Wisdom Literature This may refer to the prophet's personal experience, with which he encourages himself in reference to the public troubles. They cannot but know it is so, and therefore it is in defiance of him that they do it. a. He laments the direful effects of the famine to which they were reduced by the siege, ver 3-10. Are we healthful or sickly, rich or poor? "In more ways than one this brings us to the very heart of the book. Verse 15. Lamentations 3:21-23 | It Is Through the Lord's Mercies That We Are Saved That God's compassions fail not; they do not really fail, no, not even when in anger he seems to have shut up his tender mercies. The prophet had owned that a living man should not complain, as if he checked himself for his complaints in the former part of the chapter; and yet here the clouds return after the rain and the wound bleeds afresh; for great pains must be taken with a troubled spirit to bring it into temper. I am the man that hath seen affliction Either the prophet speaks here of himself, or he is personating his miserable countrymen. (Lamentations 3:27-29) Hope for the silent soul. Men can do nothing but according to the counsel of God, nor have any power or success but what is given them from above. 3. David often complains of those that hated him without cause; and such are the enemies of Christ and his church, John 15 25. Read full chapter Lamentations 2 Lamentations 4 New International Version (NIV) Verse 33. Verse 24. Spurgeon suggested many reasons why it is good to bear the yoke when young: b. a. Keep silent: There came a young man to Demosthenes to learn oratory; he talked away at a great rate, and Demosthenes said, I must charge you double fees. Why? he asked. Minor Prophets According to the work of their hands. has Jehovah. Remember my affliction and roaming: Jeremiah did not prescribe positive thinking for this deep affliction. Verse Lamentations 3:5. Each of the first four chapters of Lamentations is an acrostic poem. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; d. You have seen all their vengeance: Jeremiah brought his case to God, telling him of all the ways that his enemies had attacked him. He is good to all; his tender mercies are over all his works; all his creatures taste of his goodness. My seeing eye affects my heart. Lamentations 3 - Wikipedia They complain of the afflictions they are under, not without some reflections upon God, which we are not to imitate, but, under the sharpest trials, must always think and speak highly and kindly of him. I. We must keep silence under the yoke as those that have borne it upon us, not wilfully pulled it upon our own necks, but patiently submitted to it when God laid it upon us. The next figure is not less expressive. Even when I cry and shout, Let them be dealt with as they have dealt with us; let thy hand be against them as their hand has been against us. But the complaints here are somewhat more general than those in the foregoing chapter, being accommodated to the case as well of particular persons as of the public, and intended for the use of the closet rather than of the solemn assembly. This I recall to my mind, &c. Here the prophet begins to suggest motives of patience and consolation: as if he had said, I call to mind the following considerations, and thereupon I conceive hope and comfort. 3. Lamentations chapter 3. What Every Christian Should Know about the Protestant Reformation. Yes, he did: Thou hast heard my voice; and some read the following words as carrying on the same thankful acknowledgment: Thou didst not hide thy ear at my breathing, at my cry; and the original will bear that reading. That great is his faithfulness. c. Because His compassions fail not: Even in the severity of correction Gods people endured, there was evidence of His compassions. i. Against all the despair, Jeremiah proclaimed to himself and all others the goodness of hope and patient seeking of God. (2.) 2. As breathing is a proof of animal life, so is prayer, though never so weak, of spiritual. Like a lawyer pleading for his client, God pleaded the case for his life. How great soever his affliction may be, he is still alive; therefore, he may seek and find mercy unto eternal life. Did ever man paint sorrow like this man? To God in heaven. There may yet be hope. I said, I am cut off! If hope become impatient, faith will be impossible: for who can believe for his salvation when his mind is agitated? Those whom thou cursest are cursed indeed. (Lamentations 3:52-56) Praying for help under enemy attack. 2. Individual instructors or editors may still require the use of URLs. The captives in Babylon had all the miseries of the siege in their mind continually and the flames and ruins of Jerusalem still before their eyes, and wept when they remembered Zion; nay, they could never forget Jerusalem, Ps 137 1, 5. c. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him: All the misery of Gods people had come because they would not truly seek God and wait for Him. Note, The prolonging of troubles is sometimes a temptation, even to praying people, to question whether God be what they have always believed him to be, a prayer-hearing God. You have moved my soul far from peace; They rejected and rebelled for generations, then looked to others for rescue. Lamentations 1:3 Commentaries: Judah has gone into exile under "Let them be dealt with according to the threatenings: Thy curse unto them; that is, let thy curse come upon them, all the evils that are pronounced in thy word against the enemies of thy people, v. 65. It was only a breathing. Lamentations 3 Commentary - Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible It is persecuted of men, but not forsaken of God, and therefore, though it is cast down, it is not destroyed (2 Cor 4 9), corrected, yet not consumed, refined in the furnace as silver, but not consumed as dross. Lamentations 3 introduces another character: the geber, or "strongman," who is expected to defend the city from its attackers (verse 1). Verse 29. That he bear the yoke in his youth. He hath filled me with bitterness bimrorim, with bitternesses, bitter upon bitter. All the prisoners of the earth, 51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. We must offer up ourselves to God, and our best affections and services, in the flames of devotion, v. 41. 54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. We are sinful men, and that which we complain of is the just punishment of our sins; nay, it is far less than our iniquities have deserved. It is no pleasure to God to afflict men. He has pulled me in pieces; he has torn and is gone away (Hos 5 14), and has made me desolate, has deprived me of all society and all comfort in my own soul." II. He had silenced their fears and quieted their spirits (v. 57): "Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou didst graciously assure me of thy presence with me, and give me to see thee nigh unto me, whereas I had thought thee to be at a distance from me." From under the heavens of the LORD. Observe here, 1. (2.) The Gospels Hab 1 13, Wherefore lookest thou upon those that deal treacherously? Darkness is put for great trouble and perplexity, the want both of comfort and of direction; this was the case of the complainant (Lamentations 3:2; Lamentations 3:2): "He has led meby his providence, and an unaccountable chain of events, into darkness and not into light,the darkness I feared and not into the light I hoped for." Though the covenant seemed to be broken, they owned that it still continued in full force; and, though Jerusalem be in ruins, the truth of the Lord endures for ever. d. You have made us an offscouring and refuse: In the desire to turn back to the LORD, Jeremiah knew that it was important to honestly see their condition. Some read it, at my gasping. It is before the face of the Most High (v. 35); it is in his sight, under his eye, and is very displeasing to him. To give emphasis, Jeremiah asked the same question in different words. To every mourner we may say, on the authority of God, Fear not! Verse 36. b. A sad complaint of God's displeasure and the fruits of it, ver 1-20. Great and long grief exhausts the spirits, and brings not only many a gray head, but many a green head too, to the grave. He answers in the following verses, 1. "Lamentations" was derived from a translation of the title as found in the Latin Vulgate (Vg.) Observe how he calls prayer his breathing; for in prayer we breathe towards God, we breathe after him. Your curse be upon them! 4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old. To this very day it is asserted by Romanists that Martin Luther was a drunkard. Enduring Word Bible Commentary Lamentations Chapter 3 If we call this to mind, we may have hope that all will end well at last. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. The deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them. Note, The Israel of God, though children of light, sometimes walk in darkness. Where there was a way open it is now quite made up: He has compassed me on ever side with gall and travel; I vex, and fret, and tire myself, to find a way of escape, but can find none, v. 7. Lamentations 3 New International Version 3 [ a]I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord's wrath. We have been with him, and it has never been well with us since we forsook him; let us therefore now turn again to him." An Arabic poet. Call sin a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not miscall it. b. He does not afflict with pleasure. 11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. 12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. Theirs is causeless, and therefore fruitless, it shall not come; but thine is just, and shall take effect. That, whatever sorrow we are in, it is what God has allotted us, and his hand is in it. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. When we are in distress we should, for the encouragement of our faith and hope, observe what makes for us as well as what makes against us. He has filled me with bitterness, 3. Why, said the master, I have first to teach you to hold your tongue, and afterwards to instruct you how to speak. The Lord teaches true penitents how to hold their tongues. (Spurgeon), ii. VII. He putteth his mouth in the dust Lives in a state of deep humility. 2. He delights not in the misery of any of his creatures, but, as it respects his own people, he is so far from it that in all their afflictions he is afflicted and his soul is grieved for the misery of Israel. 16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. Yes, certainly they do; and it is more emphatically expressed in the original: Do not this evil, and this good, proceed out of the mouth of the Most High? He has broken my bones. And be full of reproach. From the doctrine of God's sovereign and universal providence, which he had asserted in the verses before, he draws this inference, Wherefore does a living man complain? 4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. Quietness is necessary to waiting, for all turbulency and impatience of spirit under sad providences is opposed to waiting. (Poole). God's compassions fail not; of this we have fresh instances every morning. The Lord Adonai; but one of my ancient MSS. Thou saidst, Fear not. The sum is, If tribulation work patience, that patience will work experience, and that experience a hope that makes not ashamed. Due thoughts of the evil of sin, and of our own sinfulness, will convince us that it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. (3.) 45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. By their conduct they will bring on themselves the curse denounced against their enemies. And surrounded me with bitterness and woe. And it is no diminution to any to be much in tears for the sins of sinners and the sufferings of saints; our Lord Jesus was so; for, when he came near, he beheld this same city and wept over it, which the daughters of Jerusalem did not. They complain of their own excessive grief and fear upon this account. He had heard their prayers; though they had been ready to fear that the cloud of wrath was such as their prayers could not pass through (v. 44), yet upon second thoughts, or at least upon further trial, they find it otherwise, and that God had not said unto them, Seek you me in vain. We should observe what makes for us, as well as what is against us. 4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; 5 he has besieged . and has broken my bones. He has also broken my teeth with gravel: What a figure to express disgust, pain, and the consequent incapacity of taking food for the support of life; a man, instead of bread, being obliged to eat small pebbles till all his teeth are broken to pieces by endeavouring to grind them. That, bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; We must set ourselves to answer God's intention in afflicting us, which is to bring sin to our remembrance, and to bring us home to himself, v. 40. Usernames should only contain letters, numbers, dots, dashes, or underscores. a. Far be it from God that he should do iniquity, or countenance those that do it. What God does we must not open our mouths against, Ps 39 9. He has covered me with ashes, as mourners used to be, or (as some read it) he has fed me with ashes. Over this terrible calamity, rivers of tears must be shed, until the Lord looks down from heaven on it, Lamentations 3:48-51. He who has not got under wholesome restraint in youth will never make a useful man, a good man, nor a happy man. (3.) It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed Being thus humbled, and seeing himself and his sinfulness in a proper point of view, he finds that God, instead of dealing with him in judgment, has dealt with him in mercy; and that though the affliction was excessive, yet it was less than his iniquity deserved. Now Jeremiah prayed that Yahweh would repay their enemies, and give them a veiled heart even as Judah was blind. 10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. 2. General Epistles What is said of the idols is here said of their worshippers (who in this also shall be like unto them), They shall perish from under these heavens, Jer 10 11. 3 I am the one who has seen the afflictions. 5. Text is available under the . Do not hide Your ear c. He has besieged me: Even as Jerusalem was literally besieged, so Jeremiah (and countless others) felt themselves surrounded by bitterness and woe and slowly strangled by God. Our Lord Jesus has left us an example of this, for he gave his back to the smiter, Isa 50 6. The more the prophet looked on the desolations, the more he was grieved. And to us who profess Christianity it may be added, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as having died for thee; and thou shalt not perish, but have everlasting life. It has already been noticed in the introduction, that this chapter contains a triple acrostic, three lines always beginning with the same letter; so that the Hebrew alphabet is thrice repeated in this chapter, twenty-two multiplied by three being equal to sixty-six. Yet the consideration of Gods sovereignty would also become the source of their hope. Great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3 NLT - Hope in the LORD's Faithfulness - BibleGateway These are all declaratory, not imprecatory. It is good because obedience to God is best learned when young. Without doubt it was his infirmity to say this (Ps 77 10), for with God there is everlasting strength, and he is his people's never-failing hope, whatever they may think. Note, Whatever hard things we suffer, we must never entertain any hard thoughts of God, but must still be ready to own that he is both kind and faithful.