Lamentations 2:13 (Daily Verse and Comment)

  Lamentations 2:13

(13) How shall I console you? 
To what shall I liken you, 
O daughter of Jerusalem? 
What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you, 
O virgin daughter of Zion? 
For your ruin is spread wide as the sea; 
Who can heal you? 

  Isaiah 58:12

(12) Those from among you 
Shall build the old waste places; 
You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; 
And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, 
The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. 

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"Breach" has a very interesting usage in the English language as it pertains to our relationship with God and the church's present state. Here is a list of synonyms for "breach" taken from The Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Word Finder: "break, gap, opening, rupture, split, alienation, schism."

The first definition for breach is unusually appropriate as far as the situation in the church is concerned: "the breaking of, or failure to observe a law or contract or standard." We have a covenant, a contract, with God, and He has given us a standard, the Ten Commandments. This sounds a great deal like I John 3:4: "Sin [which separates, creates a breach] is the transgression of the law."

The second definition of breach is also rich: "A breaking of relations; an estrangement; a quarrel, a broken state."

Together, these describe almost exactly what has happened to the church as a result of breaking the covenant (as a result of breaking laws, as a result of sin). There has been a breaking of relations with God because of the church's failure, as a body, to live up to the contract that we made with Him.

Spiritually "a repairer of breaches" is one who restores the right way, beginning with himself. He may have no influence or control over what others do, but he does have control over what he does, and when he repairs his own personal breach with God, the breach in the wall closes a bit. It is as if a stone or a brick were added to the wall—another person is again in a good relationship with God.

— John W. Ritenbaugh