Female Metaphors For An Abandoned Jerusalem – OpEd

The Hebrew Bible consists of three major units: The Five Book Torah of Moses, the 15 books of  named Jewish Prophets plus history books that refer to Prophets Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah and others, and a unit that contains books of proverbs, philosophy, and poetry. One Book, attributed to Prophet Jeremiah, who witnessed the destruction of Prophet David’s city of Jerusalem, and Prophet Solomon’s Temple is titled Lamentations. 

Eichah, the opening word of the Book of Lamentations, is characteristic of a biblical lament. It poses a rhetorical question to which there is no answer, an expression of dismay: “How come, How is this possible…?” The narrator conveys shock at the contrast between Jerusalem’s former glory and her present destitution.

Lam 1:1 “How abandoned sits the city that was once full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces, has become subjected to forced labor.”

Eichah is a scroll full of words, conveying the full emotional depth of suffering, in part, through a woman’s voice: בַּת צִיּוֹן [Bat Tzion], literally “daughter Zion, “the feminine personification of Jerusalem. As Lam 1:6 says “From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.”

The Book of Lamentations is multi-vocal: it includes a male narrator and בַּת צִיּוֹן [Bat Tzion], “daughter Zion,” the feminine personification of Jerusalem (chapters 1-2); the man (of chapter 3 and perhaps 4), who is a survivor of the destruction and whom classical commentaries identify with Prophet Jeremiah; the collective voice of the people (predominant in the prayer of chapter 5, as well as chapter 4); and a lone woman’s voice (3:48–72, perhaps personified Jerusalem again).

The opening lament (chapter 1) presents a dialogue between the male narrator and Bat Tzion, a victim of sexual assault and a mother who has watched calamity befall her children. She sometimes concurs with the narrator’s judgment but more often resists it. Their exchange begins with the male narrator’s disquisition on Bat Tzion’s downfall, which he attributes to some unspecified sin: Lam 1:8a “Grievously has Jerusalem sinned, therefore she has been banished.”

A litany of female metaphors for the city follow the opening expression of dismay. What makes a woman such a powerful conduit for lament? In ancient times, women served as professional mourners, singing dirges and wailing at sites of mourning to invoke feelings of sorrow and dismay as Prophet Jeremiah states 9:16 [NRSV 9:17] “Thus says YHWH of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skilled women to come; 9:17 let them quickly raise a dirge over us, so that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.”

The wailing female voice, in pitch, timbre, rhythm, and emotional intensity, could crack open the human heart and heaven’s vault. Yet Bat Tzion, as a figure who voices lament in Eichah, also has a history.

Bat Tzion survives the destruction, though Jerusalem is destroyed and its people are exiled. In the post-exilic material of Second Isaiah (40–66), she becomes the embodiment of hope and a call for the return to Zion. These prophecies anticipate (or are coterminous with) the period of the return to Zion after the conquest of the neo-Babylonian empire and the decree of the Persian emperor Cyrus that the Jews could return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple (539 B.C.E.).  

In response to the “no comforter” language of Lamentations, the verb נחם, “to console or comfort,” serves as a leading word throughout Second Isaiah, who opens with the command: Isaiah 40:1 “Comfort, O comfort, my people,” says your God.”

Alluding directly to Lamentations, with an assurance that YHWH has heard Bat Tzion’s plaintive, Second Isaiah calls on the heavens and the earth to rejoice because YHWH has comforted His people: Isaiah 49:13 “Sing for joy, O Heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For YHWH has comforted his people, and his suffering ones He will pity.”

But Zion herself, having survived the destruction, whom YHWH reassures, using a metaphor in which He is more maternal than a biological mother: Isaiah 49:15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, (not) pity the son of her womb?[36] Even these may forget, yet I (God) will not forget you Israel.”

The verb רחם, “to love, or have compassion,” plays on the double entendre, YHWH’s (name) compassion רַחֲמִים (raḥamim) surpasses the womb, רֶחֶם (reḥem). He (God) comes to displace the biological mother, not as a punitive paternal figure but as a more compassionate uber-mom.

Bat Tzion (or Bat Yerushalayim) is then promised full restoration: Isaiah 52:1 “Awake; awake; put on your strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more. 52:2 Shake yourself from the dust; rise up, O captive Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter Zion!” Then God says: “For a brief space of time I forsook you, but with love overflowing [lit. womb-compassion] I will bring you back. 54:8 In an outburst of anger I hid my face from you for a while, but with love never failing I pitied you, says YHWH, your Redeemer.”

The deflection away from the principle of divine retribution and the turn toward YHWH’s acknowledgment of his anger present an alternative theodicy. Ultimately, the daughter’s debasement implicates YHWH, the “father.” In the prophecies of consolation, the message to the woman, Bat Tzion, is not framed in terms of sin and punishment—”she deserved it”—but, rather, acknowledges her complaint, refusing to justify God for her suffering far exceeded the bounds of strict justice: Isaiah 40:2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from YHWH’s hand double for all her sins.

Lamentations ends with a plea: Lam 5:21 Restore us to yourself, O YHWH, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old—5:22 unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.”

That restoration in Second Isaiah entails a feminization of the divine rather than a rejection or sidelining of the mother. YHWH also takes on the maternal role of comforting her child: Isaiah 66:13 As a mother comforts her child; so I will comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

Beginning as a proud, haughty princess, Bat Tzion passes through a period of lament and anguish in witnessing the slaughter, suffering, and enslavement of her children, only to arrive at a place where YHWH resides in consolation with her. Moreover, the figure of Bat Tzion and the feminization of YHWH in Second Isaiah anticipate the later personification of Knesset Yisrael, “the community of Israel” and the post-exilic perception of God’s feminine feelings of “in-dwelling” Shekhinah (Arabic Sakinah)

The imagery of the sexual assault and defilement of Bat Tzion is not merely a metaphor. It is well known that rape is used as a common tool in war to shame and humiliate the conquered people; it violates not only the women but also the men who should have protected them.

Yet in the middle of the Book of Lamentations we find the amazing words of a resilient revival of trust and faith: “The kindness of  YHWH has not ended, God’s mercies are not finished.” (Lamentations 3:22)