Children in Lamentations: Forgotten Voices of Biblical Suffering w/ Dr. Timothy Yap

Johnny Ova: Welcome everybody to the Dig In Podcast. I am your host, Pastor Johnny Ova of the Sound of Heaven Church, and we've got a guest today who's as far away from me as humanly possible, all the way in Australia. That's correct, right?

Dr. Timothy Yap: Yes, that's true.

Johnny Ova: We have Dr. Timothy Yap. He's asked me to call him Timothy for the interview, so I'm going to oblige. Timothy, thank you so much for joining us today. We have a really powerful topic to discuss.

Dr. Timothy Yap: Thank you. It's my honor and privilege to be on the show.

Johnny Ova: We're going to get right into this. Before we get into children specifically, could you help us set the stage? What is the historical and theological context of the Book of Lamentations, and why was it written?

Dr. Timothy Yap: The Book of Lamentations is part of what the Hebrew canon calls the Ketuvim, the section of the Writings. I think it's one of the least preached books in the Old Testament. But it's well worth looking at, because it's very rich and it resonates a lot with our culture today. The Hebrew name for the Book of Lamentations is Eikah, which is the first word of the book, and that means how. It belongs to the five Megilloth, the five scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures that are read during the festivals, and Lamentations is usually read on the ninth of Av, the time when the Jewish people remember the fall of the temple. It so happened that both temples, Solomon's temple and the Second Temple, fell on the ninth of Av. This book is read because it remembers the time when Jerusalem was conquered and the temple was destroyed.

Dr. Timothy Yap: So the Book of Lamentations is basically a book of lament, five psalms of lament in which the people of God think about the time when the temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, around 586 or 587. It comprises five psalms that allowed the people to express their despair, their anger, their frustrations, their hurts and their sadness to God. It resonates with our time because we, as in any culture at any time, experience the ravages of sin. Many of us have experienced times of sadness and depravity, times when we feel hurt, and the Bible doesn't erase those times and treasures those times and allows us opportunities to present them to God. That's why the Book of Lamentations is such an important book to read, to preach on and to meditate on.

Johnny Ova: Sure. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on is this topic in Lamentations, and you're so right, there's so much in Lamentations we can relate to. We've been dealing a lot with suffering in our walk with Christ and faith. We think of faith as a spiritual attribute, but suffering is an important part of the spiritual journey, and so is our perspective on it. So many people look at suffering as, I'm going through something, so I must have done something wrong, I must be getting punished. Yet sometimes we just suffer, for a multitude of reasons, and some of the most important things we learn come through suffering. What led you personally to focus your research on the portrayal of children in this book? I find that fascinating.

Dr. Timothy Yap: I've been a researcher of the Old Testament since 2021, and I've been very interested in passages that have been neglected by major scholars and pastors. I've always had a keen awareness and love for the minor characters in the Bible. For instance, I've written an article on the fish in the book of Jonah, published in Restoration Quarterly. I call it the vomiting savior. I look at how the fish functions as a savior within the book of Jonah. I've always had this passion in my heart that every detail of the Bible is important, whether it's the fish in Jonah, the children in Lamentations, or Rahab, whom I've just written an article on, a prostitute in the Bible. They're all very precious in God's eyes, and we shouldn't neglect them.

Dr. Timothy Yap: The Book of Lamentations speaks a lot about children, and I have a heart for children, because I sometimes help out in the children's church at my church. I've realized a lot of problems happen because of our childhood. Childhood is a time we need to protect as a church. That's why child abuse is such a hideous crime, because it's a very vulnerable stage, and the Bible recognizes that. One of the things I found when I was researching Lamentations is that the Bible even uses different words for children. It doesn't just use one word, as if that's a child, that's a child. Especially in Lamentations, it uses different words for different ages of children. Sociologists often tell us that the word teenager only came later in history, that the distinction between teenagers and children came much later. But that's not really true, because right in the Book of Lamentations the Bible makes distinctions. There's a specific word for infants that Lamentations uses, and another for slightly older children.

Dr. Timothy Yap: So it's not that God is trying to blanket children. God pays specific attention to age groups, which means God places a lot of premium on children. He knows what each age group requires and what their sufferings are like. It's not just a blanket statement about children suffering, but about different age groups, and I think it's so heartwarming that God has a heart for children. When I read that, I said, I need to write something on children, because it reflects God's heart. All my research is not just for head knowledge or academic purposes. My ultimate goal is for pastors to get excited about Scripture and be able to preach it in a more fruitful, meaningful way.

Johnny Ova: I love it. Is there anything different about the children, and the different age groups, in how they're portrayed in Lamentations that stands out from the rest of the Old Testament?

Dr. Timothy Yap: Yes. Children appear in a number of places across the Book of Lamentations, but most importantly in chapter 4. Chapter 4 describes the devastation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians from different perspectives, and what's very interesting is that it starts from the perspective of the children. They're compared to gold scattered on the streets of Jerusalem, gems that have been scattered, gold that has lost its luster. Then it goes deeper and talks about different age groups and how they experienced the exile differently. First it talks about infants, and it's a specific word. Not just in the English, but there's a specific Hebrew word for infants. Before Jerusalem fell, it was besieged. The Babylonians laid siege around the city, and scholars say the siege lasted at least a year and a half, or even two years.

Dr. Timothy Yap: Imagine you can't leave your city, and an enemy guards it all around, trying to crumble it. What happens is the food runs out, because if the siege goes on long enough, you can't bring food in from outside. Your food runs out and your water runs out. Chapter 5 talks about them even having to pay to buy water. That's not so strange in our culture, because we pay for mineral water, but it was very strange at that time. And it talks about the specific sufferings of children, especially infants. There's a verse, chapter 4 verse 4, that speaks of the tongues of the infants sticking to the roof of their mouths because they were so parched. There wasn't enough water, so even the babies felt the thirst. It's pictorial, almost like a video. In chapter 4 the older children, who can speak and run, are begging the neighbors for food and being turned down.

Dr. Timothy Yap: It doesn't only talk about different ages. It talks about children from different socioeconomic backgrounds too. Verse 5 talks about the rich children from the upper class who used to eat delicacies, children dressed in scarlet, which means the richer people who could afford scarlet. But what are they doing? They're searching the rubbish heaps for food. So it's a fascinating passage in how it speaks about children. Not just the age groups, but their socioeconomic background, and this pictorial, video-like image of children running around looking for food. It's a heartbreaking passage. And later on it talks about the relationship with the mothers. I'll wait for you to ask about that.

Johnny Ova: I was going to get into that, because some of the depictions, you're right, are horrifying. Children starving, begging, being eaten by their mothers. What do you think the author is trying to communicate through such painful, stark images?

Dr. Timothy Yap: I think it's a fulfillment of what God promised earlier in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy promises that if the people obey God, they will be blessed, but if they disobey God, God will bring curses on them. Deuteronomy even speaks about the siege, way back in Moses' time: if the people disobey God, they will face the consequences. This is a fulfillment that says God's word is true. I've just written a new article, which has been submitted and hopefully will be accepted, that looks at hope in the Book of Lamentations. Many people say Lamentations is without hope. Yes, there's a passage in chapter 3 that speaks about hope, and people use that. There's a great hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, keyed on chapter 3. But I think hope is more prominent than just one verse in Lamentations.

Dr. Timothy Yap: If you think about it, the Book of Lamentations is basically a map of Jerusalem after its fall. If I were to draw a map of the Judeans during the exile, you'd usually map how the people were in Babylon, because they'd been taken to Babylon. But Lamentations still maps it in Jerusalem. Why? To show us that even though the city has been sacked and burned down, it is still God's city. Even though the book is very pessimistic and full of despair, it still describes Jerusalem as God's city, because it is. In chapter 2, even while describing how the temple was destroyed, it uses seven distinct images for the temple, and they're all exalted images. It's the holy hill of God, the holy city of God on the clouds, the splendor of the world. So even though Jerusalem has fallen, there's still hope, because the Book of Lamentations believes it wasn't the Babylonians who destroyed the city, but God. And because it is God, if God wants to rebuild it, he can. I think that's the hope in how the city is described in Lamentations. I've been speaking a lot. Am I speaking too much?

Johnny Ova: It's great. I'm learning a lot. This is amazing. In one of your works you argue that the children of Lamentations are not merely helpless victims but active survivors. Can you explain what resilience looks like in that kind of text?

Dr. Timothy Yap: In terms of resilience, it's about how God describes Zion, the city itself, alongside the suffering of the children. It's very interesting that the city of Zion is described as a daughter, Daughter Zion. That's a very important image that permeates the whole Book of Lamentations. It's as if God is saying to the readers, these children may be suffering, but they're not alone. Zion, the city itself, suffers with the children. In the paper I published about a year ago in JSOT, the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, I looked at how Daughter Zion, the city itself, suffers similarly to and alongside the children. She's called daughter, and the children are like her siblings. They're not suffering on their own. The city suffers with them. And there's hope for the city, because the city fell because God allowed it. Not because the Babylonians triumphed over God. No, no. It's because God allowed it, and if God wants to rebuild the city, God can. Therefore God can also save the children. So the resilience is in that trust, the trust that God will one day rebuild the people, and the hope even in the midst of suffering that the city will be rebuilt, and that the city is a sibling to the children, helping them through this tough time.

Johnny Ova: I think you highlighted Daughter Zion and Mother Zion as figures of empathy and nurture at the same time. How do those images reframe the children's experience of being both abandoned and fostered?

Dr. Timothy Yap: It's also a contrast, because the mothers of the children in Lamentations, the Judean mothers, are actually quite wretched. In chapter 4 we read about the mothers, and the hunger pangs are real. If you go two years without food while your city is besieged, you'd be very desperate. These dainty women would even cook their children as food. So Daughter Zion is contrasted with these mothers. God is saying, yes, your mothers may fail you. And that's a very prominent message for our culture today. Your parents may fail you, but God being the parent will not. I think that's such an important message for parenting, and we can branch out into that through the Book of Lamentations.

Johnny Ova: When people are suffering, I find, like a mother whose child has cancer, and I visit them in the hospital, they ask, why would God allow something like this? You get those questions a lot. And the reason I'm relating it to what we're talking about is that I don't think they're looking for a theological answer. I think they're looking for a pastoral one. They're not looking for me to say, well, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. They're looking for shared grief and solidarity, someone walking through it with them. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Timothy Yap: Yes, exactly. There are no specific answers in the Book of Lamentations. The book ends with chapter 5, which I think is so poignant. Chapter 5 verse 19: You, Lord, reign forever. Your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return. Renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure. I think that's a good summary of what Lamentations is about. There are no easy answers, but there's the fact that God reigns, and there's the question, why do you forget us? So even in the closing verses there's this tension. God is eternal, God still somehow reigns, and there's dreadful suffering, as if God has left us and forsaken us. But there's also the prayer that one day, hopefully, God will renew us. I think those three tensions need to be held when we minister to people who are suffering.

Dr. Timothy Yap: On one hand, we cannot give in to despair, and in pastoral counseling we still need to emphasize that God somehow still reigns. On the other hand, we shouldn't give simple answers, because the Book of Lamentations doesn't. It still says, why do you forget us? We stand with people and grieve with them. Why do you forget us? Why do you forsake us? There's that questioning, which the Bible doesn't silence and the Book of Lamentations doesn't silence. And there's also the hope Lamentations presents, which is far deeper and richer through the New Testament, that our days will be renewed, that Jesus will renew us. All three parts of the tension need to be upheld in the pastoral counseling room, because if you let go of one, you run into heresy and into a lot of hurt. If you let go of the fact that God is sovereign, you're left with hopelessness. Your counseling session just goes down the drain, because what hope do we as human beings have?

Dr. Timothy Yap: If you let go of the fact that there is suffering, you're being very cruel, saying everything's about health, wealth and prosperity. That's not the promise of Scripture, and people end up in guilt and shame. And if you let go of the hope we have in Jesus Christ, then we're like the pagans, with no hope. So what if there's a distant God who is powerful? What does he do for me? Who cares? So all three need to be held in tension in pastoral counsel, and the Book of Lamentations teaches us that. It's a powerful book.

Johnny Ova: It makes sense. What parallels do you see today? When you read Lamentations and look at the world, what comes to mind? War zones, refugee crises, famine-stricken regions?

Dr. Timothy Yap: I think one of the greatest lessons I've learned from Lamentations is the seriousness of sin. Sin can make people do things unthinkable. Sin can cause a siege as dehumanizing as the Babylonians'. Sin can be so powerful that even mothers who are supposed to love their children eat their own children. Sin can turn a child's life from joy, eating delicacies, to running to the ash heaps searching for food. Sin is very powerful in that it can turn things around in ways we never thought possible. Many times we justify sin by saying it's just a small issue, let's close one eye and that's it. But the Book of Lamentations tells us sin actually permeates areas we never think possible. In terms of world hunger, or the Ukraine war, we never think a war would end up with children detached from their families. In Ukraine, I think there are 30,000 children who have been separated from their parents and taken into Russia. You think it's just about land, just about an interpretation of history. But is it? Sin goes deeper than that. Sin has ways of reaching us we never think possible. So I think one of the great warnings is the danger of sin, why we need to avoid it, and why God is so uptight about sin.

Johnny Ova: I have just a few more questions for you. What can modern readers learn from the way Lamentations holds space for grief, especially grief centered on the most vulnerable?

Dr. Timothy Yap: I think the Book of Lamentations not only talks about grief, but about how we respond to grief. Look at chapter 2, for instance: how the Lord has covered Daughter Zion with the cloud of his anger. He has hurled down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth. He has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. In our secular culture, how do we deal with grief? We need grief therapy, we need to be open, you need to talk about your grief and your hurts. A lot of that happens in Christian counseling too, where we just talk about grief. But the Book of Lamentations doesn't talk about grief that way. It speaks about grief in a very God-centered way. It ties grief to God. If you read all the laments in Lamentations, they're very different from secular grieving. Yes, it's about letting go of our hurts and our anger, why have you forsaken us, where are you? But it's always tied to God. So there's a way we need to grieve, and the grief needs to be God-centered, because grieving by itself is not healing, it's only healing when God is being brought in.

Dr. Timothy Yap: So I think Lamentations has a lot to teach us about counseling as ministers of the word and church leaders. Yes, we need to encourage our congregations to talk about their griefs and their pains, but it needs to be God-centered. Lamentations talks about the destruction of Jerusalem, but even when it talks about the roads being destroyed, the writer of Lamentations says the roads are mourning. Why? Because they remember when the people used to travel on them to attend the festivals. It's connected to God. The roads are destroyed because God's worship has been destroyed. It's always connected to God. So teach our congregations to grieve, but teach them God-centered grief. How is my grief connected to God? What is God's role in my grief? I think that's the crucial difference between secular grieving and God-centered, gospel-centered grieving.

Johnny Ova: Powerful. As a scholar and a believer, I'm sure reading and studying this and doing so much work on it has impacted you. How so?

Dr. Timothy Yap: Yes, because we all go through difficult times. Everyone goes through times when they're rejected. As a scholar, I have to write articles on the Old Testament, and I do some preaching too, and you get rejected. The scholarly journals will tear you apart. Sometimes I feel so discouraged, because they're so picky, because the standard is very high. You go through these things, and you need to understand that even when you're rejected and you feel pain, as one of my colleagues always says, don't feel sad when you're rejected, because our Savior himself was rejected. So it really helps you understand that we're not alone in this journey. The Book of Lamentations teaches us that Daughter Zion stands with the children, but the New Testament teaches us it's not just Daughter Zion, it's Jesus Christ, God himself. So we need to read Lamentations in light of Jesus too. It's helped me a lot, because I've been through a lot of suffering. Difficult churches, difficult people.

Johnny Ova: Haven't we all? I think this is one of the most overlooked topics in your spiritual journey and walk: lament, grief and suffering. Because it's not fun. Having faith and seeing things manifest and blessing, that's exciting. That's the hope. But learning how to suffer well, learning to have this God-centered understanding of grief, seeing God in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the pain and the fires and the trials and tribulations, is such an important part of getting past some of the struggles we have.

Dr. Timothy Yap: Yes. Because if you don't have this view, you become very bitter. Grief can either make you stronger in your faith, or it can turn you away. It's like the sun. The sun can melt ice, or it can harden something you leave outside. It has a double effect. Some people, because they've suffered, become very bitter. I'm not going to talk to you anymore, because people have hurt me in the past. I'm not going to open myself up. If you don't have this God-centered view, that it's not the Babylonians who hurt you, but God somehow allowing it to happen, if you don't have that in your heart, you become very bitter toward people and toward situations that may come later that are similar. That's why God-centered, gospel-centered grieving is so crucial, because grief can turn you into a monster too.

Johnny Ova: Last question. I know you've covered so much, but if there's anything else you want to cross the t's and dot the i's on, if you could leave our listeners with one takeaway about the forgotten voices of children in Lamentations, something to carry with them the next time they read Scripture or see children suffering today, what would it be?

Dr. Timothy Yap: Read chapter 4 of Lamentations again. I think it's my favorite chapter in the book. Chapter 4 speaks about the children, and the way the writer takes the time to describe the children, their suffering and their activities, is very heartwarming. It shows that God is interested in details. So when you go through difficult times, God is interested in your details too. He pays attention to how children are referred to. He notices what children do, searching the ash heaps, running in the streets, begging for food and being rejected. And one more thing. In the Book of Lamentations, four of the poems are acrostic. In the Hebrew, chapters 1, 2 and 4 all have 22 lines, and the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. So there are 22 lines, and every line starts with a different letter, all in order. Chapter 3 is three times longer, because there are three lines for each letter, so it's 66 verses. It's very crafted.

Dr. Timothy Yap: Why does the Bible do that? To say that though suffering happens, it is structured. God has it structured. This is not out of God's hands. God knows what he's doing. Everything that happens, God knows. It doesn't catch God by surprise. It doesn't catch the author by surprise. God knows what's happening, and we are in God's hands. Even though you don't feel like God is around, even though you feel God has forsaken you, he is around. The Book of Lamentations teaches us that. Chapter 4 is also like that. It's 22 lines, and all the lines follow the alphabet. It's as if God is saying, yes, the children are suffering, but it's not that I don't notice. It's still within my hands. That's the gospel: Jesus knows, and Jesus knows the depth of sin and that we need saving. That's why he died to save us.

Johnny Ova: Timothy, this has been an amazing conversation. I had so much fun chatting with you about this. Even though it's a very hard topic, I think it's important. Is there anything coming up you want to plug? Any books, speaking engagements, or places people can find you?

Dr. Timothy Yap: I'll be in Boston in the US for the ETS meeting, the Evangelical Theological Society. They have an annual meeting every year, and I'll be presenting a paper on music, the issue of music in King Saul's ministry. It's a very interesting topic, how music plays an important role in Saul's ministry. So hopefully I'll be able to see you in the US, Johnny. That will be this coming November.

Johnny Ova: You're coming over to our side. We're only a couple of hours away. I'll shoot you an email to get the dates and times, because if I can make it up to Boston, I'd love to check it out and meet you in person. That'd be awesome. Timothy, thanks so much again. I appreciate the time. Thank you for joining us on the Dig In. Have an amazing rest of your day.

Dr. Timothy Yap: All right, thank you so much, Johnny. I appreciate this time very, very much.