The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

ii. 1-9.] GOD AS AN ENEMY 139
difference, his mind filled with the thought of the unseen
Power behind. He has not a word for Nebuchadnezzar,
because he is assured that this mighty monarch is
nothing but a tool in the hands of the real Enemy of
the Jews. A man of smaller faith would not have
penetrated sufficiently beneath the surface to have con-
ceived the idea of Divine enmity in connection with a
series of occurrences so very mundane as the ravages
of war. A heathenish faith would have acknowledged
in this defeat of Israel a triumph of the might of Bel or
Nebo over the power of Jehovah. But so convinced i.":-
the elegist of the absolute supremacy of his God that no
such idea is suggested to him even as a temptation of
unbeHef He knows that the action of the true God is
supreme in everything that happens, whether the event
be favourable or unfavourable to His people. Perhaps
it is only owing to the dreary materialism of current
thought that we should be less likely to discover an
indication of the enmity of God in some huge national
calamity.
Still, although this idea of the elegist is a fruit of his
unshaken faith in the universal sway of God, it startles
and shocks us, and we shrink from it almost as though
it contained some blasphemous suggestion. Is it ever
right to think of God as the enemy of any man ? It
would not be fair to pass judgment on the author of the
Lamentations on the ground of a cold consideration of
this abstract question. We must remember the terrible
situation in which he stood—his beloved city destroyed,
the revered temple of his fathers a mass of charred
ruins, his people scattered in exile and captivity, tor-
tured, slaughtered ; these were not circumstances to
encourage a course of calm and measured reflection.
We must not expect the sufferer to carry out an exact