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Every major day on the Jewish calendar is ultimately about hope except for one: a day of mourning called Tisha B'Av (pronounced tee-shah bah-ahv). It mourns a number of tragedies against the Jewish people, including the destruction of the temple in 586 B.C. It is regarded as the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

For three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, the people begin mourning. They don’t celebrate weddings. They don’t cut their hair or shave. Many don’t eat meat or drink alcohol. On the final evening, the people gather in synagogues and read the book of Lamentations by candlelight. The people sit in silence until the leader gets to verse 21, when they join him in reciting loudly “Restore us, O Lord!” The leader responds by reading verse 22. But instead of ending the book as its written, the people commit what one author calls a “liturgical scandal” by reciting verse 21 again.[i]  

Rather than altering the ending of Lamentations, we should strive to understand why it ends on a minor key. I believe it’s because it’s not the end of the story. A few days ago, we were talking to our kids about how the best stories end with the defeat of evil and the triumph of good. Jonah asked us, “what about Avengers: Infinity War? Evil doesn’t win! Does that make it a bad story?” I reminded him the ending of that film wasn’t the end of the story. So too with Lamentations. This book ends on a minor key, but it’s not the end!

A few decades before the temple was destroyed, Jeremiah told God’s people how this story would end. He wrote this in Jeremiah 31:31-34—“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 

Throughout the Bible God made covenants with Adam and Eve, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and with David. But now a New Covenant was coming. God would write His law on the hearts of His people. God would be personally known by all His New Covenant people. In this New Covenant, God would forever deal with the problem of sin. But the book of Lamentations ends with that covenant still on the horizon.

For over six hundred years God’s people waited for that covenant. Until one night in Jerusalem, a humble Jewish carpenter’s son would sit in an upper room with His disciples. After celebrating the Passover meal together, Jesus took a piece of bread and gave some to each of His disciples. He told them, “This is my body, which is given for you. Eat this in remembrance of me.” After they ate the bread, He took a cup and told them to drink. “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

The book of Lamentations ends on a minor key because it's not the end. It's pointing to a New and better covenant. It's pointing to the Savior of the World.

[i] Moshe Halbertal, “Eikhah and the Stance of Lamentation” in Lament in Jewish Thought: Philosophical, Theological, and Literary Perspectives, Edited by Ilit Ferber and Paula Schwebel (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 9-10.