WEEPING
In the East, pain and mourning were manifested with great ostentation. The Israelites publicly showed their desolation by abstaining from ornaments and by neglecting dress (Ex. 33:4; 2 Sam. 14:2; 19:24; Mt. 6:16-18); As an expression of mourning, they tore their tunic at the neck level, and their clothing and mantles (Lev. 10:6; 2 Sam. 13:31; Jeremiah 2:13).
Weeping is mentioned many times in the Scriptures. The first mention of crying is found,
in the form of a verb, in Gen. 21:16, of Ishmael: “the boy lifted up his voice and wept.”
The weeping for Joseph the son of Jacob was very great (Gen. 50:11);
Jeremiah’s crying was motivated by the sins of his people and by the judgments that were going to fall on the nation and on Jerusalem (Jer. 9: 1; 13:17; Lam. 1: 2, 16).
The Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41),
and by the death of Lazarus (John 11:35), thus showing the depth of his feelings.
Weeping is the expression of the deep pain and misery that has entered the world through man’s sin, and of the Lord Jesus it is prophetically written that “in all their anguish he was afflicted.”
Weeping was also the part of the early Christians (Acts 8:2; 9:39; 20:37; 21:30; Rom. 12:15; 1 Cor. 7:30; 2 Cor. 7:7; 12 :21; Phil. 3:18). After a terrible period of judgments the “inhabitants of the earth” will shed their tears for the destroyed Babylon (Rev. 18:9, 11, 15, 19).
At the coming of the Lord, the wicked will be cast into the outer darkness, where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Lk. 13:28), in total solitude in torment, to the exclusion of the presence of the Lord (2 Thes. . 1:9).
On the other hand, for the redeemed, sin and all its consequences being forever eliminated through the work of Christ on the cross, the day will come when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will be no more death, nor will there be any more crying, nor clamor, nor pain; for the first things passed away” (Rev. 21:4).