We must buy the water we drink; our wood can be had only at a price.– Lamentations 5:4

Today's Scripture Reading (August 8, 2023): Lamentations 5

I remember going into the foothills to get a Christmas Tree in my early twenties. It was a common practice at the time. For a small fee, you could get a license to cut down a tree on publicly owned land and bring it home to put in your living room or wherever you like to place your yuletide tree. I admit, to me, it sounded like a great idea.

However, I also have to admit that I am a city boy. I always have been and likely always will be. So, when the day came to put the great idea into practice, I got my license to cut the tree and then headed west toward the publicly owned land. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had made a couple of mistakes. The first was that I didn't really know where the land was where it was legal to cut the tree, except that it was west of where I lived. There were no signs openly advertising that this was publicly held land and the land we were looking for. As we traveled down the back roads, I had no idea if the land I was driving through was public, private, or part of a national park, where cutting down trees was most definitely frowned upon.

The next problem was that there were some great-looking trees, especially if it was the top eight feet of a twenty-foot tree. But the trees that were the size I wanted looked pretty sickly. However, with an axe in hand, I went into what I desperately hoped was public land to find a Christmas tree. I found one that looked pretty good, although I admit that I chose a twelve-foot tree and trimmed it down to the needed eight feet. And to this day, I am unsure if I got the tree from public land or if some rancher is still angry at me for trespassing on his land.

Jeremiah laments what amounted to a significant change in Israel. Up until now, water was a free resource. Rivers could be drunk from, and wells were there for public consumption. Trees on public land could be chopped down for firewood without even the need to buy a license. These things were considered standard and part of the needs of daily life. But now it appears that the Babylonians had begun to tax these ordinary things that once were free.

My father-in-law believed roads were a shared resource, so he opposed all toll roads. He eventually came around, but, for a time, he would not take a toll road. He would rather take the long way home than pay a toll for a quicker route. It is always a shock when people begin to charge us for things that used to be free. And that was the situation for the remnant left around Jerusalem. They had been left with nothing, and now they were being charged for the things that used to be free.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 26