, KJV), “alone” (HCSB) or “empty” (MSG).

Fred Wood (1921-2010) and Ross McLaren (b. 1952) research:

The word translated deserted (Lamentations 1:1) comes from a Hebrew verb meaning “to be separate, solitary.” In this verse it is an adverb meaning “alone.” Looking at the barren and forsaken city, Jeremiah saw it as isolated, abandoned, and forgotten. His mind turned to a woman whose husband had died and left her alone in the world. (Wood and McLaren, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Holman Old Testament Commentary), 360)

R.B. Salters considers:

Although a noun meaning ‘isolation’, it is in the adverbial accusative position...The word is construed with ישב in Leviticus 13:46; Jeremiah 15:17; Lamentations 3:28. Rashi [1040-1105] interprets ‘bereft of inhabitants’. It may go a bit too far in that the poet later makes reference to priests and maidens on the scene (Lamentations 1:4), but his aim may have been to conjure up an image of desolateness (cf. Isaiah 27:10 regarding the isolation of a besieged city) in contrast with the grandiose past which he goes on to describe. This is the first of several examples of the poet’s tendency to exaggerate. (Salters, Lamentations: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary), 36)

Abraham Ahuviah argues that this Hebrew term, bâdâd, is commonly associated with betach (“secure”) and carries a similar meaning. Thus, he argues that the opening verse of Lamentations should be rendered: “The city that was full of people, that dwelt securely, how like a widow has she become.” (Ahuviah, “How Lonely Sits the City that was Full of People,” Lam 1:1. Beth Mikra, 1979, 24(79), 423-425).

Xuan Huong Thi Pham (b. 1973) counters:

In the context of mourning, the word בדד in Lamentations 1:1a, with the following imagery of widowhood in Lamentations 1:1b, depicts loneliness and desertion rather than solitary security as suggested by Abraham Ahuviah. (Pham, Mourning in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible, 193)

Robin A. Parry (b. 1969) contextualizes:

The contrast between sitting alone and once being full of people suggests that “alone” here means that her many children (her citizens) are gone. She is childless! The fleeting image of the widow is not pressed, but it could possibly indicate the idea that her husband, YWHH, having abandoned her is like a dead husband. She is now in a very vulnerable position as she has no one who can act as her legal protector. The narrator is seeking to elicit the pity of the audience right from the start. (Perry, Lamentations (Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary), 43)

Though counterintuitive, corporate loneliness is a real possibility. Kamila Blessing (b. 1948) reveals:

A whole people can be alone. The term badad (“be alone”) enters forcefully into descriptions of Israel “alone” in an abandoned land. The people of Jerusalem were described thus during the Babylonian captivity, when most of the people had been deported. For example, Lamentations 1:1 begins, “How alone lies the city that was so great with people, how like a widow...she who had been a princess” (author’s translation). Israel in Babylon was alone in a related sense. (Blessing, Families of the Bible: A New Perspective, 140)

The desolation is accentuated all the more when compared to the city’s past glory, having been “full of people” (Lamentations 1:1b). Glory has passed and its vision and memory are fading quickly.

Kathleen M. O’Connor (b. 1942) asserts:

The city, once “great with people,” swollen with life like a pregnant woman is now alone like a widow (Lamentations 1:1b). The widow in ancient Israel was truly alone. (O’Connor, Lamentations & the Tears of the World, 20)

Frank Moore Cross (1921-2012) probes:

The expression rbty ‘m has traditionally been taken to mean “full of people” and been compared to rbt bnym ’mllh (I Samuel 2:5)...It has been argued that rbty must be taken as the familiar epithet rbt “lady, mistress” (Thomas F. McDaniel [b. 1931] 1968:29-31). The correspondence with rbt bgwym and especially śrty bmdynwt requires this understanding of rbty in my opinion, but I see no reason to exclude a play on alternate idiomatic meanings of rbt in the second colon. (Carol L. Meyers [b. 1942] and Michael Patrick O’Connor [1950-2007], “Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Verse: The Prosody of Lamentations 1:1-22), The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman [1922-2008] in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, 136)

The wasted potential makes the blow all the more harsh. There is a sense that it did not have to be this way.

For Lamentations, the glass is not merely half empty but completely empty. And to make matters worse the glass remains to taunt its former fullness. It is like viewing an old family photo of a house decimated by deaths. Jerusalem finds itself the subject of dramatic, tragic before-and-after photos.

John M. Bracke (b. 1947) correlates:

The scene of reversal, of stunning loss, that these verses lay out is not unfamiliar to us. We know of the reality of which these verses speak. Television has brought into our living rooms poignant pictures of victims of tragedies revisiting what had once been sacred space for them. We have seen those who have survived a tornado or hurricane sifting through the scattered debris with anguish on their faces at the site that was once home for them. We have witnessed persons whose churches have been burned recounting with tears streaming down their cheeks how the smoldering rubble behind them was the place where marriages were celebrated, where infants were received into the church through baptism, and where precious dead were remembered. We have seen war refugees fleeing burning cities in long lines with what few possessions they could salvage strapped on their backs. In these scenes we have ourselves seen the great reversal of fortune described in these initial verses in Lamentations. The joy and glory of the former days are quickly lost and become fond memories of what will never be again. (Bracke, Jeremiah 30-52 and Lamentations (Westminster Bible Companion), 193)

Though on some levels the contemporary reader can relate, there are few analogies that capture the magnitude of pain felt by this one pummeling.

The bleakness of the city’s situation is no more apparent than in its opening exclamation (Lamentations 1:1a). The interjection is consistently rendered “how” (ASV, ESV, HCSB, KJV, NASB, NIV, NJV, NRSV, RSV) or is omitted (CEV, NLT). The prevailing translation does not capture the force of the Hebrew, better reflected in the Message’s paraphrase, “Oh oh oh”.

Hetty Lalleman corrects:

The first verse opens with a cry of lament that can be translated as ‘Alas!’ TNIV, NRSV and NKJV translate as How, but the Hebrew word is more powerful: ‘Alas! She sits alone – the city.’ (Lalleman, Jeremiah and Lamentations (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, 336)

The book’s first word engages the reader and sets the tone for the entire work. The word is typical in elegies. Adele Berlin (b. 1943) scrutinizes:

The first word of the chapter, ’êkâ, signals the discourse of lament, as it does also in chapters 2 and 4 [Lamentations 2:1, 4:1]. It is an exclamation of despair that marks a sudden change from a glorious past to the degraded present (cf. Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 48:17; Ezekiel 26:17), and the nature of that change is described in the rest of Lamentations 1:1. The pāsēq in the Masoertic Text after ’êkâ, indicating a slight pause, suggests that the word stands slightly apart from what follows it. In that sense, ’êkâ introduces the chapter as a whole. (Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary (Old Testament Library), 49)

R.B. Salters responds:

The word with which the poet begins is generally thought to be an emphatic form of איך and is found elsewhere at Deuteronomy 1:12, 7:17; Isaiah 1:21 (1QIs reads איך); Jeremiah 48:18 etc., and in this book (Lamentations 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 2). Hedwig Jahnow [1879-1944] (1923, 136) argues that it conveys desperation and may have been a common beginning to a lament. However, many laments do not begin this way, hence it may just have seemed particularly appropriate to this poet to begin to express the horror which follows. While the word can have an interrogative force (Deuteronomy 12:30; Jeremiah 8:8), it probably has more of an exclamatory function here—Alas! Although not repeated with each line, the force of איכה continues throughout the verse (cf. John Calvin [1509-1564]). H. Wheeler Robinson [1872-1945] (1936, 37-40; cf. BHK, BHS) argues that איכה is unstressed and stands separate from the first stitch, but in this he is not normally followed (cf. Claus Westermann [1909-2000] 1994, 112; Biblia Hebraica Quinta). (Salters, Lamentations: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary), 35)

The word does protrude from the rest of the text as evidenced by its exclusion from the lament’s metrical structure (R.K. Harrison [1920-1993], Jeremiah & Lamentations (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries), 207).

The term is multi-faceted and conveys a number of sentiments. Kathleen M. O’Connor (b. 1942) elucidates:

With the alarming cry of a funeral dirge the narrator demands our attention in the poem’s opening verse. “How (’ēkāh) lonely sits the city once great with people!” (Lamentations 1:1a). The “how” is a bitter declaration that death has occurred, but as Naomi Seidman [b. 1960] (283) observes, it also implies interrogation—“How could this happen to beloved Zion?” “How is it possible even to speak of this destruction?” To convey the breath-stopping shock of the catastrophe, Seidman proposes the opening ’ēkāh “be pronounced with a catch in the throat.” Tragedy threatens to overcome speech, sobs interfere with words, and trauma pounds back expression as the book’s voices hover in tension between life-denying silence and the life-giving urge to speak. (O’Connor, Lamentations & the Tears of the World, 19-20)

In one word, Lamentations effectively relates the hopelessness and emotions of its historical setting. In fact, one of the book’s traditional titles is its first word. Tremper Longman III (b. 1952) surveys:

In antiquity, the book was referred to by its opening word ’eka (“how?”). The rabbis referred to the book as qinot, the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) entitled the book Threni, and the Vulgate referred to it as Lamenta—all meaning “Lamentations.” (Longman, Jeremiah, Lamentations (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series))

Upon reflection, its opening exclamation is a fitting title for the book of Lamentations.

What historical catastrophes most closely parallel the significance of the fall of Jerusalem to its residents? Whose sustained greater loss, Job or Jerusalem’s inhabitants during the Babylonian invasion? What books are titled by their opening lines? How important is your city of residence to you? Have you ever frequented a ghost town? What institutions or places do you know who have seen better days? When has a song fully captured the tone of a momentous event? What do you lament? When has corporate lament been practiced in modern times? What are the advantages of public lament?

Lamentations is not typically a favorite text among preachers. The book is a brutally honest complaint or appeal to God that is told by people too broken to mitigate anything. Light is not easily found amidst the sea of Lamentations’ darkness.

Elizabeth Achtemeier (1926-2002) confesses:

We are uncomfortable with tears and lamenting aren’t we? If someone breaks into tears, we try our best to get her to stop crying and to smile again...We do not like sorrow. We either try to avoid it or attempt to do away with it...The scriptures, however, know better...The authors of the Bible make a wide place in their writings for the sorrows and sufferings and pains of human life, because they know that those are part of our daily living and that there is a word from God about those experiences too. (Achtemeier, “Lamentations 1:1-6”, Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons: With an Eye to the New, Cycle C, 213)

As delicate as the subject is and though it is easier to ignore, abject loss must be addressed. Adele Berlin (b. 1943) notices:

The image of the city-woman in her abject state elicits both revulsion and pity. As we watch her, and the poet forces us to watch her, we are torn between ambivalent urges: we cannot bear to look but we cannot turn our eyes away. The more we look, the more we shame her by seeing that which should not be seen. But we must look, for the poet calls upon us to see what has happened to the city and to partake in her suffering. We becomes actors in the “drama” of this chapter. This chapter is a poetic reenactment of the rites of mourning, and we become mourners along with Jerusalem. (Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary (Old Testament Library), 48)

Lamentations’ opening line is a picture of giving voice to suffering and a window into the book’s intent. Leslie C. Allen (b. 1935) deduces:

The first word, ekhah in Hebrew, traditionally belonged to the funeral dirge and introduced a contrast between a grim present and a good past, a chasm that bereavement had created. Here too it introduces such contrasts. It is a shriek, a scream, “not the kind of scream that comes from fright, but the kind that comes from the deepest grief imaginable. It is a scream that comes when there are no words to express what you feel...It is a scream that rails against logic and fate and everything there is” (Ann Hood [b. 1956], 2008, 139). The Hebrew word is generally translated “how” but is better expanded into How terrible that...! in order to express its emotional intensity. In this case it tells us that the liturgy reader, who here has the role of reporter, is not like a television or radio reporter sent to cover a story and soon to speed away from the scene. He is a member of the mourning community and immersed in the story he tells. His task is to pastorally lead the congregation in giving expression to an overwhelming grief that is equally his own. (Allen, A Liturgy of Grief: A Pastoral Commentary on Lamentations, 35)

In its shift from cry to analogy in its opening line, the book scores a significant achievement. F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp (b. 1962) demonstrates:

The movement from the sequence’s opening primordial scream of “Eikhaaah!” (which is as much a token of glossolalia or pure sound—the kind of preferential ejaculation to which language is so often reduced by extreme suffering—as a semantically weighted word [NRSV’s “How”]) to the articulate speech of the rest of the poetry (“lonely sits the city...”) similarly well symbolizes these poems’ reclamation of language from the wordless garble of anguished speech (cf. Lamentations 2:1, 4:1). And the regaining of voice is fictively and spectacularly enacted in the figure of personified Zion, whom readers literally witness coming to voice over the course of the first two poems, at first slowly and fitfully in abrupt eruptions of entreaty (Lamentations 1:9c, 11c), but eventually with more assurance and fortitude emblematic of her reemergent vitality (Lamentations 1:12-22, 2:20-22). (Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching), 33)

In attaching intelligible words to a horrible predicament, Lamentations provides a pastoral service.

While the suffering is unmitigated within the context of the passage, the text itself is embedded in a larger tradition which celebrates the faithfulness and mercy of God. Lamentations fits within the biblical corpus because it exhibits trust in a deity who permits humans the freedom to honestly grieve and expose the depths of their sorrow. In its venting, the book clings to God as the only hope its readers have left (Job 13:15) and trusting in God’s power rather than human strength is always appropriate.

There is a difference between grief and lament as lament assumes an audience. Lamentations’ underlying presumption is that God is listening. And this assumption is correct.

What topics would you rather ignore than address? What situations have you experienced that were too bleak to sugar coat? Who has given voice to your concerns? To whose suffering can you give voice? Do you have faith that God is listening to your lamentations?

“Healing must always seek to give voice to suffering, and the greater the range of words and meanings we have at our disposal, the clearer the voice becomes.” - Iona Heath in British Medical Journal, 2000 January 8; 320(7227), p. 125

Voice Recognition: (I Samuel 3:1-14)

Whose voice did young Samuel think he heard when God called him three times? Eli’s (I Samuel 3:4-8)

The third chapter of First Samuel describes a time of limited prophetic activity (not unlike our own) when “word from the Lord was rare” and “visions were infrequent” (I Samuel 3:1 NASB). The priest Eli and his young protégé Samuel are lying down at the Shiloh temple (I Samuel 3:2), the former resting by the ark of the covenant (I Samuel 3:3). After three verses establishing a highly ordinary setting, the pace picks up when God initiates action.

The Lord called Samuel; and he said, “Here I am.” Then he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, lie down again.” So he went and lay down. (I Samuel 3:4-5 NASB)

When called, Samuel excitedly runs to answer the priest (I Samuel 3:5). His youthful enthusiasm is misdirected as he mistakenly interprets the voice’s origin. Fortunately, God’s call is deliberate and persistent. Undeterred, the Lord awakens Samuel four times (I Samuel 3:4, 6, 8, 10). In a comedic scene, three times the confused young man awakens Eli. After the third attempt, the seasoned priest recognizes that God is calling Samuel and instructs his pupil to respond in kind (I Samuel 3:8-9). The fourth time is the charm as Samuel receives the revelatory word (I Samuel 3:10-14). As such, Samuel first hears the voice of God while literally lying down on the job (I Samuel 3:4).

The setting is significant, symbolic of the nation’s theological predicament. Richard D. Phillips (b. 1960) observes:

The setting for Samuel’s calling is provocatively stated: “The lamp of God had not yet gone out” (I Samuel 3:3). This indicates that it was in the early hours before dawn that God called to Samuel, since the lamps were kept lit until morning. But this was also symbolically true: the lamp of God’s presence in Israel was dim but not completely out. In such a setting, the voice of the Lord was once more heard within his house. (Phillips, 1 Samuel (Reformed Expository Commentary), 65)

The light is scarce but it is not yet extinguished. The voice in the darkness mirrors the hope for renewal embodied in Samuel.

Kevin J. Mellish (b. 1968) adds:

The location where Eli and Samuel slept at the time of the theophany is also symbolic. Eli was in his own room and separated from the ark. Samuel was lying down in the temple...where the ark of God was (I Samuel 3:3). Based on this description, Samuel must have slept in the inner sanctuary where the ark resided. It is noteworthy that Samuel, the prophet/priest designate, remained near the presence of God, which was symbolized by the ark of the covenant. Eli, the soon to be deposed priest, slept at a distance from it. The imagery is fitting considering that Yahweh’s presence no longer abided with Eli as it was with Samuel, This is also the first, albeit brief, reference to the ark in Samuel. (Mellish, 1 & 2 Samuel: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (New Beacon Bible Commentary), 61)

Some have posed that Samuel’s position indicates that he is seeking just such a divine encounter. V. Philips Long (b. 1951) explains:

That Samuel is described as “lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was” (I Samuel 3:3), has led some to speculate that he may have been engaging in a well-attested ancient Near Eastern practice called “incubation.” Incubation involves spending a night in the temple precinct in the hope of receiving a divine or oracular dream. The practice is attested among the Egyptians, with manuals of dream interpretation being used as early as the New Kingdom period, among the Hittites of Anatolia, and in Canaan during the biblical period...Extrabiblical examples of such theophanies, or auditory message dreams as they are sometimes called, come from Egypt (Thutmose IV, fifteenth century), Ugarit (in both the Kirta Epic and ‘Aqhatu Legend), Hatti (Hattušiliš, thirteenth century), and Babylonia (Nabonidus, sixth century). (John H. Walton [b. 1952], Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary), 282-83)

Ralph W. Klein (b. 1936) counters:

We are not told why Samuel slept by the ark. The view that he was participating in some kind of incubation ritual seems contradicted by his repeated suspicion that Eli—and not God—was calling him. (Klein, 1 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary), 32)

Instead, Samuel is likely taking his turn in fulfilling priestly duties. Robert D. Bergen (b. 1954) assumes:

While Samuel was fulfilling the Torah obligations to tend the lamp of God (cf. Leviticus 24:3; Numbers 18:23), the Lord called the youth and delivered a message of judgment to him. In a form paralleling Abraham, Jacob, and Moses’ obedient responses to divine calls (Genesis 22:1, 11, 31:11; Exodus 3:4), Samuel responded, “Here I am” (I Samuel 3:4). Because he did not initially know the Lord, however, Samuel at first went to Eli for further instructions (I Samuel 3:5-6, 8)...It is...probable that the writer included this note to demonstrate Samuel’s diligence in fulfilling Torah mandates. As a son of Aaron, Eli was required “to keep the lamps burning before the LORD from evening till morning” (Exodus 27:21; cf. Leviticus 24:3; also Numbers 18:23). However, since Eli apparently was too old for active service before Yahweh as a priest (cf. Numbers 8:23-26), the Levite Samuel was permitted to act as his surrogate in this matter (cf. Numbers 18:23). (Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel (New American Commentary), 86)

God calls Samuel while he is already on duty. Though Samuel does not know who is calling, he responds promptly and politely. Josephus (37-100) records that Samuel is only twelve years old at the time (Antiquities of the Jews 5.10.4).

It is clear that Samuel perceives the voice audibly, originating outside of himself. T.M. Luhrmann (b. 1959) determines:

The striking phenomenonological detail is that Samuel looked for the source of the voice. When someone gives you that detail—they heard a voice and then looked to see who was speaking—it is good evidence that they heard the voice with their ears. (Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God, 344)

Samuel’s call marks a rare instance of a human hearing the audible call of God. Steven J. Andrews (b. 1954) and Robert D. Bergen (b. 1954) characterize Samuel’s experience:

Being so physically close to the Lord’s throne, Samuel was bound to meet him. All of chapters 1 and 2 has led up to this point. God was going to do something wonderful with this young man who was dedicated by his parents to minister before the Lord...Here was the moment of contact. Here was God’s call. It was personal and face-to-face. It was private when no one else was around. It came in God’s house in the early morning. Samuel answered...but he didn’t know who called him. He heard, but he wasn’t listening...God is certainly persistent. The verb call occurs eleven times in I Samuel 3:4-10. Anyone who has ever experienced a call from God can tell you that sometimes it is relentless. God does not give up. (Andrews and Bergen, I & II Samuel (Holman Old Testament Commentary), 32-33)

Samuel incorrectly assumes that the voice he hears is Eli’s. To explain this error, the text offers a narrative aside to remind the reader that Samuel has yet to hear the voice of God; Samuel is not yet the legendary prophet (I Samuel 3:7). One can hardly blame Samuel for his failure to recognize the voice. God has not spoken to him previously and Eli’s is the most likely voice. In this secluded setting, who else would be calling him?

Mary J. Evans (b. 1949) muses:

The story continues with the young Samuel asleep in the area where the ark of God was kept, a fact that shows how fully he had been integrated into priestly service. He hears a voice and immediately goes to Eli—maybe it was a regular occurrence for the almost blind Eli to need help. Samuel’s willingness to get up three times in the night, apparently without complaint, to attend to the ailing old man speaks well for the character of the young priest and draws attention to his worthiness to receive the prophetic word. (Evans, 1 and 2 Samuel (New International Biblical Commentary), 28)

Samuel’s mistake is also natural as the voice of God is often filtered through human beings. Kenneth Chafin (1926-2001) acknowledges:

How easy it still is not to be able to discern God’s voice from other voices. It would be so much easier if all of God’s messages to us came with a clearly printed label: “From God.” But, as my colleague, Frank Tupper [b. 1941], says, “God speaks to us through familiar voices.” While there is a tendency to think of the more dramatic revelations of God as normative, most people experience God’s guidance in quite ordinary ways: through experiences good and bad, while reading the Scripture, through the counsel of another, or out of a growing interest. (Chafin, 1, 2 Samuel (Mastering the Old Testament), 46)

Eugene H. Peterson (b. 1932) adds:

Learning to discern the difference between human words and God’s word is basic to his prophetic and priestly life: Samuel listens. Listening is an act of personal attentiveness that develops into answering. The emphatic “Let anyone with ears listen!” with which Jesus concluded his parables (Matthew 13:9, 43) is repeated in the Spirit’s urgent messages to the churches in the Revelation (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22)...Samuel answers, which is to say, he prays...Samuel’s very existence is a result of prayer, the prayer of his praying mother, Hannah. The story of his call in the temple, introducing his prophetic vocation, shows him learning how to pray for himself, that is, listen to God’s personal word to him and then respond. (Peterson, First and Second Samuel (Westminster Bible Companion), 38-39)

Ironically, Eli the priest is seldom depicted speaking for God. Yet here it is Eli, not Samuel, who correctly discerns the voice of God. Eli is finally doing his job: presenting a worldview with God at its center.

Alister E. McGrath (b. 1959) writes:

On the first three occasions, Samuel assumes that the natural sound he has heard has a natural referent, and behaves accordingly...The turning point of the narrative takes place when Eli offers an alternative interpretive framework. Confronted with the evident failure of the most obvious schema, Samuel is invited to consider an alternative explanation of his experience (I Samuel 3:9). Eli can here be seen as a representative of the tradition of Israel, which offers an alternative way of interpreting nature – in this case, as a gateway to the transcendent. God is made known through the natural order. (McGrath, The Open Secret: A New Vision for Natural Theology, 176)

It might have even been presumptuous for Samuel to assume that God is calling him. Jack M. Sasson (b. 1941) elucidates:

It is not a lack of intelligence that prevents Samuel from understanding what Eli does comprehend but rather a profound psychological block. Is it possible that God is calling him rather than Eli the priest? Conversely, Eli apprehends what Samuel fails to see, not because of superior intelligence or experience, but because he lacks the inhibitions generated by self-interest. Nothing deters him from assuming that God might turn to the young servant and pass over the old priest! In this way, Eli’s humility compensates for Samuel’s. (John Kaltner[b. 1954] and Louis Stulman [b. 1953], Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon [b. 1933], 179)

God speaks to Samuel in such a way that causes Eli to fulfill his primary duty as priest: directing his congregant to God. In some small way, Eli redeems himself. In a sad irony, God’s message to Samuel is confirmation of the fall of Eli’s household (I Samuel 3:11-14). Tragically, Eli’s most effective act as priest occurs while mediating his displacement.

Dallas Willard (b. 1935) praises:

How wonderful that Eli recognized what was happening to young Samuel and could tell him what to do to begin his lifelong conversational walk with God! Otherwise, it might have been years before Samuel would have found his way by himself. We must not mistakenly assume that if God speaks to someone, he or she automatically knows what is happening and who is taking. If Samuel did not know, surely many others also would not. (Willard, Hearing God, Updated and Expanded: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, 143-44)

In this case, as in many, effectively hearing God is an act of collaboration. For God’s voice to be heard, the lad needs to be open to it, but he also needs guidance from an elder.

Though the passage illuminates the struggle that clergy experience in discerning their calling, discerning the voice of God and distinguishing it from one’s own is a universal challenge that plagues clergy and laymen alike. Hearing God’s voice is often difficult. But it does not mean that God is not speaking.

Eugene H. Peterson (b. 1932) asserts:

God speaks to Samuel. That God speaks is the basic reality of biblical faith. The fundamental conviction of our faith is not so much that God is, as that God speaks. The biblical revelation begins with God creating by word, speaking the cosmos into being (Genesis 1:1-31). It concludes with Jesus, the Word of God, speaking in invitation, “Come...” (Revelation 22:17). All the pages in between are packed with sentences that God speaks—in creation and invitation, in judgment and salvation, in healing and guidance, in oracle and admonition, in rebuke and comfort. The conspicuous feature in all this speaking is that God speaks in personal address. God does not speak grand general truths, huge billboard declarations of truth and morals; the Lord’s speaking is to persons, named persons: Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul. And Samuel. Personal address, not philosophical discourse or moral commentary or theological reflection, is God’s primary form of speech. Whenever we let the language of religious abstraction or moral principles (and we do it often) crowd the personal address, we betray the word of God. (Peterson, First and Second Samuel (Westminster Bible Companion), 38)

Though God speaks, hearing is not often easy. Even Samuel, who literally lives in the temple, struggles to do so. Samuel’s experience demonstrates that a person can even be in the precarious position of encountering God without knowing it.

Norman J. Cohen (b. 1943) cautions:

Samuel reminds all of us how difficult it is to truly hear, see, and meet the other in our lives. When we finally do experience a moment of recognition and engagement, we sometimes are so overwhelmed that we cannot find the right words to express what we are thinking and feeling. As we are overcome with emotion, both elation and fear at the same time, words may seem impossible. (Cohen, “The Difficulty of Discerning the Call”, Hineini in Our Lives: Learning to Respond to Others Though 14 Biblical Texts & Personal Stories, 81)

Like all prophets, Samuel’s first prophetic act is to listen. His experience demonstrates that disambiguating the voice of God is a learned skill. This provides both a challenge and hope for us all as we echo Samuel’s words: “Speak, for your servant is listening (I Samuel 3:10 NASB).”

Why does God not make his identity more obvious when dealing with Samuel? When have you been called by an unfamiliar voice? If God called you, how would you know? Have you ever audibly heard God? In your mind, whose voice is most like God’s? What would have happened to Samuel had Eli failed to direct him? When has God spoken to you through a “familiar voice”? In what ways has God spoken to you? How have you been changed by the voice of God?

God speaking to Samuel forever changes his and his nation’s history. James E. Smith (b. 1939) notes:

One night (literally, “it came to pass on that day”) suggests that the day was special, a milestone in Samuel’s rise to leadership, and consequently in redemptive history. (Smith, 1 & 2 Samuel (The College Press NIV Commentary), 74)

The third chapter of First Samuel relays a coming of age story as Samuel is moving from “lad” to prophet. Samuel does not become a renowned prophet over night.

Richard L. Schultz (b. 1952) clarifies:

Hearing God’s call did not suddenly move Samuel from childhood to adulthood; following this encounter he still had to “grow up” (I Samuel 3:19). This text emphasizes God’s judgment on blatant sin in the family of Eli, Israel’s religious leader. It also portrays God’s careful preparation of Samuel for significant spiritual and political leadership as one who was open to hearing God’s voice and obeying. (Schultz, Out of Context: How to Avoid Misinterpreting the Bible, 86)

Samuel’s experience invites a discussion of calling. John Goldingay (b. 1942) projects:

Speaking with students often suggests to me that we think of ministry as something that enables us to find fulfillment, as it makes it possible for us to give expression to the gifts God has given us. Discernment thus begins as our seeking to perceive what our gifts are and how we may express them. There’s none of this way of thinking in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Samuel is not called because this will be the way he finds fulfillment...Given that the connotations of the word “call” have changed, we might do better to use the word “summons” rather than “call” to describe what happens to Samuel or Paul. Samuel gets the idea when he recognizes in the middle of the night that his boss has summoned him to do something, so he reports for duty; he just doesn’t realize which boss it is...There is nothing wrong with people using their gifts to serve God...It just has nothing to do with calling. (Goldingay, 1 & 2 Samuel for Everyone, 31)

As the message Samuel receives concerns Eli, many note that I Samuel 3:1-21 is not technically a call narrative. Anthony F. Campbell (b. 1934) advances:

The initiative is...given to Eli, and the focus of interest moves to his reaction. The story comes to rest with his acceptance...It is important to recognize that this is not a prophetic call narrative; there is no call. It may serve in place of a call narrative, since after this first experience of God’s word Samuel continues as a trustworthy prophet of the Lord. For all that, it is not a call narrative. (Campbell, 1 Samuel (The Forms of the Old Testament Literature), 57)

In contrast, Ronald F. Youngblood (b. 1931) offers:

The literary genre of I Samuel 3 has usually been considered a prophetic-call narrative in the grand tradition of Exodus 3 (Moses), Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1, and the like. Recently, however, on the basis of ancient Near Eastern parallels, Robert Gnuse [b. 1947], in The Dream Theophany of Samuel: Its Structure in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Dreams and Its Theological Significance has theorized that I Samuel 3 is best analyzed as an auditory message dream theophany. Although he sometimes tilts the evidence in his direction...his arguments are impressive...Of course, the genre could turn out to be a blend of both types (a not uncommon feature of Old Testament literature)—prophetic-call narrative plus auditory message dream theophany. But the advantage of Gnuse’s analysis is that it deals adequately with the fact that the Lord speaks to Samuel at night—a matter not handled convincingly by the theory that I Samuel 3 is a prophetic-call narrative and nothing more. (Tremper Longman III [b. 1952] and David E. Garland [b. 1947], 1 Samuel-2 Kings (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary), 65)

Some argue that as Samuel is awake as the story unfolds, the story cannot accurately be labeled a dream theophany. What cannot be argued is that this story marks a new era for Samuel and Israel. Samuel becomes an agent of change in both the nation’s religion (as a prophet) and politics (as the anointer the kings). His authorization to do so is significant.

Robert Alter (b. 1935) remarks:

The idea of revelation...is paramount to the story of Samuel, whose authority will derive neither from cultic function, like the priests before him, nor from military power, like the judges before him and the kings after him, but from prophetic experience, from an immediate, morally directive call from God. (Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 109)

Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933) expounds:

The narrative takes great care to show that Samuel’s credibility does not rest on any conventional political confirmation. Rather, Samuel is presented as having an authorization rooted in nothing other than the freedom and promise of God. Samuel’s freshly authorized voice in Israel’s public life stands over against all conventional modes of power and brusquely displaces them. Surely the old Israelites—and the storytellers—are political realists. They understand how political-priestly power works, how it is secured, maintained, and exercised. They want to assert, at the same time, a holy governance that matters in concrete life, a holy governance that is not bounded by accustomed power, by ordained authority, by conventional leadership. There is a chance for newness. (Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching), 27)

Samuel is authorized to lead, but more importantly Samuel becomes Samuel through the process. His purpose is completely changed as he finds his identity in connection to God.

Francesca Aran Murphy (b. 1960) analyzes:

In order to become a moral individual, a person, Samuel must be called out of the familial collective and enter a direct relationship to God. God does not, here, just call an individual to effect a change in Israel’s culture: he creates an individual so to do...Only when the Lord calls with a single voice and reveals his unity, and only when the recipients of this revelation absorb communication of “Who he is,” can they become unified individuals, persons who act on history and cocreate it. (Murphy, 1 Samuel (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible), 29)

Merold Westphal (b. 1940) informs:

It takes little imagination to hear the resonances of Emmanuel Levinas [1906-1995]’s me voici, whose origins in any case are biblical, in Samuel’s “Here am I.” While this speech act is an expression of Samuel’s freedom, there is more heteronomy than autonomy in it. He does not originate the conversation but is called, called forth, even called into being by a voice not his own. The meaning of the situation in which he finds himself is not determined by his horizons of expectation, which are simultaneously surprised and shattered. Nor is it just his situation that is changed; his very identity is changed, as he becomes no longer merely Hannah’s son or Eli’s helper, but the one who stands coram deo, in God’s presence, by a call that is at once invitation and command. Everything begins with “you called me.” Prayer is the beginning of responsibility because it begins as response...He identifies himself as the servant before his Lord...Actually, when he responds in accord with Eli’s instruction, he does not name the speaker, but simply says, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”...The heavy lifting is done by Samuel’s self-identification as the servant of the speaker, whose divinity he now recognizes. He calls himself ebbe, a bond-servant. (Bruce Ellis Benson [b. 1960] and Norman Wirzba [b. 1964], “Prayer as the Posture of the Decentered Self”, The Phenomenology of Prayer (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy), 17)

Samuel’s awakening is intended to awaken us to our calling as well. Though we may not be called to be prophets or national leaders, our true identity is to be found as servants of God.

Who are today’s change agents? What have you been authorized to do? What has God called you to do? Have you found your identity in God?

“Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ, but also we do not know ourselves except through Jesus Christ.” - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pensées, p. 7