LAMENTS THAT ARE NOT LAMENTS

Moberly defines a lament or dirge as “an anguished verbal response to death or death-like situations.” Greenberg elaborates: “The standard dirge eulogized the person lamented, contrasted his splendid former state with his miserable later one, and offered him various consolations.”

But within the Bible, especially in the Old Testament prophets, this literary form is sometimes purposely subverted. The result has been labeled with various terms such as taunt song, mock lament, prophetic doom song, sarcastic dirge, ironic lament, satirical lament, divine judgment speech, or a parody. The problem in interpreting such a genre is that even scholars sometimes disagree as to which laments are heart-felt and which ones are given with a tongue in cheek. One way of distinguishing the sarcastic from the literal is to go back to Greenberg's definition of a pure dirge. Often the prophets will either list the person's (or group's) sins rather than their fine points, or they will exaggerate the eulogy to the point where it can't be taken seriously. Either way, it will provide a strong tip-off that the prophet is not really bemoaning their fate at all. And, of course, if no consolation is offered to the lamented person(s), that would also indicate that they fully deserve the judgment they received.

There are other interrelated elements indicating that irony is present in a lament:

    Bullock notes that the presence of prophetic elements tends to eliminate a pronouncement as a true lament, since those are always spoken after the fact. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery agrees with this assessment: “Of special note is a subgenre of the doom song in which the prophet pictures the demise of a nation before it actually takes place – a kind of obituary for someone still alive (Is. 14:3-21; Jer 38:22; Ezek 27-28; Amos 5:3).”

    “At times the prophet uses lament in order to express judgment (e.g., Mic 1:8-9).” (Boda)

    “These laments do not bemoan injustice in the hope that God might vindicate the innocent and restore them; rather, they mock an oppressor's fall and the fact that they will now experience what they have done to others.” (Carroll)

    Greenberg says regarding Ezekiel 19: “ In the prophetic adaptation [of the lament genre] the glorious past of the lamented is depicted censoriously so as to give the ground for his fall (e.g., Isa 14:4-21, and the rest of Ezekiel's dirges).” Similarly, Block asks, “But is this really a lament?” and answers, “In reality, [Ezekiel] 19 is best interpreted as a parody...Like Isa. 14, which imitates the lament to mock and condemn the tyrannical king of Babylon, Ezekiel parodies the king of Judah.”

    “...even though Ezekiel has shown himself as master of the dirge form, the present oracle [Ezek. 28:11-19] deviates markedly from the expected patterns. First, overt expressions of grief are lacking entirely...Far from grieving the death of the king of Tyre, the concern of this text is to vindicate Yahweh in his judgment upon the man. Indeed, the oracle sounds more like a divine judgment speech than a lament.” (Block)

In addition to the passages indicated above as belonging to this form of dirge, other commentators have identified:

    the whole book of Amos (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery);

    Isaiah 15:1-9; Ezekiel 26:15-18; Amos 4:4-5 and Amos 5:14-15 (Smith);

    Isaiah 23-24; Isaiah 47; Jeremiah 50-51; and Ezekiel 26-27 (Ruiz); and

    Isaiah 23:1-16; Jeremiah 22:18-23; Ezekiel 19; 32:2-10; and Amos 5:1-17 (Carroll).

But what about the New Testament? Moberly declares: “There are no psalms of lament in the NT.” That may be true of genuine laments, but there is one prominent example of the satirical lament that is worth mentioning – Revelation 18:1-24. That poetic section of Revelation concerns the future fall of “Babylon.” However one may choose to define that city, nation, political entity, or economic force, the fact remains that it is impossible to take the expressions of grief from the angel who announces her downfall as genuine. And in that judgment, I am not alone:

    Ruiz states that Revelation 18:1-24 shows “echoes from the taunt songs.”

    Keener: “The collapse of Tyre's mercantile empire in Isaiah 23:1-14 fits the dirge of Revelation 18.”

    Beasley-Murray says concerning Ezekiel 27, “The whole chapter has deeply influenced the author of the book of Revelation, who applies this imagery to the anti-Christian empire of his own day.”

    Mounce: “Chapter 18 is a dirge over the fallen city. King, merchants,and all seafaring men bewail her destruction. Echoes from the prophetic taunt songs of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel reverberate through out the entire chapter.”

    Morris adds, “There is more than similarity of language. John has caught the spirit of the prophetic doom songs...He is catching up all that the prophets have said as they announce the doom of Tyre or Babylon or Nineveh. But he is thinking not of the fall of one city or empire but of the collapse of civilization. Final judgment means the overthrow of all that opposes itself to God.”

In conclusion, one must be careful in taking all of these prophetic pronouncements at face value and wondering why the prophets would have been so concerned and upset regarding the downfall of their enemies and the enemies of God. That is the whole point of sarcasm and irony, to sometimes state the exact opposite of what you intend to say. It is necessary to get into the proper frame of mind when reading such seemingly “subversive” literature.