As breathing is a proof of animal life, so is prayer, though never so weak, of spiritual. My seeing eye affects my heart. Your curse be upon them: According to the terms of the covenant Israel made with God (as in Deuteronomy 27-28), Israel would be terribly cursed if they disobeyed and rejected God. We are men, and not brutes, reasonable creatures, who should act with reason, who should look upward and look forward, and both ways may fetch considerations enough to silence our complaints. Thou hast removed my soul Prosperity is at such an utter distance from me, that it is impossible I should ever reach it; and as to happiness, I have forgotten whether I have ever tasted of it. i. His discipline is not happy nor is it unfair (to turn aside the justice due a man). 59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause. God has access to the spirit, and can so embitter that as thereby to embitter all the enjoyments; as, when the stomach is foul, whatever is eaten sours in it: "He has made me drunk with wormwood, so intoxicated me with the sense of my afflictions that I know not what to say or do. To crush under ones feet 25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Major Prophets 61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me; 62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day. 37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? According to the work of their hands. The more the prophet looked on the desolations, the more he was grieved. My eyes bring suffering to my soul Verse 57. From which it most assuredly follows, that God never afflicts us but for our good, nor chastises but that we may be partakers of his holiness. And said, Do not fear! God is an inexhaustible fountain of mercy, the Father of mercies. We should observe what makes for us, as well as what is against us. 48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. If therefore you cannot speak, weep - tears also have a voice; [Psalms 39:12] if you cannot weep, sigh - a storm of sighs may do as much as a shower of tears; if you cannot sigh, yet breathe, as here. Verse Lamentations 3:60. How great soever his affliction may be, he is still alive; therefore, he may seek and find mercy unto eternal life. Thus restless was the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless. My eyes overflow with rivers of water Jeremiah proposes his own experience under afflictions, as an example as to how the Jews should behave under theirs, so as to have hope of a restoration; hence the change from singular to plural ( Lamentations 3:22 Lamentations 3:40-47 ). This intimates, (1.) Afflictions do and will work very much for good: many have found it good to bear this yoke in their youth; it has made many humble and serious, and has weaned them from the world, who otherwise would have been proud and unruly. That they were satisfied that God's gracious regard to them in their miseries would be an effectual redress of all their grievances. Amralkeis, one of the writers of the Moallakat, terms a man grievously afflicted [Arabic] a pounder of wormwood. III. 3. Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the LORD: Even under the great sense that God was their opponent and adversary (Lamentations 3:1-18), Jeremiah recommended the proper and humble approach. Lamentations 3:21 Commentaries: This I recall to my mind, Therefore I Verse 16. Every morning brings new forgiveness for new sins. All our enemies Commentary for Lamentations 3 . He has set me in dark places For he doth not afflict willingly It is no pleasure to God to afflict men. If he show us kindness, it is because so it seems good unto him; but, if he write bitter things against us, it is because we both deserve them and need them. David Guzik :: Study Guide for Lamentations 3 Verse 29. The prophet here seems to check himself for the complaint he had made in the former part of the chapter, wherein he seemed to reflect upon God as unkind and severe. Had we been dealt with according to our sins, we should have been consumed long ago; but we have been dealt with according to God's mercies, and we are bound to acknowledge it to his praise. It leads too to the willingness to be treated like a slave (v. 30), for the yoke was a symbol of servitude (but cf. The evil fact is, turning aside the right of a man; and the aggravation of it is, doing it before the face of the Most High; that is, in a court of justice, where God is ever considered to be present. My enemies without cause hunted me down like a bird: Jeremiah and those like him felt under constant pressure from capture or killing. When the Lord has not commanded it? 52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause. No; the very same that caused the grief must bring in the favour, or we are undone. Title. 42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. 2 17, 21), but here they correct themselves, and own, 1. This may refer to the prophet's personal experience, with which he encourages himself in reference to the public troubles. And, when God's hand is continually turned against us, we are tempted to think that his heart is turned against us too. It is good for a man to bear The title of the 102nd Psalm might very fitly be prefixed to this chapterThe prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before the Lord; for it is very feelingly and fluently that the complaint is here poured out. Let us search How are we to get the pardon of our sins? John 3:16, Jesus faith love), Select a Beginning Point My eyes overflow with rivers of water: Earlier in Lamentations 2:18 Jeremiah expressed a prayer in the mouth of Jerusalems enemies, a prayer that the city and her walls would weep without end. If you turn to the life of Whitfield our great and mighty Whitfield in more modern times, what was his character? Please see Blue Letter Bible's Privacy Policy for cookie usage details. "I recall it to mind; therefore have I hope, and am kept from downright despair." That God sees them. It is the heart that God looks at in that and every other service; for what will a sacrifice without a heart avail? Great and long grief exhausts the spirits, and brings not only many a gray head, but many a green head too, to the grave. Far be it from God that he should do iniquity, or countenance those that do it. He has bent his bow, the bow that was ordained against the church's prosecutors, that is bent against her sons, v. 12. Look at their sitting down and their rising up; That is, Thou wilt give it to them freely, and without reserve; intimating that God felt no longer any bowels of compassion for them. He shuts out my prayer. Pentateuch 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." He had already begun to appear for them (v. 58): "O Lord! With this should go the complete submission to God pictured in v. 29 by the Oriental obeisance. We must see and acknowledge the hand of God in all the calamities that befal us at any time, whether personal or public, v. 37, 38. He that has seasonably succoured particular saints will not fail the church in general. To this very day it is asserted by Romanists that Martin Luther was a drunkard. One might conjecture that the following thought in the Toozek i Teemour was borrowed from this: -. If, indeed, any sinner be kept out of hell, it is because God's compassion faileth not. Let him sit alone and keep silent, He doth not ascribe his deliverance in any measure to any man, much less to his own merit; but it is thou. (Spurgeon). Our own wickedness corrects us, Prov 19 3. He gets good by the yoke who gives his cheek to him that smites him, and rather turns the other cheek (Matt 5 39) than returns the second blow. The LORD is my portion: As in Psalm 119:57, Jeremiah found the key to satisfactionfinding ones portion in the LORD. You perceive there is not a word concerning himself or his own pleadings. The reason is, there is nothing more disagreeable to the taste than the one; and nothing more distressing to the mind than the other. The soft, measured breath, or the laboring, gasping breath. 3. Wisdom Literature i. To God in heaven. The Gospels (2.) c. Because His compassions fail not: Even in the severity of correction Gods people endured, there was evidence of His compassions. Passwords should have at least 6 characters. He hath - brought me into darkness In the sacred writings, darkness is often taken for calamity; light, for prosperity. Every morning brings new provision for the day. c. Why should a living man complain: We may complain against God and His sovereignty, but that is profitless and ungrateful. These are good times for reflection (sit alone) and listening rather than speaking. 45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. He who can bear contempt and reproach, and not render railing for railing, and bitterness for bitterness, who, when he is filled full with reproach, keeps it to himself, and does not retort it and empty it again upon those who filled him with it, but pours it out before the Lord (as those did, Ps 123 4, whose souls were exceedingly filled with the contempt of the proud), he shall find that it is good to bear the yoke, that it shall turn to his spiritual advantage. A sincere conversion to God: "Let us turn again to the Lord, to him who is turned against us and whom we have turned from; to him let us turn by repentance and reformation, as to our owner and ruler. And turn back to the LORD; d. He shuts out my prayer: When things are right with our relationship with God, He is our refuge and defense in affliction. This verse seems to allude to the Chaldaic prediction, in Jeremiah 10:11. She is overwhelmed with fears, not only grieves for what is, but fears worse, and gives up all for gone (v. 54): "Then I said, I am cut off, ruined, and see no hope of recovery; I am as one dead." That, whatever men's actions are, it is God that overrules them: Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass (that designs a thing and bring his designs to effect), if the Lord commandeth it not? In his own day he was called the German beast, that for lust must needs marry Catharine. Pauline Epistles Here is, I. Some make all this to be spoken by the prophet himself when he was imprisoned and persecuted; but it seems rather to be spoken in the person of the church now in captivity and in a manner desolate, and in the desolations of which the prophet did in a particular manner interest himself. As Abraham said of God, shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; he forms the light and creates the darkness, as he did at first. Blayney translates, "Thou wilt give with a hearty concordance thy curse unto them." Theirs is causeless, and therefore fruitless, it shall not come; but thine is just, and shall take effect. God will plead thy cause, and redeem thy soul. The waters flowed over my head; And this is an encouragement to them to hope that he would yet further appear for them: "Thou hast delivered my soul from death, and therefore wilt deliver my feet from falling; thou hast pleaded the causes of my life, and therefore wilt plead my other causes.". 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. It is just with God to make those who walk in the crooked paths of sin, crossing God's laws, walk in the crooked paths of affliction, crossing their designs and breaking their measures. Johannine Writings It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. Lamentations 3 - Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible - Bible Verse 48. Do we succeed in our designs, or are we crossed in them? The caliph replied, 'The children of Adam must flee unto the Lord.'" Who could be preserved in the night, if the Watchman of Israel ever slumbered or slept? He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth He has that love that is not provoked. VI. 2023 Christianity.com. God's having heard our voice when we cried to him, even out of the low dungeon, is an encouragement for us to hope that he will not at any time hide his ear. They look upon the Jewish nation as dead and buried, and imagine that there is not possibility of its resurrection. 2. Our seeking will help to keep up our waiting. Verse 51. 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. (Read Lamentations 3:21-36) Having stated his distress and temptation, the prophet shows how he was raised above it. 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. If so be there may be hope. Time and time again throughout the day. Thus Ezekiel saw it, in vision, a valley full of dead and dry bones. It was an affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. Verse 24. The Whole Bible 4. i. This is here laid down as a great truth, which will help to quiet our spirits under our afflictions and to sanctify them to us. i. Jeremiahs personal lament is a reminder that suffering is always personal. It is very applicable to the yoke of God's commands. 43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. Clarke, Adam "Clarke's Commentary: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments with a Commentary and Critical Notes" Volume 4 (Isaiah-Malachi) (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1827), Ellison, H.L. d. They are new every morning: Each dawning day gives mankind hope in fresh mercies and compassions from God. In addition, emotional attributes of joy (Proverbs 23:16) and sorrow (Job 19:27; Psalm 73:21) were credited to them. (Harrison). "Our Daily Homily: Isaiah-Malachi" Volume 4 (Westwood, New Jersey: Revell, 1966), Morgan, G. Campbell "Searchlights from the Word" (New York: Revell, 1926), Morgan, G. Campbell "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Revell, 1959), Poole, Matthew "A Commentary on the Holy Bible" Volume 2 (Psalms-Malachi) (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), Ryken, Philip Graham "Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope" (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2001), Spurgeon, Charles Haddon "The New Park Street Pulpit" Volumes 1-6 and "The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit" Volumes 7-63 (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1990), Trapp, John "A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments" Volume 3 (Proverbs to Daniel) (Eureka, California: Tanski Publications, 1997). 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. He actually felt it useful to remember it, to understand it for what it was, and to not pretend it wasnt there. Persecute and destroy them in anger, as they persecute and destroy us in their anger. You have covered Yourself with a cloud, We continue thus weeping till the Lord look down and behold from heaven. He has filled me with bitterness, a bitter sense of his calamities." Quietness is necessary to waiting, for all turbulency and impatience of spirit under sad providences is opposed to waiting. (Poole). From the lowest pit. Lamentations 3:31 Commentaries: For the Lord will not reject forever, If you will turn to the lives of any of the saints of God, you will discover that they were the victims of slanders of the grossest kind. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. The prophet complains, 1. His experience of God's goodness even in his affliction. That, whatever sorrow we are in, it is what God has allotted us, and his hand is in it. 3 He has turned his hand against me. Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Complete). 54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. 1. 8. Who could exist throughout the day, if there were not a continual superintending Providence? Perhaps they had some tune or play, some opera or interlude, that was called the destruction of Jerusalem, which, though in the nature of a tragedy, was very entertaining to those who wished ill to the holy city. Does the Bible Condemn Using Tarot Cards? That, when we are cast down, yet we are not cast off; the father's correcting his son is not a disinheriting of him. Did ever man paint sorrow like this man? I have drunk the cup of misery till I am intoxicated with it. Gerlach has rightly opposed to these arguments the following considerations: (1) That, after the outburst of despair in Lamentations 3:18, "my strength is gone, and my hope from Jahveh," the words "my soul is bowed down in me" form far too feeble a conclusion; (2) That it is undoubtedly more correct to make the relief begin with a prayer breathed Shall a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 2. Yet He will show compassion In this patient seeking of God, there is reason for hope. In the sacrificial tariffs of the Pentateuch, animal kidneys were held to be one of the locations of life, this being thought true of human kidneys also. The Gospels So unworthy we are that nothing but an abundant mercy will relieve us; and from that what may we not expect? Note, When we draw nigh to God in a way of duty we may by faith see him drawing nigh to us in a way of mercy. It is our duty, and will be our comfort and satisfaction, to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. 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. That, bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. II. 2. Note, However God may for a time suffer evil-doers to prosper, and serve his own purposes by them, yet he does not therefore approve of their evil doings. Lamentations is the only biblical book which, for the most part, is arranged in acrostic fashion. Earlier in this chapter, Jeremiah felt God was his adversary (Lamentations 3:1-18). He and many others had seen affliction, and they knew that it came as Gods discipline (the rod of His wrath). Lamentations chapter 3. 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. And what are all our sorrows, compared with those of the Redeemer? We are living men. The poets mention of the LORD broke the spell of misery that had bound him. (Ellison). Judah has gone into exile, but she does not find any rest there among the nations. Ps 119 59, I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. General Epistles 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Mine eye runneth down I weep incessantly. And we must thus humble ourselves, if so be there may be hope, or (as it is in the original) peradventure there is hope. 9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. Because God has laid it on him; Thank you for registering. II. Lamentations 3 - I am the man who has seen affliction by - Bible Gateway That great is his faithfulness. At first, the language sounds like the stock vocabulary of the lament psalms: darkness, pains, broken bones, desolation, arrows, etc. IV. 2. The deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them. 3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. Verse 12. In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. 1. (Lamentations 3:30-36) The goodness of God even in His justice. It seemed as a butt for all God's arrows; and each arrow of calamity entered into the soul, for God was the unerring marksman. 3. Note, The Israel of God, though children of light, sometimes walk in darkness. ii. Or, let us put our heart on our hand, and offer it to God; so some have translated this clause. Verse 34. And set me up as a target for the arrow. The streams of mercy acknowledged: We are not consumed. They have created us a great deal of vexation; now, Lord, give them sorrow of heart (v. 65), perplexity of heart" (so some read it); "let them be surrounded with threatening mischiefs on all sides, and not be able to see their way out. In chapter 3, every third of the 66 verses begins with successive Greek letters. In three things the prophet and his pious friends had found God good to them:1. 6. They have done it without cause, without any provocation given them. By proceeding, you consent to our cookie usage. Verse Lamentations 3:2. Of all the men who lived through that terrible period, no one had a better right to say this than Jeremiah. The reflected beams of God's kindness to them used to be the beauty of Israel; but now "thou hast covered us with anger, so that our glory is concealed and gone; now God is angry with us, and we do not appear that illustrious people that we have formerly been thought to be." 11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. The malice they had against him: "Thou hast seen all their vengeance, how they desire to do me a mischief, as if it were by way of reprisal for some great injury I had done them." Repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands: God had repaid Jerusalem and Judah for all their sin and disobedience. For the Lord will not cast off forever. If there be any way to acquire and secure a good hope under our afflictions, it is this way, and yet we must be very modest in our expectations of it, must look for it with an it may be, as those who own ourselves utterly unworthy of it. My soul, having them in remembrance, is humbled in me, not only oppressed with a sense of the trouble, but in bitterness for sin. The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. He putteth his mouth in the dust Lives in a state of deep humility. Their destruction is compared not only to the burying of a dead man, but to the sinking of a living man into the water, who cannot long be a living man there, v. 54. He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out." He does indeed afflict, and grieve the children of men; all their grievances and afflictions are from him. That God is, and ever will be, the all-sufficient happiness of his people, and they have chosen him and depend upon him to be such (v. 24): The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; that is, 1. These rivers of mercy run fully and constantly, but never run dry. A mother listens for the breathing of her babe in the dark. Lamentations 4 Commentary - Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible Verse 9. He has been to me like a bear lying in wait: Using the eloquence that misery sometimes brings, Jeremiah described all the ways that they felt God opposed and even attacked them. He has also (v. 9) enclosed my ways with hewn stone, not only hedged up my way with thorns (Hos 2 6), but stopped it up with a stone wall, which cannot be broken through, so that my paths are made crooked; I traverse to and fro, to the right hand, to the left, to try to get forward, but am still turned back." i. (1.) It is he that causes grief, and therefore we may be assured it is ordered wisely and graciously; and it is but for a season, and when need is, that we are in heaviness, 1 Pt. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; 1:6 .

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