Text -- Lamentations 3:41-66 (NET)

3:41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven: 3:42 “We have blatantly rebelled; you have not forgiven.” 3:43 ס(Samek) You shrouded yourself with anger and then pursued us; you killed without mercy. 3:44 You shrouded yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through. 3:45 You make us like filthy scum in the estimation of the nations. 3:46 פ(Pe) All our enemies have gloated over us; 3:47 Panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction. 3:48 Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed. 3:49 ע(Ayin) Tears flow from my eyes and will not stop; there will be no break 3:50 until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees what has happened. 3:51 What my eyes see grieves me– all the suffering of the daughters in my city. 3:52 צ(Tsade) For no good reason my enemies hunted me down like a bird. 3:53 They shut me up in a pit and threw stones at me. 3:54 The waters closed over my head; I thought I was about to die. 3:55 ק(Qof) I have called on your name, O Lord, from the deepest pit. 3:56 You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief!” 3:57 You came near on the day I called to you; you said, “Do not fear!” 3:58 ר(Resh) O Lord, you championed my cause, you redeemed my life. 3:59 You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; pronounce judgment on my behalf! 3:60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me. 3:61 ש(Sin/Shin) You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. 3:62 My assailants revile and conspire against me all day long. 3:63 Watch them from morning to evening; I am the object of their mocking songs. 3:64 ת(Tav) Pay them back what they deserve, O Lord, according to what they have done. 3:65 Give them a distraught heart; may your curse be on them! 3:66 Pursue them in anger and eradicate them from under the Lord’s heaven.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Lam 3:42

Thou hast plagued us according to the just desert of our sins.

Wesley: Lam 3:49

The prophet speaks this of himself.

Wesley: Lam 3:53

Dungeon seems here to be taken for the lowest condition of misery.

Wesley: Lam 3:54

I am undone, there is no hope for me.

Wesley: Lam 3:56

In former afflictions.

Wesley: Lam 3:56

Shew me now the same favour.

Wesley: Lam 3:58

Thou hast been wont to take my part against my enemies.

Wesley: Lam 3:60

Thou hast been a witness to all their fury.

Wesley: Lam 3:63

At feasts, and at their merry meetings, I am all the subject of their discourse.

Wesley: Lam 3:66

Many passages of this nature which we meet with are prophecies, some of them may be both prophecies and prayers.

JFB: Lam 3:40-42

Jeremiah and his fellow countrymen in their calamity.

JFB: Lam 3:40-42

As opposed to the torpor wherewith men rest only on their outward sufferings, without attending to the cause of them (Psa 139:23-24).

JFB: Lam 3:41

The antidote to hypocrisy (Psa 86:4; 1Ti 2:8).

JFB: Lam 3:42

The Babylonian captivity had not yet ended.

JFB: Lam 3:43-45

Namely, thyself (so Lam 3:44), so as not to see and pity our calamities, for even the most cruel in seeing a sad spectacle are moved to pity. Compare as to God "hiding His face," Psa 10:11; Psa 22:25.

JFB: Lam 3:44

(Lam 3:8). The "cloud" is our sins, and God's wrath because of them (Isa 44:22; Isa 59:2).

JFB: Lam 3:45

So the apostles were treated; but, instead of murmuring, they rejoiced at it (1Co 4:13).

JFB: Lam 3:46-48

Pe is put before Ain (Lam 3:43, Lam 3:46), as in Lam 2:16-17; Lam 4:16-17. (Lam 2:16.)

JFB: Lam 3:47

Like animals fleeing in fear, we fall into the snare laid for us.

JFB: Lam 3:48

(Jer 4:19).

JFB: Lam 3:49-51

Or else, "because there is no intermission" [PISCATOR], namely, Of my miseries.

JFB: Lam 3:50

His prayer is not without hope, wherein it differs from the blind grief of unbelievers.

JFB: Lam 3:50

(Isa 63:15).

JFB: Lam 3:51

That is, causeth me grief with continual tears; or, "affecteth my life" (literally, "soul," Margin), that is, my health [GROTIUS].

JFB: Lam 3:51

The towns around, dependencies of Jerusalem, taken by the foe.

JFB: Lam 3:52-54

Which is destitute of counsel and strength. The allusion seems to be to Pro 1:17 [CALVIN].

JFB: Lam 3:52-54

(Psa 69:4; Psa 109:3-4). Type of Messiah (Joh 15:25).

JFB: Lam 3:53

(Jer 37:16).

JFB: Lam 3:53

Usually put at the mouth of a dungeon to secure the prisoners (Jos 10:18; Dan 6:17; Mat 27:60).

JFB: Lam 3:54

Not literally, for there was "no water" (Jer 38:6) in the place of Jeremiah's confinement, but emblematical of overwhelming calamities (Psa 69:2; Psa 124:4-5).

JFB: Lam 3:54

(Isa 38:10-11). I am abandoned by God. He speaks according to carnal sense.

JFB: Lam 3:55-57

Thus the spirit resists the flesh, and faith spurns the temptation [CALVIN], (Psa 130:1; Jon 2:2).

JFB: Lam 3:56

Namely formerly (so in Lam 3:57-58).

JFB: Lam 3:56

Two kinds of prayer; the sigh of a prayer silently breathed forth, and the loud, earnest cry (compare "prayer," "secret speech," Isa 26:16, Margin; with "cry aloud," Psa 55:17).

JFB: Lam 3:57

With Thy help (Jam 4:8).

JFB: Lam 3:58-60

Jeremiah cites God's gracious answers to his prayers as an encouragement to his fellow countrymen, to trust in Him.

JFB: Lam 3:58-60

(Psa 35:1; Mic 7:9).

JFB: Lam 3:59

God's past deliverances and His knowledge of Judah's wrongs are made the grounds of prayer for relief.

JFB: Lam 3:60

Devices (Jer 11:19).

JFB: Lam 3:60

Means their malice. Jeremiah gives his conduct, when plotted against by his foes, as an example how the Jews should bring their wrongs at the hands of the Chaldeans before God.

JFB: Lam 3:61-63

Their reproachful language against me.

JFB: Lam 3:62

Speeches.

JFB: Lam 3:63

Whether they sit or rise, that is, whether they be actively engaged or sedentary, and at rest "all the day" (Lam 3:62), I am the subject of their derisive songs (Lam 3:14).

JFB: Lam 3:64-66

(Jer 11:20; 2Ti 4:14).

JFB: Lam 3:65

Rather, blindness or hardness; literally, "a veil" covering their heart, so that they may rush on to their own ruin (Isa 6:10; 2Co 3:14-15).

JFB: Lam 3:66

Destroy them so that it may be seen everywhere under heaven that thou sittest above as Judge of the world.

Clarke: Lam 3:47

Fear and a snare - See on Jer 48:13 (note).

Clarke: Lam 3:48

Mine eye runneth down - I weep incessantly.

Clarke: Lam 3:51

Mine eye affecteth mine heart - What I see I feel. I see nothing but misery; and I feel, in consequence, nothing but pain. There have been various translations of the original: but they all amount to this

Clarke: Lam 3:51

The daughters of my city - The villages about Jerusalem.

Clarke: Lam 3:52

Mine enemies chased me - From this to the end of the chapter the prophet speaks of his own personal sufferings, and especially of those which he endured in the dungeon. See Jer 38:6, etc.

Clarke: Lam 3:56

Hide not thine ear at my breathing - He dared not even to complain, nor to cry, nor to pray aloud: he was obliged to whisper his prayer to God. It was only a breathing.

Clarke: Lam 3:57

Fear not - How powerful is this word when spoken by the Spirit of the Lord to a disconsolate heart. To every mourner we may say, on the authority of God, Fear not! God will plead thy cause, and redeem thy soul.

Clarke: Lam 3:60

Thou hast seen - all their imaginations - Every thing is open to the eye of God. Distressed soul! though thou knowest not what thy enemies meditate against thee; yet he who loves thee does, and will infallibly defeat all their plots, and save thee.

Clarke: Lam 3:65

Give them sorrow of heart - They shall have a callous heart, covered with obstinacy, and thy execration. The former is their state, the latter their fate. This is the consequence of their hardening their hearts from thy fear. Blayney translates, "Thou wilt give with a hearty concordance thy curse unto them."That is, Thou wilt give it to them freely, and without reserve; intimating that God felt no longer any bowels of compassion for them. Formerly he inflicted punishments with reluctance, while there was any hope of amendment: but, in the instance before us, the case was so hopeless, that God acts according to the simple principle of vindictive justice. The prophet therefore considers them on the utmost verge of final reprobation: another plunge, and they are lost for ever.

Clarke: Lam 3:66

Persecute and destroy them - Thou wilt pursue them with destruction. These are all declaratory, not imprecatory

Clarke: Lam 3:66

From under the heavens of the Lord - This verse seems to allude to the Chaldaic prediction, in Jer 10:11. By their conduct they will bring on themselves the curse denounced against their enemies

The Septuagint and Vulgate seem to have read "From under heaven, O Jehovah:"and the Syriac reads, "Thy heavens, O Jehovah!"None of these makes any material change in the meaning of the words

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.

Calvin: Lam 3:41

To conversion he joins prayer; for we cannot be reconciled to God except he buries our sins; nor can repentance and faith be separated. Moreover, to taste of God’s mercy opens to us the door of prayer. And this ought to be carefully noticed, because the unbelieving seem at times to be very busy in seeking to return to God’s favor, but they only attend to the outward change of life; and at the same time they are not anxious about pardon, but go boldly before God, as though they were not exposed to his judgment.

And we see under the Papacy that while they make long sermons on repentance, they hardly ever make any account of faith, as though repentance without faith were a restoration from death to life.

Hence I said that we ought to notice the mode of teaching which our Prophet adopts: he begins with self-examination, then he requires conversion; but he does not separate it from faith. For when he exhorts us to pray, it is the same thing as though he had set before us the judgment of God, and had also taught us that we cannot escape death except God be propitious to us. How then is pardon to be obtained? by prayer: and prayer, as it is well known, must be always founded on faith.

By telling us to raise up our hearts to God together with our hands, he bids us to banish all hypocrisy from our prayers. For all without a difference raise up their hands to God; and nature itself, when we are pressed down with evils, leads us to seek God. But the greater part stifle this feeling of nature. When affliction comes, it is a common thing with all to raise up their hands to heaven, though no one should bid them to do so; but still their hearts remain fixed on the earth, and they come not to God. And the greater part of men are included in that class mentioned by Isaiah,

“This people come to me with their tongue,
but their heart is far away.” (Isa 29:13.)

As, then, men deal thus formally with God, and present a naked ceremony, as though God had changed and suffered his eyes to be covered, the Prophet bids all dissimulation to cease from prayer; Let us raise up hands, he says, to God, and also hearts. Joel speaks somewhat differently, when he says,

“Rend your hearts and not your garments,” (Joe 2:13;)

for he seems to exclude the outward rite, because men, wishing to shew that they were guilty before God, rent their garments. Joel says that this was superfluous and useless; and doubtless the rite itself was not so very necessary. But as prayers, when they are earnest, move the hands, our Prophet refers to that practice as useful. At the same time he teaches us that the chief thing ought not to be omitted, even to raise up the hearts to God: Let us, then, he says, raise up our hearts together with our hands to God; and he adds, to God who is in heaven: for it is necessary that men should rise up above the world, and to go out of themselves, so to speak, in order to come to God.

We now then understand the meaning of the Prophet, — that those who repent from the heart ought not to go before God, as though they were not guilty before his tribunal, but that on the contrary they ought to be penitent and humble, so that they may obtain pardon. He afterwards shews that the right way of praying is, when we not only perform the outward ceremonies, but when we open our hearts and raise them up as it were to heaven itself. It is, then, the right way of praying, when the inward feeling corresponds with the external posture. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:42

The faithful do not here expostulate with God, but on the contrary acknowledge that God’s severity was just. That God then had dealt with them severely, they ascribe to their own sins, This is the substance of what is said.

We hence learn that an ingenuous confession ever accompanies repentance, as also Paul teaches us, (2Co 7:11.) For when a sinner is either secure or tries to cover his wickedness, and flatters himself, as we see but a few who willingly humble themselves before God, he contracts the hardness of obstinacy. For this reason the Prophet requires confession; nay, he suggests here the words suitable to be used, when we desire to obtain pardon from God. We have done wickedly, he says, and have been rebellious The pronoun, we, is here emphatical, as though the faithful had taken on themselves the blame of all the evils, which the greater part ever sought to disown. ¹⁹⁵

Here then the Prophet shews that there is no other way of being reconciled to God, than by confessing ourselves to be the authors of all our evils; and he also teaches us, that it is an evidence of true repentance, when we do not allege vain pretences as it is commonly done, nor flatter ourselves, but confess that we are guilty. He now shows that guilt ought by no means to be extenuated, so that our confession may be real and complete: but in this respect the world trifle with God. The most wicked are, indeed, ashamed to deny that they are sinners; but as they are forced to make some kind of confession, this they do lightly; and it seems an extorted confession, and is therefore jejune, or at least not complete. But the Prophet here shews that they who seek to be reconciled to God, ought not only in words to acknowledge and confess their guilt, but also ingenuously to open their hearts. Hence he connects perverseness with sin: as though he had said, “We have not sinned simply or in one way, but we have exasperated God himself; and by sinning in many ways and constantly, we have provoked him against us.” He says, in short, that there is then an access open to us to obtain favor, when we do not murmur against God nor contend with him as though he had dealt severely with us, but when we confess that he has been hard and rigid with us, because he had a reason to be so on account of our sins and wickedness. He adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:43

At the first view, this complaint may seem to proceed from a bitter heart; for here the faithful complain that they had been slain, and then that God had executed his judgment as it were in darkness, without any indulgence; and the next verse confirms the same thing. But it is a simple acknowledgment of God’s righteous vengeance for in their extreme calamities the faithful could not declare that God dealt mercifully with them, for they had been subjected to extreme rigor, as we have before seen. Had they said that they had been leniently chastised, it would have been very strange, for the temple had been burnt, the city had been demolished, the kingdom had been overthrown, the people for the most part had been driven into exile, the remainder had been scattered, the covenant of God had been in a manner abolished; for it could not have been thought otherwise according to the judgment of the flesh. Had, then, the exiles in Chaldea said that God had smitten them leniently, would not such an extenuation have appeared very strange? and had also the Prophet spoken in the same strain? For the causes of sorrow were almost innumerable: every one had been robbed of his goods; then there were many widows, many orphans; but the chief causes of sorrow were the burning of the temple and the ruin of the kingdom. No wonder, then, that the faithful set forth here their aggravated evils: but yet they seek out no other cause than their own sins.

Hence they say now, that God had covered them over in wrath It is a most suitable metaphor; as though he had said, that God had executed his vengeance in thick darkness. For an object presented to the eye produces sympathy, and we are easily inclined to mercy when a sad spectacle is presented to us. Hence it is, that even the most savage enemies are sometimes softened, for they are led by their eyes to acts of humanity. The Prophet, then, in order to set forth the horrible vengeance of God, says that there had been a covering introduced, so that God had punished the wicked people in an implacable manner. But as I have said, he does not charge God with cruelty, though he says that he had covered them over in wrath. ¹⁹⁶

He then says, Thou hast pursued us and killed us, and hast not spared They intimate, in short, that God had been a severe judge; but they at the same time turned to themselves and sought there the cause, even that they might not, by their own hardness, provoke God against themselves, as hypocrites are wont to do. And the consciousness of evil leads us also to repentance; for whence is it that men grow torpid in their sins, except that they flatter themselves? When, therefore, God suspends his judgments, or when he moderates them, and does not punish men as they deserve, then, if there be any repentance, it is yet frigid, and soon vanishes. This, then, is the reason why God inflicts deadly strokes, because we feel not his hand except the stroke be as it were deadly. As, then, simple chastisement is not sufficient to lead us to repentance, the Prophet introduces the faithful as speaking thus, “Behold, thou hast in wrath covered us over, so as not to look on us,” so that there might be no opportunity for mercy, that is, that they might be the judges of themselves, and conclude from the atrocity of their punishment how grievously they must have provoked the wrath of God. It follows in the same sense, —

Calvin: Lam 3:44

The Prophet confirms the same thing, but the words are different. He again repeats the word to cover; but, that the metaphor might be clearer and more fully explained, he says, with a cloud. He simply intimates, that a cloud interposed, that God might more unrestrainedly punish the Jews, as they had deserved. Isaiah speaks somewhat otherwise, but for the same purpose:

“The hand of God,” he says, “is not shortened, nor are his ears more deaf; but your sins have interposed a distance between you and God.” (Isa 59:1.)

There is no doubt but that Isaiah meant the same thing as our Prophet, even that God’s nature never changes; and, therefore, that when he seems to rage against his people, the cause ought to be ascribed to their sins, because God ever remains like himself. We know what is said in the Psalms,

“Thou art God who hearest prayer.” (Psa 65:3.)

God, then, is always ready to hear his people, and he also possesses power sufficient to help them; but the distance arises from our sins. And so the Prophet now says that a cloud interposed.

Nearly the same sentence is found in the third chapter, as we have seen; for there the Prophet said, in the name of the whole people, that they had become separated from God, but that it was a separation, not because God had changed his purpose, but because the people had, in a manner, rejected his favor. Thou hast, then, he says, covered thyself with a cloud, that is, thou hast made for thyself a covering, that prayer may not pass through. This seems, indeed, very strange, because God advances to meet all the miserable, and promises to hear their prayers: what, then, can this mean, that a cloud interposed that prayer might not go through to him? even that the Jews did not pray aright, and that they had closed up against themselves every access by which God could admit them. In short, the faithful do not here contend with God, as though they had been deceived by his promises, but confess that they were unworthy to pray to God, and they also acknowledge that they did not pray aright. ¹⁹⁷ And according to this sense they say, that they were hindered, as though a cloud interposed, so that their prayer could not ascend to God. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:45

They say here that they were exposed to reproach, so as to become, as it were, the sweepings of the world. Some render סחי , sachi, “refuse;” some by other words; and some “filth:” But the word properly means sweepings or scraping’s, called by the Greeks περιψήματα. Paul says, that he and his associates were the offscouring (περιψήματα) of the world. (1Co 4:13.) He means that they were despised as offscourings or scrapings. The word is derived from sweeping. Whatever, then, is cleaned off by sweeping or scouring, that is, the filth of the house or the floor, is called סחי , sachi. What the Prophet had in view is not obscure; for he means that the degradation of the people was not hidden, but open Go all nations, as though God had erected a theater in Judea, and there exhibited a remarkable and an unusual example of his vengeance. To the same purpose is what he adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:46

He repeats what he had said, that the people were an offscouring, or scrapings, or sweepings, and also a refuse. The last word is, indeed, in the infinitive mood, מאוס , maus, but it is to be taken as a noun. They had become all this, because they had as many enemies as neighbors; for we know that the Jews were hated by all the neighboring nations. They had become, then, a refuse and filth among all people, for with an open mouth they spoke furiously against them. For the open mouth means that they spoke insolently, and took the liberty of cursing them all, as it has been stated elsewhere. Now it was the bitterest thing to the miserable people, when they found that the reproaches and taunts of enemies were added to their calamities: for we know how grievously does reproach wound those who are already afflicted.

Calvin: Lam 3:47

The Prophet largely dwells on the grievousness of the calamity which had happened. He compares here the anxieties into which the people had been brought, to a pitfall and dread. There is a striking alliteration in the words פחד and פחת , pechet and peched. But the meaning is, that the people had been reduced to such straits, that there was no outlet for them; as the case is with us, when we are filled with dread, and look here and there, and see nothing but pitfalls on every side; then we are at our wits’ end. Such then was the state of the people, as Jeremiah shews: filled with dread, they sought refuge, but saw pitfalls on every side.

He afterwards mentions desolation or destruction, and sorrow. It is probably a mistake in Jerome’s version, where the first; word is rendered “prophesying.” Some think that he was led astray by the letter ש , shin, which he seems to have read with a point on the left side; and he took the word as coming from נשא nusha. But another conjecture seems more correct, that the transcribers have committed a mistake; for what I have said is most appropriate to the passage, even that the people were overwhelmed with all kinds of evils, because there was nothing to be seen but desolation and sorrow, or bruising, or breach, שבר , shaber. It now follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:48

Interpreters give different explanations of the beginning of this verse: some render it thus, “My eye comes down unto rivers of waters;” others, “My eye flows down unto rivers of waters,” or, “rivers of waters flow down.” But as I have explained elsewhere, the Prophet rather means, that his eye came down like rivers; and to come down, or to descend, is a metaphor for flowing down; for water, as it is well known, descends when it flows. And there is a change of number when he says, “My eye descends;” there is also raider-stood the particle of comparison, כ , caph ¹⁹⁸ The meaning is, that his eyes descended or flowed down as rivers. The last: word properly signifies divisions, but; he means that many streams flowed down, as though they were so many rivers.

For the bruising, or the breach, of my people: the Prophet speaks here in his own person, though there is no doubt but that he exhorts all others to join him in his sorrow. For the faithful would not have prayed to God with sufficient ardor, had they not been dreadfully broken and confounded; had not the calamity deeply affected them, as it ought to have done, there would have been no serious attention to prayer. This is the reason why the Prophet here mentions his own weepings, and groanings, and tears, even that he might rouse himself to prayer, and lead others also. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:49

He repeats the same in other words, — that his eyes flowed down with tears. He still retains the singular number, but this is common in Hebrew. He then says, that his eye without end flowed down, so that there was no rest But it afterwards follows —

Calvin: Lam 3:50

The Prophet here makes a distinction between his weeping and that blind sorrow by which the unbelieving are affected and violently agitated: they have no regard to God. Then the Prophet says here that he not only wept, but that he also prayed and waited for God to put an end to evils. As I have already said, the unbelieving grieve abundantly in adversities, nay, they abandon themselves to sorrow; but they turn away wholly from God, and are like wild beasts. Then the Prophet points out the right way to mourn: our eyes must flow down to weariness and without rest, but at the same time we must wait until God be propitious to us. Therefore this verse connects well with the former, ¹⁹⁹ until Jehovah look down and see from heaven; for otherwise tears would draw us to despair, and despair would become the cause of fury; for we see that the ungodly murmur against God.

Thus, then, ought we to weep, in order that we may at the same time cherish hope while we wait for God to look down on us and to see our miseries from heaven. The word heaven, is not added uselessly, because men in their evils, when they seek God, are filled with terror, for they do not think that they can ascend to him: hence, then, it is, that they despond, for they imagine that God is too remote from them. The Prophet therefore anticipates here this false notion, and says that we ought nevertheless to wait until God looks down from heaven; which corresponds with what is said in the Psalms: that God is high and yet has respect to low things. (Psa 113:4.) Though, then, the majesty of God is elevated above all the heavens, yet this does not prevent him familiarly to regard what is low and despised in the world. At length it follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:51

He had said, that his eye flowed down, and then, that it was like a fountain, from which many streams or rivers flowed: he now adopts another mode of speaking, that his eyes grieved his soul; and it is a sign of the greatest sorrow when he who weeps seeks some relief, and is at the same time overpowered by that external feeling. For many indulge in grief and inflame themselves; then the soul of man is like a fan to rouse the burning. But when we weep and our eyes shed tears, and when the mind in a manner exhausts itself, it is a proof of the greatest grief. And this great. grief Jeremiah wished to express by saying, that his eye troubled or grieved his soul

The latter part is explained in two ways: sonic render thus, “Because of all the daughters of my city.” But though this meaning is generally taken, I yet prefer the opinion of those who render the words thus, “More than all the daughters of my city,” for מן , men, denotes a comparison, as it is also a causative. He says, then, that he was given to grief more than all the young women. As the female sex, as it is well known, are more tender and softer than men, the Prophet amplifies his lamentation by this comparison, that in weeping he exceeded all the young women of the city, so that he had almost forgotten his manhood. Had he said, the daughters of the people, it might be explained as before, as referring either to the cities, or to the whole people, that is, the whole community. But when he mentions all the daughters of his city, I cannot otherwise take the passage but as setting forth a comparison, that is, that he could not moderate his grief, but was so seized with it as women are, and also young girls, whose hearts, as it has been already said, are still more tender. ²⁰⁰ The rest to-morrow.

Calvin: Lam 3:52

We shall see to the end of the chapter the various complaints, by which the Prophet deplored the miseries of his own nation, that he might at length obtain the mercy of God. He takes here the comparison of a bird or a sparrow. He says that the Chaldeans had been like fowlers, and the Jews like sparrows: and we know that there is neither prudence nor courage in birds. He, then, means that the Jews had been destitute of all help, having been exposed as a prey to their enemies, who were like fowlers.

And he seems to allude to the words of Solomon, when he says, that without a cause is the net spread for birds (Pro 1:17;) and he means that innocent men are circumvented by the wicked, when they spread for them their snares as it were on every side, while they are like the birds, who have no prudence to avoid them.

We now, then, understand the drift of what the Prophet says: he amplifies the indignity of their calamity by this comparison, — that the Chaldeans at their pleasure plundered the miserable people, who were not able to resist them, who were indeed without any power to defend themselves. ²⁰¹ It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:53

He now employs other comparisons. Some improperly confine this to Jeremiah himself, as though he explained here before God the wrongs done to himself: but there is no doubt but that he undertakes the cause of the whole people; and his object was to encourage by his own example the faithful to lament their state so that they might obtain pardon from God.

He then compares himself to a man half-dead, cast into a pit, and there left for lost. Then some improperly interpret the words, “they cast stones;” for stoning was not in the mind of the Prophet; but having said that he was fast bound in a pit or dungeon, he adds that a stone was laid over him, that lie might not come forth, as we know was the case with Daniel. (Dan 6:16.) Daniel was cast into the den of lions, and then a stone was put on the mouth of the den. So also the Prophet says, that he was bound fast in the pit, and not only that, but that a stone was laid over him, that there might be no hope of coming out; and thus the pit was like a grave. Here, then, he means that lie was reduced to the last extremity, because he had not only been taken by his enemies, but had also been cast into a pit. And, as it is well known, it is a metaphorical expression or a similitude. He adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:54

He now adds a third comparison, — that he had been overwhelmed, as it were, with a flood of evils. This similitude occurs often in Scripture, especially in the Psalms; for when David wished to set forth his despair, lie said that he was sunk in deep waters. (Psa 69:15.) So also in this place the Prophet complains, that waters had flowed over his head, so that he thought himself lost. Though, indeed, this was the saying of a man in a hopeless state, it is yet evident from the context that the Prophet was firm in the hope of God’s mercy. But he speaks according to the judgment of the flesh; and we know that the faithful are as it were divided; for as they have not put off the flesh, they must necessarily be acquainted with adversities, be stormed by fear and feel anxieties; in short, when death hangs over them, they must in a manner be exposed to fear. In the meantime, faith in their hearts obtains the victory, so that they do not succumb under terrors, or cares, or anxieties.

When, therefore, the Prophet says that in his own judgment he was lost, he does not mean that his faith was so extinguished that he ceased to pray to God; for in the next verse he shews that he persevered in prayer. How, then, did he say or believe that he was lost? even, as I have already said, according to human judgment. And we often see that the faithful complain that they are forsaken, that God is asleep in heaven, that he has turned away from them. All these things are to be referred to the perception of the flesh. While, then, the faithful cast their eyes on dangers, when death comes, they not only tremble, but fear greatly and faint also. In the meantime, as I have said, they struggle by faith against all these temptations. So, then, is this passage to be understood, — that the Prophet believed that he was lost, that is, as far as he could judge by the aspect of things at that time, for no hope appeared then to the Church. But we yet see that the Prophet did not indulge himself in this despair; for he immediately adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:55

We certainly see that the Prophet had an inward conflict, which also all the faithful experience, for the spirit fights against the flesh, as Paul teaches us. (Gal 5:17.) Though, then, he on the one hand apprehended death, he yet ceased not to flee to God; for faith strengthened his mind so that he did not succumb, but on the contrary he firmly rejected the temptation presented to him. Though, then, he was, according to the flesh, persuaded as to his own ruin, he on the other hand, called on the name of God; for the faithful do not measure the power and grace of God by their own thoughts, but give glory to God by recumbing on him even in the greatest extremities.

And this passage ought to be carefully noticed; for when Satan cannot in any other way turn us aside from prayer, he alleges our weakness; “What meanest thou, miserable being? will God hear thee? for what canst thou do? thou tremblest, thou art anxious, nay, thou despairest; and yet thou thinkest that God will be propitious to thee.” Whenever, therefore, Satan tries to shut the door against us so as to prevent us to pray, let this example of the Prophet come to our minds; for he, though he thought himself lost, did not yet cast aside the confidence he entertained as to God’s help and aid. For whence arose his perseverance, except that he in a manner rebuked himself when he found himself so overwhelmed, and as it were dead. These two states of mind are seen in this short prayer of David,

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
(Psa 22:1.)

For when he addressed God, and called him his God, we see his rare and extraordinary faith; and when he complains that he was forsaken, we see how, through the infirmity of the flesh, he thought that it was all over with him as to his salvation. Such a conflict, then, is described here; but faith overcame and gained the victory, for the Prophet ceased not to cry to God, even from the pit of depths — from the pit, that is, from death itself.

And this also ought to be carefully observed; for when God bears us on his wings, or when he carries us in his bosom, it is easy to pray; but when we seem to be cast into the deepest gulfs, if we thence cry to him, it is a real and certain proof of faith and hope. As such passages often occur in the Psalms, they may be compared together; but I touch but slightly on the subject, for it is not my object to heap together all the quotations which are appropriate; it is enough to present the real meaning of the Prophet. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:56

When the Prophet says that God heard, it is the same as though he said, that he had so prayed that God became a witness of his earnestness and solicitude; for many boast in high terms of their earnestness and fervor and constancy in prayer, but their boastings are all empty and vain. But the Prophet summons God as a witness of his crying, as though he had said that he was not so overwhelmed by his adversity, but that he always fled to God.

He then says, Close not, etc.; it is properly, “hide not;” but as this is not quite suitable to ears, I am disposed to give this version, Close not thine ear to my cry. The verb רוח ruch, means to dilate, to respire; hence almost all render the noun here, “breathing;” but what follows cannot admit of this sense, to my prayer or cry. I have no doubt but that these two words mean crying; for in groaning the spirit of man dilates itself, and the soul, compressed by grief, expands. But when we cast our cares and troubles into the bosom of God, then the spirit forcibly emerges. This, then, is what the Prophet means, when he asks God not to close his ear to his dilation or groaning, and to his cry. ²⁰² It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:57

Here the Prophet tells us that he had experienced the goodness of God, because he had not suffered a repulse when he prayed. And this doctrine is especially useful to us, that is, to call to mind that we had not in time past prayed in vain. For we may hence feel assured, that as God ever continues like himself, he will be ever ready to help us when- ever we implore his protection. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet declares here that he had experienced the readiness of God to hear prayer: Thou didst come nigh, he says, in the day when I called on thee; thou didst say, Fear not And this approach or coming nigh refers to what was real or actually done, that God had stretched forth his hand and helped his servants. Since, then, they had been confirmed by such evidences, they had the privilege of ever fleeing to God. God, indeed, supplies us with reasons for hope, when he once and again aids us; and it is the same as though he testified that he will ever be the same as we have once and again found him to be.

He then adds an explanation, Thou didst say, Fear not He does not mean that God had spoken; but, as I have said, he thus sets forth the fact, that he had not sought God in vain, for he had relieved him. Though God may not speak, yet when we find that our prayers are heard by him, it is the same as though he raised us up and removed from us every fear. The sum of what is said is, that God had been propitious to his servants whenever they cried to him. It now follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:58

For the same purpose he now says, that God had been his judge to undertake his cause, and not only once, for he had contended for him as though he had been his perpetual advocate. The meaning is, that the Prophet (who yet speaks in the name of all the faithful) had found God a defender and a helper, not only in one instance, but whenever he had been in trouble; for he uses the plural number, and says, Thou hast pleaded the pleadings of my soul

He adds, Thou hast redeemed my life. It is the way of God’s pleading when he delivers us as it were from death. Friends do, indeed, sometimes anxiously exert themselves, interposing for our defense, but they do not always succeed. But God is such a pleader of our cause, that he is also a deliverer, for our safety is in his hand. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:59

The word עותתי , outti, is rendered by some “iniquity,” but in an ironical sense, as though the Prophet had said, “Thou, God, knowest whether I have offended.” But the word is to be taken passively; the verb עות , out, means, to subvert, as we have elsewhere seen, even in this chapter. Then, by his subversion, he means oppression, even when his adversaries unworthily trod him under their feet. And hence he asks God at the same time to judge his judgment, that is, to undertake his cause, and to appear as his defender, as he had formerly done; for he saw his subversion, that is, he saw that he was unjustly cast down and laid prostrate by the wicked. It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:60

This mode of speaking was often used by the saints, because God, when it pleased him to look on their miseries, was ever ready to bring them help. Nor were they words without meaning, when the faithful said, O Lord, thou hast seen; for they said this for their own sake, that they might shake off all unbelief. For as soon as any trial assails us, we imagine that God is turned away from us; and thus our flesh tempts us to despair. It is hence necessary that the faithful should in this respect struggle with themselves and feel assured that God has seen them. Though, then, human reason may say, that God does not see, but neglect and disregard his people, yet on the other hand, this doctrine ought to sustain them, it being certain that God does see them. This is the reason why David so often uses this mode of expression.

Thou, Jehovah, he says, hast seen all their vengeances By vengeances here he means acts of violence, according to what we find in Psa 8:2, where God is said “to put to flight the enemy and the avenger.” By the avenger there he simply means, not such as retaliate wrongs, but cruel and violent men. So also, in this place, by vengeances, he means all kinds of cruelty, as also by thoughts he means wicked counsels, by which the ungodly sought to oppress the miserable and the innocent. He again repeats the same thing, —

Calvin: Lam 3:61

We see that this is a repetition, but for vengeances he now mentions reproaches And in this way he sought again to turn God to mercy; for when he brings no aid, he seems to close his eyes and to render his ears deaf; but when he attends to our evils, he then soon brings help. The Prophet, then, having said that God saw, now refers to hearing: he had heard their reproaches. Adopting a language not strictly proper, he adds, that he had heard their thoughts; though he speaks not only of their secret counsels, but also of all the wicked conspiracies by which his enemies had contrived to ruin him. ²⁰³ He adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:62

Instead of thoughts, he now mentions lips, or words. The verb הגה , ege means to meditate, when no voice is uttered; but as the noun is connected here with lips, there is no doubt but that the Prophet refers to words, rather than to hidden meditations. ²⁰⁴ He then says, that such were the conspiracies, that they did not conceal what they had in their hearts, but publicly avowed their wicked purposes. Now this insolence must have moved God to aid his people, so unjustly oppressed.

He adds, every day, or daily. This circumstance also must have availed to obtain favor, so that God might the sooner aid his people. For had the ungodly made violent assaults, and soon given over, it would have been easy to persevere in so short a trial, as when a storm soon passes by; but when they went on perseveringly in their machinations, it was very hard to bear the trial. And hence we derive a ground of hope, supplied to us by what the Holy Spirit suggests to us here, that God will be merciful to us on seeing the pertinacity of our enemies. He then adds, —

Calvin: Lam 3:63

The Prophet repeats still the same thing, only in other words. He had spoken of the lyings in wait, and the conspiracies and the speeches of his enemies; he now adds, that nothing was hid from God. By sitting and rising, he means all the actions of life, as when David says,

“Thou knowest my sitting and my rising,” (Psa 139:2;)

that is, whether I rest or walk, all my actions are known to thee. By rising, then, the Prophet denotes here, as David did, all the movements or doings of men; and by sitting, he means their quiet counsels; for men either deliberate and prepare for work while they sit, or rise, and thus move and act.

He means, in short, that whether his enemies consulted silently and quietly, or attempted to do this or that, nothing was unknown to God. Now, as God takes such notice of the counsels and all the actions of men, it cannot be but that he restrains and checks the wicked; for God’s knowledge is always connected with his office as a judge. We hence see how the Prophet strengthens himself, as we have lately stated, and thus gathers a reason for confidence; for the wicked counsels of his enemies and their works were not hid from God.

He adds, I am become a song He again sets before God his reproach, east upon him by the ungodly. For that indignity also availed much to lead God not to suffer his people to be unworthily treated. It now follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:64

He adds here a conclusion; for he has hitherto been relating, as I have said, the evils which he suffered, and also the reproaches and unjust oppressions, in order that; he might have God propitious to him; for this is the way of conciliating favor when we are wrongfully dealt with; for it cannot be but that God will sustain our cause. He indeed testifies that he is ready to help the miserable; it is his own peculiar work to deliver captives from prison, to illuminate the blind, to succor the miserable and the oppressed. This is the reason, then, why the Prophet now confidently asks God to render to his enemies their reward, according to the work of their hands

Were any one to object, and say, that another rule is prescribed to us, even to pray for our enemies, even when they oppress us; the answer is this, that the faithful, when they prayed thus, did not bring any violent feelings of their own, but pure zeal, and rightly formed; for the Prophet here did not pray for evil indiscriminately on all, but on the reprobate, who were perpetually the enemies of God and of his Church. He might then with sincerity of heart have asked God to render to them their just reward. And whenever the saints broke forth thus against their enemies, and asked God to become an avenger, this principle must be ever borne in mind, that they did not indulge their own wishes, but were so guided by the Holy Spirit — that moderation was connected with that fervid zeal to which I have referred. The Prophet, then, as he speaks here of the Chaldeans, confidently asked God to destroy them, as we shall again presently see. We find also in the Psalms the same imprecations, especially on Babylon, — “Happy he who shall render to thee what thou hast brought on us, who shall dash thy children against a stone.” (Psa 137:8.) It follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:65

He expresses what the vengeance was to be, even that God would give them up to a reprobate mind; for by מגנת-לב , meganet-leb, he no doubt meant the blindness of the heart, and at the same time included stupidity, as though he had said, “O Lord, so oppress them with evils, that they may become stupified.” For it is an extremity of evil, when we are so overpowered as not to be as it were ourselves, and when our evils do not drive us to prayer. ²⁰⁵

We now then perceive what the Prophet meant by asking God to give to his enemies the impediment of heart, even that he might take away a sound mind, and smite them with blindness and madness, as it is said elsewhere. — I run on quickly, that I may finish, lest the hour should prevent us. The last verse of this triple alphabet follows, —

Calvin: Lam 3:66

He first asks God to persecute them in wrath, that is, to be implacable to them; for persecution is, when God not only chastises the wicked for a short time, but when he adds evils to evils, and accumulates them until they perish. He then adds, and prays God to destroy them from under the heavens of Jehovah This phrase is emphatical; and they extenuate the weightiness of the sentence, who thus render it, “that God himself would destroy the ungodly from the earth.” For the Prophet does not without a design mention the heavens of Jehovah, as though he had said, that though God is hidden from us while we sojourn in the world, he yet dwells in heaven, for heaven is often called the throne of God, —

“The heaven is my throne.” (Isa 66:1.)

“O God, who dwellest in the sanctuary.”
(Psa 22:4; Psa 77:14.)

By God’s sanctuary is often meant heaven. For this reason, then, the Prophet asked here that the ungodly should be destroyed from under the heaven of Jehovah, that is, that their destruction might testify that he sits in heaven, and is the judge of the world, and that things are not in such a confusion, but that the ungodly must at length render an account before the celestial judge, whom they have yet long neglected. This is the end of the chapter.

Defender: Lam 3:55

The prophet, in Lam 3:52-57, recalls his horrifying experience in the deep dungeon of Melchiah (Jer 38:6-13)."

Defender: Lam 3:66

In these closing verses of his longest lamentation, the prophet in effect composes an imprecatory psalm, calling on God to take vengeance on his enemies, for his enemies were really God's enemies, and vengeance belongs to God."

TSK: Lam 3:41

lift : Psa 25:1, Psa 86:4, Psa 143:6-8

with : Psa 28:2, Psa 63:4, Psa 141:2; 1Th 2:8

TSK: Lam 3:42

transgressed : Lam 1:18, Lam 5:16; Neh 9:26; Job 33:27, Job 33:28; Jer 3:13; Dan 9:5-14; Luk 15:18, Luk 15:19

thou : 2Ki 24:4; Jer 5:7, Jer 5:8; Eze 24:13; Zec 1:5

TSK: Lam 3:43

covered : Lam 2:1; Psa 44:19

persecuted : Lam 3:66; Psa 83:15

thou hast slain : Lam 2:2, Lam 2:17, Lam 2:21; 2Ch 36:16, 2Ch 36:17; Eze 7:9, Eze 8:18, Eze 9:10

TSK: Lam 3:44

covered : Psa 97:2

that : Lam 3:8; Psa 80:4; Jer 14:11, Jer 15:1; Zec 7:13

TSK: Lam 3:45

as : Lam 3:14, Lam 2:15, Lam 4:14, Lam 4:15; Deu 28:13, Deu 28:37, Deu 28:44; 1Co 4:13

TSK: Lam 3:46

have : Lam 2:16; Exo 11:7; Job 30:9-11; Psa 22:6-8, Psa 44:13, Psa 44:14, Psa 79:4, Psa 79:10; Mat 27:38-45

TSK: Lam 3:47

Fear : Isa 24:17, Isa 24:18, Isa 51:19; Jer 48:43, Jer 48:44; Luk 21:35

desolation : Lam 1:4, Lam 1:13, Lam 2:1-9

TSK: Lam 3:48

Lam 2:11, Lam 2:18; Psa 119:136; Jer 4:19, Jer 9:1, Jer 9:18, Jer 13:17; Rom 9:1-3

TSK: Lam 3:49

and : Lam 1:16; Psa 77:2; Jer 14:17

TSK: Lam 3:50

Lam 2:20, Lam 5:1; Psa 80:14-16, Psa 102:19, Psa 102:20; Isa 62:6, Isa 62:7, Isa 63:15, Isa 64:1; Dan 9:16-19

TSK: Lam 3:51

eye : Gen 44:34; 1Sa 30:3, 1Sa 30:4; Jer 4:19-21, Jer 14:18; Luk 19:41-44

mine heart : Heb. my soul

because of all : or, more than all

the daughters : Lam 1:18, Lam 2:21, Lam 5:11; Jer 11:22, Jer 14:16, Jer 19:9

TSK: Lam 3:52

chased : Jer 37:15, Jer 37:16, Jer 38:4-6

without : 1Sa 24:10-15, 1Sa 25:28, 1Sa 25:29, 1Sa 26:18-20; Psa 35:7, Psa 35:19, Psa 69:4, Psa 109:3, Psa 119:161; Jer 37:18; Joh 15:25

TSK: Lam 3:53

cut : Jer 37:20, Jer 38:6, Jer 38:9

and : Dan 6:17; Mat 27:60,Mat 27:66

TSK: Lam 3:54

Waters : Psa 18:4, Psa 69:1, Psa 69:2, Psa 69:15, Psa 124:4, Psa 124:5; Jon 2:3-5

I said : Lam 3:18; Job 17:11-16; Psa 31:22; Isa 38:10-13; Eze 37:11; 2Co 1:8-10

TSK: Lam 3:55

2Ch 33:11, 2Ch 33:12; Psa 18:5, Psa 18:6, Psa 40:1, Psa 40:2, Psa 69:13-18, Psa 116:3, Psa 116:4, Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2; Psa 142:3-7; Jer 38:6; Jon 2:2-4; Act 16:24-28

TSK: Lam 3:56

hast : 2Ch 33:13, 2Ch 33:19; Job 34:28; Psa 3:4, Psa 6:8, Psa 6:9, Psa 34:6, Psa 66:19, Psa 116:1, Psa 116:2; Isa 38:5

hide : Psa 55:1, Psa 88:13, Psa 88:14; Rom 8:26

TSK: Lam 3:57

drewest : Psa 69:18, Psa 145:18; Isa 58:9; Jam 4:8

thou saidst : Isa 41:10,Isa 41:14, Isa 43:1, Isa 43:2; Jer 1:17; Act 18:9, Act 27:24; Rev 1:17, Rev 2:10

TSK: Lam 3:58

thou hast pleaded : 1Sa 25:39; Psa 35:1; Jer 51:36

thou hast redeemed : Gen 48:16; Psa 34:22, Psa 71:23, Psa 103:4

TSK: Lam 3:59

thou hast : Jer 11:19-21, Jer 15:10, Jer 18:18-23, Jer 20:7-10, 37:1-38:28

judge : Gen 31:42; Psa 9:4, Psa 26:1, Psa 35:1, Psa 35:23, Psa 43:1; 1Pe 2:23

TSK: Lam 3:60

Lam 3:59; Psa 10:14; Jer 11:19, Jer 11:20

TSK: Lam 3:61

Lam 3:30, Lam 5:1; Psa 74:18, Psa 89:50; Zep 2:8

TSK: Lam 3:62

lips : Psa 59:7, Psa 59:12, Psa 140:3; Eze 36:3

and : Jer 18:18

TSK: Lam 3:63

their sitting : Psa 139:2

I am : Lam 3:14; Job 30:9

TSK: Lam 3:64

Psa 28:4; Jer 11:20, Jer 50:29; 2Ti 4:14; Rev 6:10, Rev 18:6

TSK: Lam 3:65

sorrow : or, obstinacy, Deu 2:30; Isa 6:10

thy : Deu 27:15-26; Psa 109:17, Psa 109:18; 1Co 16:22

TSK: Lam 3:66

Persecute : Lam 3:43; Psa 35:6, Psa 73:15

under : Deu 7:24, Deu 25:19, Deu 29:20; 2Ki 14:27; Jer 10:11

heavens : Psa 8:3, Psa 115:16; Isa 66:1

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Lam 3:40-42

The prophet urges men to search out their faults and amend them.

Lam 3:40

And turn again to the Lord - Or, "and return to Yahweh."The prep. (to) in the Hebrew implies not half way, but the whole.

Lam 3:41

Literally, "Let us lift up our heart unto our hands unto God in heaven;"as if the heart first lifted up the hands, and then with them mounted up in prayer to God. In real prayer the outward expression is caused by the emotion stirring within.

Barnes: Lam 3:43

In verses 43-66, far from pardoning, God is still actively punishing His people.

Rather, "Thou hast covered"Thyself "with wrath and pursued (Lam 1:3 note) us."The covering (here and in Lam 3:44) is that of clothing and enwrapping.

Barnes: Lam 3:45

Omit "as."

Barnes: Lam 3:47

Desolation - Or, devastation.

Barnes: Lam 3:48-51

The deep sympathy of the prophet, which pours itself forth in abundant tears over the distress of his people.

Lam 3:51

Or, "Mine eye"causeth pain to my soul, i. e. maketh my soul ache, because of the sad fate of the maidens (Lam 1:4, Lam 1:18, ...).

Barnes: Lam 3:52

Or, "They who without cause are mine enemies have hunted me sore like a bird."Probably the prophet is speaking of his personal sorrows.

Barnes: Lam 3:53

They have cut off my life in the dungeon - Or, "They destroyed my life in the pit,"i. e. tried to destroy it by casting me into the cistern, and covering the month with a stone. See the margin reference.

Barnes: Lam 3:54

Waters flowed over mine head - A figurative expression for great mental trouble.

Barnes: Lam 3:55-66

A prayer for deliverance and for vengeance upon his enemies.

Lam 3:55

Out of the low dungeon - " The lowest pit"of Psa 88:6. Some consider that Ps. 69 was composed by Jeremiah, and is the prayer referred to here (Jer 38:6 note).

Lam 3:56

Thou hast heard - In sending Ebedmelech to deliver me. The next clause signifies "Hide not thine ear to my relief to my cry,"i. e. to my cry for relief.

Lam 3:58

God now appears as the prophet’ s next of kin, pleading the lawsuits of his soul, i. e. the controversies which concern his salvation. and rescuing his life, in jeopardy through the malice of his enemies.

Lam 3:59

Wrong - Done to him by the perversion of justice.

Lam 3:60, Lam 3:61

Imaginations - Or, devices.

Lam 3:63

Their sitting down, and their rising up - i. e. all the ordinary actions of their life.

Musick - Or, song, "the subject of it."

Lam 3:64-66

The versions render the verbs in these verses as futures, "Thou shalt render unto them a recompence,"etc.

Lam 3:65

Give them sorrow of heart - Or, "Thou wilt give them"blindness "of heart."

Lam 3:66

Persecute ... - Or, pursue them in anger and destroy them, etc.

Poole: Lam 3:41

Let us apply ourselves unto God by prayer, often expressed under this notion in Scripture from that gesture ordinarily used in prayer; and let us not do it in hypocrisy, but joining our hearts with our hands, praying seriously and fervently.

Poole: Lam 3:42

The prophet doth not dictate words, but sense to them, teaching them the matter of their prayer; first, by way of confession. Sin is called a transgression , because it is going aside from the way of God’ s precepts; it is called rebellion , because it is an act contrary to that allegiance and duty which we owe unto God, and the covenant we have made with him. By pardoning here is meant the discharge of the guilty persons from the temporal punishment due for sin (as it is often taken in Scripture); so it signifies, thou hast plagued us according to the just desert of our sins.

Poole: Lam 3:43

Thou hast covered with anger either thou hast covered thyself with anger, or covered thy own face with anger, so as not to look upon us to move thy pity; or (which is more probably the sense) thou hast covered, that is, overwhelmed , us with thy wrath. Thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied; thou hast pursued us to a fatal ruin, without showing us any pity.

Poole: Lam 3:44

God had covered them with wrath, overwhelming them with afflictions. so as they had no way to escape; and whereas in this distress they had nothing else to do but only to apply themselves to God, he had hid his face from them, so as they could get no comfortable sight of him; he was as one covered with a cloud, that could not be discerned through that opacous body. What is meant by this cloud, whether his fixed resolution to punish them, or his fresh remembrance of their sins, or his just will to be revenged on them, seems too curiously inquired. The phrase is a metaphor, and signifies no more than that God would not hear their prayers in their distress.

Poole: Lam 3:45

That is, thou hast made us to all nations extremely contemptible, so as they value us no more than the sweepings of their houses, or the most vile, refuse, and contemptible things imaginable.

Poole: Lam 3:46

That is, to mock, scoff, and reproach us.

Poole: Lam 3:47

All manner of misery was come upon them. They were seized first with fears and terrors; going to escape these they fell into a snare, or (as it is in the Hebrew) into a pit, out of which they could not get; they were wasted, made desolate, and destroyed.

Poole: Lam 3:49

The prophet was deeply affected upon the prospect of this evil before it came, Jer 9:1 , and was now much more affected when he saw the judgment was come; he wept plentifully and constantly, as for their sins which had brought these judgments upon them, so for the judgments themselves, as indications of God’ s displeasure and wrath against them for their transgressions.

Poole: Lam 3:50

That is, until the Lord show me some favour. See the notes on Lam 1:9 .

Poole: Lam 3:51

The eye and the ear are those organs of the body, by which the soul exerciseth its senses to bring in all objects, whether pleasant or sad, to the understanding to judge of them, according to the judgment of which upon them it is affected with joy or sorrow, desire or aversation, &c.; and the eye is the chiefest of these, because its evidence is more certain, and less subject to deceit. The prophet and most of the Jews were eye-witnesses to the evils which had befallen the Jews, and which at present were upon them; so as their hearts were the more affected. The word translated

affect is by some noted to signify to waste and consume , which are the effects of a deep affecting the heart with sad and miserable objects. Because of all the daughters of my city : our margin tells us that it may be also read more than all the daughters of my city ; according to which the sense is, that he was more affected with the state of Jerusalem than the tenderest woman that had lived in it: but it is as well, if not better, in this place rendered causally, showing the reason of his deep affliction, viz. all those miseries he had seen fall upon all the Jewish nation, or upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Poole: Lam 3:52

As boys beat a bird from bush to bush, suffering it to rest no where, so mine enemies, to whom I gave no cause, pursued me.

Poole: Lam 3:53

Dungeon seemeth not to be here taken literally, for the lowest and nastiest place in prisons, which probably was the portion but of a few of the Jews; but metaphorically, for the lowest and saddest condition of misery. Their enemies had brought them into the deepest miseries, to the cutting off of their lives; and as men use to roll great stones upon the mouths of dens and pits, where they have shut up persons, to make them sure from escaping out, so their enemies had dealt with them, doing what lay in them to make their condition remediless and desperate.

Poole: Lam 3:54

Afflictions often in Scripture are called waters , Isa 28:17,18 59:19 .

I am cut off that is, I am utterly undone, there is no hope for me.

Poole: Lam 3:55

That is, out of my deepest affliction, as Jonah out of the

belly of hell, Jon 2:2 . I cried unto God, and called upon him for mercy.

Poole: Lam 3:56

I in former great afflictions applied myself unto thee, and thou didst hear me; show me now the same favour. Our former experiences of God’ s goodness to us in hearing our prayers ought to hold up our hands in prayer, mid beget a confidence in us that we, persisting in our duty, shall find God the same God, yesterday, this day, and for ever.

Poole: Lam 3:57

There was a time when I was in distress, and called upon time, and thou didst draw near unto me. God is never far off from any of us, as to his essential presence; nor is it possible that he should, for he filleth all places. But he is said to be near us or far off from us, as he manifests, or doth not manifest, his goodness to us by acts of gracious providence: of that drawing near the text speaketh. God being infinite in goodness and mercy, is spoken of as absent from those persons and places where he is not showing mercy, and present only there where he showeth forth his goodness, and to be drawing nigh to them to whom he beginneth to show mercy.

Thou saidst, Fear not thou didst encourage me formerly upon my prayer.

Poole: Lam 3:58

Thou hast been wont to take my part against my enemies, not like a lawyer by word of mouth, but actually and really pleading my cause. Thou hast redeemed my life; thou hast saved me from many a danger which looked fatally upon me.

Poole: Lam 3:59

Thou hast a perfect knowledge of men’ s perverse and unrighteous dealings with me at this time; do thou judge betwixt me and mine enemies, and deal with them according to what shall appear just to thee.

Poole: Lam 3:60

Thou hast been a witness to all their fury and rage, and all their malicious and bloody contrivances against me.

Poole: Lam 3:61

Whatever knowledge men get of things done from their eye or ear, thou hast from thy omnisciency; thou knowest not only their malicious actions, but words and thoughts.

Poole: Lam 3:62

That is, thou hast observed and noted the motions or products of my enemies’ lips, and their secret devices before they came out of their lips.

Poole: Lam 3:63

That is, at all times, when they sit down and rise up, I am their song. Though probably the words have a special reference to their sitting down at feasts, and at their merry meetings. I am all the subject of their discourse, they spend their time in mocking and scoffing at us, and at Jerusalem; we are they that make them sport.

Poole: Lam 3:64

These three last verses are all but the same general petition, though expressed in various phrases; the prophet had prayed, Lam 3:59 , that God would judge his people’ s cause, here he prayeth that he would also judge his enemies, he only desireth justice against them, a recompence of the work of their hands.

Poole: Lam 3:65

The word translated

sorrow of heart is found no where else in holy writ, which makes a certain particular explication of it to be difficult, and hath given interpreters a strange liberty in translating it shield, sorrow, and grief , obstinacy or hardness of heart, perplexity, abjection or breaking of heart ; the best guides we have to direct us in the sense of it are,

1. The other things joined with it; persecution, destruction , a recompence according to their works, so that some afflictive evil of a heavy nature is certainly signified by it.

2. The analogy of faith , which restraineth us from wishing or praying for spiritual or eternal evils against our worst enemies; it therefore probably signifies such perplexity and breakings of mind as commonly attend a state of great affliction.

Poole: Lam 3:66

Bring them to a temporal ruin and destruction. How far such petitions are lawful we have before showed, in our notes on Psa 69:22-24 , &c.; Psa 119:6-10 , &c.; Jer 11:20 15:15 : see also Lam 1:22 . It is hard to interpret all passages of this nature which we meet with as prophecies, though some of them are so, and others may be both prophecies and prayers.

Haydock: Lam 3:41

Up. This posture "is the testimony of a soul naturally Christian." (Tertullian, Apol.) ---

Our heart must accompany our hands, 1 Timothy ii. 8. (Calmet)

Haydock: Lam 3:42

Inexorable. Hebrew and Septuagint, "Thou hast not shewn pity." (Haydock)

Haydock: Lam 3:43

Covered thyself, as if not to see our distress.

Haydock: Lam 3:44

Cloud. Isaias lix. 2., and Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 21. These expressions are admirable.

Haydock: Lam 3:47

Prophecy. Many would read, vastatio. Hebrew, "ruin." Septuagint, "taking away." (Calmet) ---

Protestants, "Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction." The prophets were continually in danger. (Haydock) ---

The preaching of false prophets has brought these evils upon the people. (Worthington)

Haydock: Lam 3:51

Wasted. Literally, "robbed." (Haydock) ---

I have felt more for my people than they have themselves. Moral writers often product this text, to shew the dangers of an unguarded glance (Calmet) at women.

Haydock: Lam 3:53

Over me, as if I were buried. (Haydock) ---

Jeremias was in prison (chap. xxxviii. 6.) when he prayed, ver. 54., and chap. xx. 7. (Calmet)

Haydock: Lam 3:59

Judge what they have judged unjustly. (Worthington)

Haydock: Lam 3:62

Lips; or language (Genesis xi. 1.) thou knowest, ver. 60.

Haydock: Lam 3:63

Up, all their conduct. ---

Song. Ver. 14.

Haydock: Lam 3:65

Buckler, to cover all the body. They shall be surrounded with misery, (Psalm cviii. 29.) while God will protect his servants, Psalm v. 13. (Calmet) ---

Let sorrow pierce their heart, as thy enemies are treated. (Worthington)

Gill: Lam 3:41

Let us lift up our heart with our hands,.... Lifting up of the hands is a prayer gesture, and is put for prayer itself; see Psa 141:2; but the heart must go along with it, or it is of no avail; the soul must be lifted up to God; there must be an ascending of that unto him, in earnest desires after him; in affection and love to him; in faith and dependence on him; and in hope and expectation of good things from him, Psa 25:1; this is the way in which men return to God, even by prayer and supplication. The Targum is,

"let us lift up our hearts, and cast away rapine and prey out of our hands;''

and Jarchi and Abendana mention a Midrash, that paraphrases it,

"let us lift up our hearts in truth to God, as a man washes his hands in purity, and casts away all filthiness from them;''

see Heb 10:22;

unto God in the heavens; who has made them, and dwells in them; and therefore prayer must be directed to him, as being there; so our Lord taught his disciples to pray, Mat 6:9; and which is a very great encouragement to faith in prayer; when it is considered that God is the Maker and possessor of heaven and earth; and that our help is in and expected from him who made all these; and besides the saints have a High Priest, an Advocate with the Father there, to plead their cause for them; and many great and good things are there laid up for them.

Gill: Lam 3:42

We have transgressed, and have rebelled,.... Here begins the prayer, the sense of which is directed to, though the words are not dictated; and it begins with confession of sin, as prayer should, especially when in such circumstances as the people of the Jews now were; and with confession of it, as a transgression of the law of God; and as rebellion against him, as every sin is, a breach of his law, a contempt of his authority, and a trampling under foot his legislative power, and an act of hostility against him; and so downright rebellion; every sin being an overt act of that kind; and which is aggravated by the favours before acknowledged to have been received:

thou hast not pardoned; as they apprehended; they had not the discovery and application of pardoning grace and mercy; otherwise pardon of sin with God is past, and includes all sin present and future, as well as past; but temporal afflictions being upon them, they concluded their sins were not pardoned; pardon of sin in Scripture often signifying the removal of such afflictions.

Gill: Lam 3:43

Thou hast covered with anger,.... Either himself; not as a tender father, that cannot bear to see the affliction of a child; this does not suit with anger; but rather as one greatly displeased, in whose face anger appears, being covered with it; or who covers his face with it, that he may not be seen, withdrawing his gracious presence; or hast put anger as a wall between thee and us, as Jarchi: so that there was no coming nigh to him: or else it means covering his people with it; so the Targum,

"thou hast covered "us" with anger;''

denoting the largeness and abundance of afflictions upon them; they were as it were covered with them, as tokens of the divine displeasure; one wave and billow after another passing over them. Sanctius thinks the allusion is to the covering of the faces of condemned malefactors, as a token of their being guilty:

and persecuted us; the Targum adds, in captivity; that is, pursued and followed us with fresh instances of anger and resentment; to have men to be persecutors is bad, but to have God to be a persecutor is dreadful:

thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied; had suffered them to be stain by the sword of the enemy, and had shown no compassion to them; See Gill on Lam 2:21; here, and in some following verses, the prophet, or the people he represents, are got to complaining again; though before he had checked himself for it; so hard it is under afflictions to put in practice what should be done by ourselves and others.

Gill: Lam 3:44

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,.... With wrath and anger, as a cloud; he wrapped up himself in thick darkness, so as not to be seen or come at: sin, when it appears not pardoned, is as a cloud between God and his people; and this causes him to show his anger and displeasure; which is the cloud about him, Or the hiding of his face. The Targum is,

"thou hast covered the heavens with the clouds of thy glory:''

that our prayer should not pass through; in such circumstances God seems to his people to be inexorable; and not a God hearing and answering prayer, as he is; as if there was no access unto him, or audience to be had of him, or acceptance of persons and prayers with him; whereas the throne of grace is always open and accessible: and there is a new and living way for believers always to approach unto God in; he is on a mercy seat, ready to receive and hear their prayers.

Gill: Lam 3:45

Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. Had given them up into the hands of the Gentiles, the Chaldeans, to be treated as the dirt of the streets, as the sweepings of a house; or the dross of metal; or anything that is vile, mean, and contemptible. The apostle seems to have some reference to this passage; and his words may be an illustration of it, 1Co 4:13.

Gill: Lam 3:46

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. Like lions and other beasts of prey, to devour us; or in way of scorn and derision; pouring out their reproaches upon us, and scoffs at us, for our religion, and the worship of God, and on account of present miseries and distresses; see Lam 2:16. The Targum adds,

"to decree against us evil decrees.''

Gill: Lam 3:47

Fear and a snare is come upon us,.... Or, "fear and a pit" ^m; the fear of failing into the pit of ruin and destruction, on the brink of which they saw themselves; or fear seized us, and caused us to flee; and a snare or pit was prepared for us to fall into; so that there was no escaping hence:

desolation and destruction; desolation or devastation of their land; and destruction of their city and temple; and of multitudes of them by the sword, famine, and pestilence; and the rest carried into captivity, excepting a few left desolate in the land.

Gill: Lam 3:48

Mine eye runneth down with rivers of waters,.... Denoting the greatness of his grief and trouble at the afflictions of his people, and the vast profusion of tears on that account. Here the prophet speaks in his own person, expressing the anguish of his soul he felt, and the floods of tears he shed:

for the destruction of the daughter of my people; for those that were slain of them, or carried captive; see Jer 9:1. The Targum is,

"for the destruction of the congregation of my people.''

Gill: Lam 3:49

Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not,.... From weeping, as the Targum: the prophet was continually weeping; the distresses of his people were always uppermost in his mind; and which so affected him, that it drew tears from his eyes, which constantly trickled down his cheeks:

without any intermission; or, "without intermissions" ⁿ; there were no stops or pauses in his grief, and in the expressions of it: or it may be rendered, "because there were no intermissions" ^o; that is, of the miseries of his people; so Jarchi,

"because there were no changes and passing away;''

that is of evils; and to the same purpose the Targum,

"because there is none that intermits my distress, and speaks comforts to me.''

Gill: Lam 3:50

Till the Lord look do: on, and behold from heaven. Disperses and dissipates the cloud that was about him; shines forth and manifests himself, and looks favourably upon his people, and delivers them out of their troubles: this the prophet was in hope of, and was waiting for; but, till it came to pass, could have no rest and comfort. The Targum is,

"till he look and behold my injury;''

as if he had regard to his own personal injury done him; but the former sense is best.

Gill: Lam 3:51

Mine eye affecteth mine heart,.... Seeing the desolation of his country; the ruins of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and the multitudes of those that were slain, and carried captive; and the distresses the rest were in; this affected his heart, and filled it with grief; as his heart also affected his eyes, and caused them to run down in rivers of water, as before expressed; or, as the Targum,

"the weeping of mine eyes is the occasion of hurt to my soul or life;''

his excessive weeping endangered his life:

because of all the daughters of my city; not Anathoth, his native place, but Jerusalem; so the Targum,

"of Jerusalem my city.''

The meaning is, that his heart was affected at seeing the ruin of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; or of the towns and cities round about it, which that was the metropolis of. Some, as Jarchi, render it, "more than all the daughters of my city" ^p; his heart was more affected with those calamities than those of the most tender sex, even than any or all of them.

Gill: Lam 3:52

Mine enemies chased me sore like a bird,.... That is weak and helpless, fearful and timorous; that flees from place to place when pursued; so it was with the prophet, or rather with the people of the Jews he represents; for here and in the following verses he speaks not only of himself, but of them; who, when they fled out of the city, were chased and pursued by the Chaldeans like a bird, till they were taken; see Jer 52:7;

without cause; which may be connected with the word "enemies", so the Targum; who were so without cause; they had done them no injury, to make them their enemies; and without reason pursued and chased them in the manner they did.

Gill: Lam 3:53

They have cut off my life in the dungeon,.... Jarchi interprets it,

"they bound me in the prison.''

Jeremiah was both in a prison and in a dungeon, where he was deprived of the society of men, as if he had been dead; and he was in danger of losing his life; but whether any respect is had to it here is not certain: it seems rather to respect the people of the Jews in captivity, who were deprived of their rights and liberties, and of the comforts of life; and were like dead men in their graves, to whom they are compared, Eze 37:11; but since Jeremiah was not dead, nor did he die in the dungeon, Jarchi's sense seems best, and agrees with what follows; and is confirmed by the version of others, who render it, "they shut up my life in the dungeon" ^q; or himself there:

and cast a stone upon me; to see if he was dead, or to prevent him from rising. The allusion is to the putting of stones at the mouths of dens and dungeons, caves and graves, to keep in those there put: or they stoned me, as the Targum; that is, they endeavoured to do it: or the Jews in captivity were like persons stoned to death, or like dead men covered with a heap of stones; for that Jeremiah was stoned to death there is no reason to believe.

Gill: Lam 3:54

Waters flowed over mine head,.... As in a pit or dungeon, where there is not only mire and clay, but much water, into which persons being put, sink, and are covered therewith; see Psa 69:1; this is to be understood metaphorically of the waters of afflictions, which overflowed and overwhelmed the people of the Jews. Jarchi interprets it of the nations of the world, as much people are often compared to waters; and here the Chaldeans may be particularly intended, whose army overflowed the land of Judea; and, like a mighty torrent, carried away the people, and wealth of it, and brought them into troubles, which were like deep waters:

then I said, I am cut off; while the waters are only up to a man's loins, he does not apprehend himself in danger; but there is hope of his wading through, and getting out; but when they rise above his head, his hopes are gone; he reckons it all over with him, and that he is just perishing, and his life in the utmost danger; there being scarce any probability or possibility of saving him; so it was with these people.

Gill: Lam 3:55

I called upon thy name, O Lord,.... As in times past, so in the present distress; when all hope was gone, and all help failed, still there was a God to go to, and call upon:

out of the low dungeon; or "dungeon of lownesses" ^r; the lowest dungeon, the deepest distress, a man or people could be in; yet then and there it is not too late to call upon the Lord; and there may be hope of deliverance out of such an estate by him.

Gill: Lam 3:56

Thou hast heard my voice,.... Either in times past, when he cried unto him, and was delivered; and this was an encouragement to call upon him again in such extremity, who had shown himself to be a God hearing and answering prayer; hence it follows:

hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry; turn not a deaf ear to me, who hast been wont to hear me heretofore; stop not thine ear at my cry now, at my prayer, which he calls his "breathing"; prayer is the breath of a soul regenerated by the Spirit, and is a sign and evidence of life, when it is spiritual; in it a soul pants after God, and communion with him, and salvation by him. Some render it, "at my gasping" ^s; or "panting", for breath; just ready to expire, unless immediate help is given: or else the whole of this refers to the present time, when the Lord heard and answered, not only the first clause, but this also; which may be rendered, not by way of petition, but affirmation, "thou didst not hide thine ear at my breathing, at my cry" ^t; and this agrees both with what goes before, and with what is expressed in Lam 3:57.

Gill: Lam 3:57

Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee,.... When persons draw nigh to God in a way of duty, and particularly in this of prayer, and calling on his name; he draws nigh to them in a way of grace and mercy, and manifests himself to them, and works salvation for them. The Targum is,

"thou didst cause an angel to draw near to deliver me in the day that I prayed unto thee:''

thou saidst, fear not; any of thine enemies; or that thou shouldest not be delivered from them; see Isa 41:10.

Gill: Lam 3:58

O Lord, thou hast pleaded the cause of my soul,.... Or, causes of "my soul", or "life" ^u; such as concerned his soul and life: not one only, but many of them; and this respects not Jeremiah only, and the Lord's pleading his cause against Zedekiah and his nobles; but the people of the Jews in former times, when in Egypt, and in the times of the judges:

thou hast redeemed my life; by delivering out of the pit and dungeon, where it was in danger; and not only him, but the whole body of the people of old out of Egypt, and out of the hands of their enemies, the Philistines and others.

Gill: Lam 3:59

O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong,.... Or, "my perverseness" ^w; not that he or they had been guilty of; but the wrong that was done to him and them by their enemies; how perverse and ill natured they had been to them; how badly they had used them; what injuries they had done them; none of which escaped the omniscience of God, to which the appeal is made; and upon this follows a petition:

judge thou my cause; the present one; as thou hast pleaded and judged many already, do me justice, right my wrongs, an, save me from mine enemies; and let it appear to all the world my cause is just, and they are in the wrong.

Gill: Lam 3:60

Thou hast seen all their vengeance,.... The spirit of revenge in them; their wrath and fury, and how they burn with a desire of doing mischief; as well as their revengeful actions, carriage, and behaviour:

and all their imaginations against me; their secret contrivances of mischief, their plots and schemes they devise to do hurt unto me.

Gill: Lam 3:61

Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord,.... Their reproachful words uttered against the prophet and his people, against God himself; their spiteful language, their taunts, and scoffs and jeers:

and all their imaginations against me; those he not only saw, as they appeared in their actions; but heard them, as they were expressed by their words; yea, they were manifest to him, while they only were in silent thought forming in the mind.

Gill: Lam 3:62

The lips of those that rose up against me,.... This is to be connected with the preceding words; and expresses the same thing in different language. The sense is, that the Lord heard the words which dropped from the lips of his enemies; their sarcasms, flouts, and jeers; their bitter reflections, severe invectives, and scornful language:

and their device against me all the day; or, "their meditation of ill against me"; or, "their speech", or discourse ^x; which all turned upon the same topic. Schultens ^y derives the word from the Arabic word which signifies to mock and scoff, or pursue anyone with ironical and satirical expressions; and so may intend here contumelious and reproachful language.

Gill: Lam 3:63

Behold their sitting down, and their rising up,.... All their actions; the whole course of their lives; all which fell under the divine omniscience, Psa 139:2; but that is not barely here meant; but that he would take particular notice hereof, and punish for the same. It may have respect both to their lying down at night, and rising in the morning; and to their sitting down at meals, and rising from them; at which times they were always meditating mischief against the people of God, or speaking opprobriously of them; when they made sport of them, as follows:

I am their music; or "music maker" ^z; as Samson was to the Philistines; the matter of their mirth; the subject of their song; and the object of their derision.

Gill: Lam 3:64

Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render this, and the following verses, not as petitions, but as prophecies of what should be; but they seem rather to be expressed by way of request; and here, that God would deal with them according to the law of retaliation, and requite them according to what they had done; that he would do to them as they had done to the Lord's people, and others; and this is ordered to be done particularly to the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, Jer 50:15.

Gill: Lam 3:65

Give them sorrow of heart,.... That which will cause sorrow of heart; such judgments and punishments as will be grievous to them. Some have observed a likeness between the word here used and that translated "music", Lam 3:63; and think some respect may be had to it; that whereas the people of God had been matter of mirth and music to them, God would give them music, but of another sort; a song, but a doleful one. The Septuagint version renders it, "a covering of the heart"; the word ^a having the signification of a shield, which covers; and may signify blindness, hardness, and stupidity of heart, that they might not see the evils coming upon them, and how to escape them. A modern learned interpreter, Christianus Benedictus Michaelis, would have it compared with the Arabic word , "ganan", which signifies "to be mad", and from whence is "muganah", "madness"; and so the sense be, give them distraction of mind:

lay curse unto them: and what greater curse is there than to be given up to judicial blindness and hardness of heart, or to madness and distraction? it may include all the curses of the law denounced against transgressors.

Gill: Lam 3:66

Persecute and destroy them in anger,.... As they have persecuted the people of God, do thou persecute them; and never leave pursuing them untie thou hast made a full end of them, as the effect of vindictive wrath and vengeance:

from under the heavens of the Lord; which are made by him, and in which he dwells; let them not have the benefit of them, nor so much as the sight of them; but let them perish from under them, Jer 10:11.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Lam 3:41

¹ tc The MT reads the singular noun לְבָבֵנוּ (lÿvavenu, “our heart”) but the ancient versions (LXX, Aramaic Targum, Latin Vulgate) and many medieval Hebrew mss read the plural noun לְבָבֵינוּ (lÿvavenu, “our hearts”). Hebrew regularly places plural pronouns on singular nouns used as a collective (135 times on the singular “heart” and only twice on the plural “hearts”). The plural “hearts” in any Hebrew construction is actually rather rare. The LXX renders similar Hebrew constructions (singular “heart” plus a plural pronoun) with the plural “hearts” about 1/3 of the time, therefore it cannot be considered evidence for the reading. The Vulgate may have been influenced by the LXX. Although a distributive sense is appropriate for a much higher percentage of passages using the plural “hearts” in the LXX, no clear reason for the differentiation in the LXX has emerged. Likely the singular Hebrew form is original but the meaning is best represented in English with the plural.

NET Notes: Lam 3:42

¹ tn The Heb emphasiszes the pronoun “We – we have sinned….” Given the contrast with the following, it means “For our part, we have sinned….” A poetic reading in English would place vocal emphasis on “we” followed by a short pause.

² tn Heb “We have revolted and we have rebelled.” The two verbs פָשַׁעְנוּ וּמָרִינוּ (pasha’nu umarinu, “we have revolted and we have rebelled”) form a verbal hendiadys in which the synonyms emphasize the single idea.

³ tn The Heb emphasiszes the pronoun “You – you have not forgiven.” Given the contrast with the preceding, it means “For your part, you have not forgiven.” A poetic reading in English would place vocal emphasis on “you” followed by a short pause.

NET Notes: Lam 3:43

¹ tn Heb “covered.” The object must be supplied either from the next line (“covered yourself”) or from the end of this line (“covered us”).

NET Notes: Lam 3:45

¹ tn Heb “offscouring and refuse.” The two nouns סְחִי וּמָאוֹס (sÿkhi uma’os) probably form a nominal hendiadys, in which the first noun functions as an adjective and the second retains its full nominal sense: “filthy refuse,” i.e., “filthy scum.”

² tn Heb “in the midst of.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:46

¹ tn Heb “open wide their mouths.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:47

¹ tn The similar sounding nouns פַּחַד וָפַחַת (pakhad vafakhat, “panic and pitfall”) are an example of paronomasia.

² tn Similar to the paronomasia in the preceding line, the words הַשֵּׁאת וְהַשָּׁבֶר (hashe’t vÿhashaver, “devastation and destruction”) form an example of alliteration: the beginning of the words sound alike.

NET Notes: Lam 3:48

¹ tn Heb “canals.” The phrase “canals of water” (eye water = tears) is an example of hyperbole. The English idiom “streams of tears” is also hyperbolic.

² tn Heb “my eyes flow down with canals of water.”

³ tn Heb “the daughter of my people,” or “the Daughter, my people.”

⁴ tn Heb “because of the destruction of [the daughter of my people].”

NET Notes: Lam 3:49

¹ tn Heb “my eye flows.” The term “eye” is a metonymy of association, standing for the “tears” which flow from one’s eyes.

² tn Heb “without stopping.” The noun הַפוּגָה (hafugah, “stop”) is a hapax legomenon (word that occurs only once in Hebrew scriptures). The form of the noun is unusual, probably being derived from the denominative Hiphil verbal stem of the root פּוּג (pug, “to grow weary, ineffective; numb, become cold”).

NET Notes: Lam 3:50

¹ tn The phrase “what has happened” is added in the translation for smoother English style and readability.

NET Notes: Lam 3:51

¹ tn Heb “my eye causes grief to my soul.” The term “eye” is a metonymy of association, standing for that which one sees with the eyes.

² tn Heb “my soul.” The term נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is a synecdoche of part (= my soul) for the whole person (= me).

³ tn Heb “at the sight of all the daughters of my city.” It is understood that seeing the plight of the women, not simply seeing the women, is what is so grievous. To make this clear, “suffering” was supplied in the translation.

NET Notes: Lam 3:52

¹ tn Heb “without cause.”

² tn The construction צוֹד צָדוּנִי (tsod tsaduni, “they have hunted me down”) is emphatic: Qal infinitive absolute of the same root of Qal perfect 3rd person common plural + 1st person common singular suffix.

NET Notes: Lam 3:53

¹ tn Heb “my life.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:54

¹ tn Heb “I said,” meaning “I said to myself” = “I thought.”

² tn Heb “I was about to be cut off.” The verb נִגְזָרְתִּי (nigzarti), Niphal perfect 1st person common singular from גָּזַר (gazar, “to be cut off”), functions in an ingressive sense: “about to be cut off.” It is used in reference to the threat of death (e.g., Ezek 37:11). To be “cut off” from the hand of the living means to experience death (Ps 88:6).

NET Notes: Lam 3:55

¹ tn Heb “from a pit of lowest places.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:56

¹ tn The verb could be understood as a precative, “hear my plea,” parallel to the following volitive verb, “do not close.”

² tn Heb “my voice.”

³ tn The preposition ל (lamed) continues syntactically from “my plea” in the previous line (e.g. Ex 5:2; Josh 22:2; 1 Sam 8:7; 12:1; Jer 43:4).

NET Notes: Lam 3:57

¹ tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Draw near”). The perspective of the poem seems to be that of prayer during distress rather than a testimony that God has delivered.

² tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Say”).

NET Notes: Lam 3:58

¹ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”) as in the following verse. See the tc note at 1:14.

² tn This verb, like others in this stanza, could be understood as a precative (“Plead”).

³ tn Heb “the causes of my soul.” The term נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is a synecdoche of part (= my soul) for the whole person (= me).

NET Notes: Lam 3:59

¹ tn Heb “Please judge my judgment.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:60

¹ tc The MT reads לִי (li, “to me”); but many medieval Hebrew mss and the ancient versions (Aramaic Targum, Syriac Peshitta, Latin Vulgate) all reflect a Vorlage of עָלָי (’alay, “against me”).

NET Notes: Lam 3:61

¹ tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Hear”).

NET Notes: Lam 3:62

¹ tn Heb “the lips of my assailants and their thoughts.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:63

¹ tn Heb “their rising and their sitting.” The two terms שִׁבְתָּם וְקִימָתָם (shivtam vÿqimatam, “their sitting and their rising”) form a merism: two terms that are polar opposites are used to encompass everything in between. The idiom “from your rising to your sitting” refers to the earliest action in the morning and the latest action in the evening (e.g., Deut 6:7; Ps 139:3). The enemies mock Jerusalem from the moment they arise in the morning until the moment they sit down in the evening.

NET Notes: Lam 3:64

¹ tn Heb “Please cause to return.” The imperfect verb תָּשִׁיב (tashiv), Hiphil imperfect 2nd person masculine singular from שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”), functions in a volitional sense, like an imperative of request. The Hiphil stem of שׁוּב (shuv, in the Hiphil “to cause to return”) often means “to make requital, to pay back” (e.g., Judg 9:5, 56; 1 Sam 25:39; 1 Kgs 2:32, 44; Neh 3:36; Prov 24:12, 29; Hos 12:3; Joel 4:4, 7) (BDB 999 s.v. שׁוּב 4.a).

² tn Heb “recompense to them.” The noun גְּמוּל (gÿmul, “dealing, accomplishment”) has two metonymical (cause-effect) meanings: (1) positive “benefit” and (2) negative “retribution, requital, recompense,” the sense used here (e.g., Pss 28:4; 94:2; 137:8; Prov 19:17; Isa 35:4; 59:18; 66:6; Jer 51:6; Lam 3:64; Joel 4:4, 7). The phrase תָּשִׁיב גְּמוּל (tashiv gÿmul) means “to pay back retribution” (e.g., Joel 4:4, 7), that is, to return the deeds of the wicked upon them as a display of talionic or poetic justice.

³ tn Heb “their hands.” The term “hand” is a synecdoche of part (= hands) for the whole person (= they).

⁴ tn Heb “according to the work of their hands.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:65

¹ tn The noun מְגִנַּה (mÿginnah) is a hapax legomenon. Its meaning is debated; earlier lexicographers suggested that it meant “covering” (BDB 171 s.v.), but more recent lexicons suggest “shamelessness” or “insanity” (HALOT 546 s.v.). The translation is based on the term being parallel to “curse” and needing to relate to “heart.” Cf. NRSV “anguish of heart.”

NET Notes: Lam 3:66

¹ tn Heb “pursue.” The accusative direct object is implied in the Hebrew, and inserted in the translation.

Geneva Bible: Lam 3:41

Let us lift up ^{( u )} our heart with [our] hands to God in the heavens.

^{( u )} That is, both hearts and hands: for else to lift up the hands is but hypocrisy.

Geneva Bible: Lam 3:51

My eye ^{( x )} affecteth my heart because of all the daughters of my city.

^{( x )} I am overcome with sore weeping for all my people.

Geneva Bible: Lam 3:53

They have cut off my life ^{( y )} in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

^{( y )} Read (Jer 37:16) how he was in the miry dungeon.

Geneva Bible: Lam 3:58

O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my ^{( z )} soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

^{( z )} Meaning, the reason his life was in danger.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Lam 3:1-66

1 The prophet bewails his own calamities.

22 By the mercies of God, he nourishes his hope.

37 He acknowledges God's justice.

55 He prays for deliverance,

64 and vengeance on his enemies.

MHCC: Lam 3:37-41

While there is life there is hope; and instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope they will be better. We are sinful men, and what we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. We should complain to God, and not of him. We are apt, in times of calamity, to reflect on other people's ways, and blame them; but our duty is to search and try our own ways, that we may turn from evil to God. Our hearts must go with our prayers. If inward impressions do not answer to outward expressions, we mock God, and deceive ourselves.

MHCC: Lam 3:42-54

The more the prophet looked on the desolations, the more he was grieved. Here is one word of comfort. While they continued weeping, they continued waiting; and neither did nor would expect relief and succour from any but the Lord.

MHCC: Lam 3:55-66

Faith comes off conqueror, for in these verses the prophet concludes with some comfort. Prayer is the breath of the new man, drawing in the air of mercy in petitions, and returning it in praises; it proves and maintains the spiritual life. He silenced their fears, and quieted their spirits. Thou saidst, Fear not. This was the language of God's grace, by the witness of his Spirit with their spirits. And what are all our sorrows, compared with those of the Redeemer? He will deliver his people from every trouble, and revive his church from every persecution. He will save believers with everlasting salvation, while his enemies perish with everlasting destruction.

Matthew Henry: Lam 3:37-41

That we may be entitled to the comforts administered to the afflicted in the foregoing verses, and may taste the sweetness of them, we have here the duties of an afflicted state prescribed to us, in the performance of which we may expect those comforts.

I. We must see and acknowledge the hand of God in all the calamities that befal us at any time, whether personal or public, Lam 3:37, Lam 3:38. 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. 1. 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? Men can do nothing but according to the counsel of God, nor have any power or success but what is given them from above. A man's heart devises his way; he projects and purposes; he says that he will do so and so (Jam 4:13); but the Lord directs his steps far otherwise than he designed them, and what he contrived and expected does not come to pass, unless it be what God's hand and his counsel had determined before to be done, Pro 16:9; Jer 10:23. The Chaldeans said that they would destroy Jerusalem, and it came to pass, not because they said it, but because God commanded it and commissioned them to do it. Note, Men are but tools which the great God makes use of, and manages as he pleases, in the government of this lower world; and they cannot accomplish any of their designs without him. 2. That, whatever men's lot is, it is God that orders it: Out of the mouth of the Most High do not evil and good proceed? 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? Is it not what he has ordained and appointed for us? Yes, certainly it is; and for the reconciling of us to our own afflictions, whatever they be, this general truth must thus be particularly applied. This comfort I receive from the hand of God, and shall I not receive that evil also? so Job argues, Lam 2:10. Are we healthful or sickly, rich or poor? Do we succeed in our designs, or are we crossed in them? It is all what God orders; every man's judgment proceeds from him. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; he forms the light and creates the darkness, as he did at first. Note, All the events of divine Providence are the products of a divine counsel; whatever is done God has the directing of it, and the works of his hands agree with the words of his mouth; he speaks, and it is done, so easily, so effectually are all his purposes fulfilled.

II. We must not quarrel with God for any affliction that he lays upon us at any time (Lam 3:39): Wherefore does a living man complain? 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. "Do I well to be angry? Why do I fret thus?"Those who in their haste have chidden with God must, in the reflection, chide themselves for it. 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? What God does we must not open our mouths against, Psa 39:9. Those that blame their lot reproach him that allotted it to them. The sufferers in the captivity must submit to the will of God in all their sufferings. Note, Though we may pour out our complaints before God, we must never exhibit any complaints against God. What! Shall a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? The reasons here urged are very cogent. 1. We are men; let us herein show ourselves men. Shall a man complain? And again, a man! 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. We are men, and not children that cry for every thing that hurts them. We are men, and not gods, subjects, not lords; we are not our own masters, not our own carvers; we are bound and must obey, must submit. We are men, and not angels, and therefore cannot expect to be free from troubles as they are; we are not inhabitants of that world where there is no sorrow, but this where there is nothing but sorrow. We are men, and not devils, are not in that deplorable, helpless, hopeless, state that they are in, but have something to comfort ourselves with which they have not. 2. We are living men. Through the good hand of our God upon us we are alive yet, though dying daily; and shall a living man complain? No; he has more reason to be thankful for life than to complain of any of the burdens and calamities of life. Our lives are frail and forfeited, and yet we are alive; now the living, the living, they should praise, and not complain (Isa 38:19); while there is life there is hope, and therefore, instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope that they will be better. 3. 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. We have little reason to complain of our trouble, for it is our own doing; we may thank ourselves. Our own wickedness corrects us, Pro 19:3. We have no reason to quarrel with God, for he is righteous in it; he is the governor of the world, and it is necessary that he should maintain the honour of his government by chastising the disobedient. Are we suffering for our sins? Then let us not complain; for we have other work to do; instead of repining, we must be repenting; and, as an evidence that God is reconciled to us, we must be endeavouring to reconcile ourselves to his holy will. Are we punished for our sins? It is our wisdom then to submit, and to kiss the rod; for, if we still walk contrary to God, he will punish us yet seven times more; for when he judges he will overcome. But, if we accommodate ourselves to him, though we be chastened of the Lord we shall not be condemned with the world.

III. 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, Lam 3:40. These are the two things which our afflictions should put us upon. 1. A serious consideration of ourselves and a reflection upon our past lives. Let us search and try our ways, search what they have been, and then try whether they have been right and good or no; search as for a malefactor in disguise, that flees and hides himself, and then try whether guilty or not guilty. Let conscience be employed both to search and to try, and let it have leave to deal faithfully, to accomplish a diligent search and to make an impartial trial. Let us try our ways, that by them we may try ourselves, for we are to judge of our state not by our faint wishes, but by our steps, not by one particular step, but by our ways, the ends we aim at, the rules we go by, and the agreeableness of the temper of our minds and the tenour of our lives to those ends and those rules. When we are in affliction it is seasonable to consider our ways (Hag 1:5), that what is amiss may be repented of and amended for the future, and so we may answer the intention of the affliction. We are apt, in times of public calamity, to reflect upon other people's ways, and lay blame upon them; whereas our business is to search and try our own ways. We have work enough to do at home; we must each of us say, "What have I done? What have I contributed to the public flames?"that we may each of us mend one, and then we should all be mended. 2. 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. 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."This must accompany the former and be the fruit of it; therefore we must search and try our ways, that we may turn from the evil of them to God. This was the method David took. Psa 119:59, I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.

IV. We must offer up ourselves to God, and our best affections and services, in the flames of devotion, Lam 3:41. When we are in affliction, 1. We must look up to God as a God in the heavens, infinitely above us, and who has an incontestable dominion over us; for the heavens do rule, and are therefore not to be quarrelled with, but submitted to. 2. We must pray to him, with a believing expectation to receive mercy from him; for that is implied in our lifting up our hands to him (a gesture commonly used in prayer and sometimes put for it, as Psa 141:2, Let the lifting up of my hands be as the evening sacrifice ); it signifies our requesting mercy from him and our readiness to receive that mercy. (3.) Our hearts must go along with our prayers. We must lift up our hearts with our hands, as we must pour out our souls with our words. it is the heart that God looks at in that and every other service; for what will a sacrifice without a heart avail? If inward impressions be not in some measure answerable to outward expressions, we do but mock God and deceive ourselves. Praying is lifting up the soul to God (Psa 25:1) as to our Father in heaven; and the soul that hopes to be with God in heaven for ever will thus, by frequent acts of devotion, be still learning the way thither and pressing forward in that way.

Matthew Henry: Lam 3:42-54

It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. 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. They confess the righteousness of God in afflicting them (Lam 3:42): We have transgressed and have rebelled. Note, It becomes us, when we are in trouble, to justify God, by owning our sins, and laying the load upon ourselves for them. Call sin a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not miscall it. This is the result of their searching and trying their ways; the more they enquired into them the worse they found them. Yet,

II. 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.

1. They complain of his frowns and the tokens of his displeasure against them. Their sins were repented of, and yet (Lam 3:42), Thou hast not pardoned. They had not the assurance and comfort of the pardon; the judgments brought upon them for their sins were not removed, and therefore they thought they could not say the sin was pardoned, which was a mistake, but a common mistake with the people of God when their souls are cast down and disquieted within them. Their case was really pitiable, yet they complain, Thou hast not pitied, Lam 3:43. Their enemies persecuted and slew them, but that was not the worst of it; they were but the instruments in God's hand: " Thou hast persecuted us, and thou hast slain us, though we expected thou wouldst protect and deliver us."They complain that there was a wall of partition between them and God, and, (1.) This hindered God's favours from coming down upon them. 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."Or, " Thou hast covered us up as men that are buried are covered up and forgotten."(2.) It hindered their prayers from coming up unto God (Lam 3:44): " Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, "not like that bright cloud in which he took possession of the temple, which enabled the worshippers to draw near to him, but like that in which he came down upon Mount Sinai, which obliged the people to stand at a distance. "This cloud is so thick that our prayers seem as if they were lost in it; they cannot pass through; we cannot obtain an audience."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.

2. They complain of the contempt of their neighbours and the reproach and ignominy they were under (Lam 3:45): " Thou hast made us as the off-scouring, or scrapings, of the first floor, which are thrown to the dunghill."This St. Paul refers to in his account of the sufferings of the apostles. 1Co 4:13, We are made as the filth of the world and are the off-scouring of all things. "We are the refuse, or dross, in the midst of the people, trodden upon by every body, and looked upon as the vilest of the nations, and good for nothing but to be cast out as salt which has lost its savour. Our enemies have opened their mouths against us (Lam 3:46), have gaped upon us as roaring lions, to swallow us up, or made mouths at us, or have taken liberty to say what they please of us."These complaints we had before, Lam 2:15, Lam 2:16. Note, It is common for base and ill-natured men to run upon, and run down, those that have fallen into the depths of distress from the height of honour. But this they brought upon themselves by sin. If they had not made themselves vile, their enemies could not have made them so: but therefore men call them reprobate silver, because the Lord has rejected them for rejecting him.

3. They complain of the lamentable destruction that their enemies made of them (Lam 3:47): Fear and a snare have come upon us; the enemies have not only terrified us with those alarms, but prevailed against us by their stratagems, and surprised us with the ambushes they laid for us; and then follows nothing but desolation and destruction, the destruction of the daughter of my people (Lam 3:48), of all the daughters of my city, Lam 3:51. The enemies, having taken some of them like a bird in a snare, chased others as a harmless bird is chased by a bird of prey (Lam 3:52): My enemies chased me sorely like a bird which is beaten from bush to bush, as Saul hunted David like a partridge. Thus restless was the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless. They have done it without cause, without any provocation given them. Though God was righteous, they were unrighteous. David often complains of those that hated him without cause; and such are the enemies of Christ and his church, Joh 15:25. Their enemies chased them till they had quite prevailed over them (Lam 3:53): They have cut off my life in the dungeon. They have shut up their captives in close and dark prisons, where they are as it were cut off from the land of the living (as Lam 3:6), or the state and kingdom are sunk and ruined, the life and being of them are gone, and they are as it were thrown into the dungeon or grave and a stone cast upon them, such as used to be rolled to the door of the sepulchres. They look upon the Jewish nation as dead and buried, and imagine that there is not possibility of its resurrection. Thus Ezekiel saw it, in vision, a valley full of dead and dry bones. 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, Lam 3:54. Waters of affliction flowed over my head. The deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them. The Chaldean forces broke in upon them as the breaking forth of waters, which rose so high as to flow over their heads; they could not wade, they could not swim, and therefore must unavoidably sink. Note, The distresses of God's people sometimes prevail to such a degree that they cannot find any footing for their faith, nor keep their head above water, with any comfortable expectation.

4. They complain of their own excessive grief and fear upon this account. (1.) The afflicted church is drowned in tears, and the prophet for her (Lam 3:48, Lam 3:49): My eye runs down with rivers of water, so abundant was their weeping; it trickles down and ceases not, so constant was their weeping, without any intermission, there being no relaxation of their miseries. The distemper was in continual extremity, and they had no better day. It is added (Lam 3:51), " My eye affects my heart. My seeing eye affects my heart. The more I look upon the desolation of the city and country the more I am grieved. Which way soever I cast my eye, I see that which renews my sorrow, even because of all the daughters of my city, "all the neighbouring towns, which were as daughters to Jerusalem the mother-city. Or, My weeping eye affects my heart; the venting of the grief, instead of easing it, did but increase and exasperate it. Or, My eye melts my soul; I have quite wept away my spirits; not only my eye is consumed with grief, but my soul and my life are spent with it, Psa 31:9, Psa 31:10. Great and long grief exhausts the spirits, and brings not only many a gray head, but many a green head too, to the grave. I weep, ways the prophet, more than all the daughters of my city (so the margin reads it); he outdid even those of the tender sex in the expressions of grief. 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. (2.) She is overwhelmed with fears, not only grieves for what is, but fears worse, and gives up all for gone (Lam 3:54): " Then I said, I am cut off, ruined, and see no hope of recovery; I am as one dead."Note, Those that are cast down are commonly tempted to think themselves cast off, Psa 31:22; Jon 2:4.

5. In the midst of these sad complaints here is one word of comfort, by which it appears that their case was not altogether so bas as they made it, Lam 3:50. We continue thus weeping till the Lord look down and behold from heaven. This intimates, (1.) That they were satisfied that God's gracious regard to them in their miseries would be an effectual redress of all their grievances. "If God, who now covers himself with a cloud, as if he took no notice of our troubles (Job 22:13), would but shine forth, all would be well; if he look upon us, we shall be saved, "Psa 80:19; Dan 9:17. Bad as the case is, one favourable look from heaven will set all to rights. (2.) That they had hopes that he would at length look graciously upon them and relieve them; nay, they take it for granted that he will: "Though he contend long, he will not contend for ever, thou we deserve that he should."(3.) That while they continued weeping they continued waiting, and neither did nor would expect relief and succour from any hand but his; nothing shall comfort them but his gracious returns, nor shall any thing wipe tears from their eyes till he look down. Their eyes, which now run down with water, shall still wait upon the Lord their God until he have mercy upon them, Psa 123:2.

Matthew Henry: Lam 3:55-66

We may observe throughout this chapter a struggle in the prophet's breast between sense and faith, fear and hope; he complains and then comforts himself, yet drops his comforts and returns again to his complaints, as Psa 42:1-11. But, as there, so here, faith gets the last word and comes off a conqueror; for in these verses he concludes with some comfort. And here are two things with which he comforts himself: -

I. His experience of God's goodness even in his affliction. This may refer to the prophet's personal experience, with which he encourages himself in reference to the public troubles. He that has seasonably succoured particular saints will not fail the church in general. Or it may include the remnant of good people that were among the Jews, who had found that it was not in vain to wait upon God. In three things the prophet and his pious friends had found God good to them: - 1. 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 (Lam 3:44), 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. When they were in the low dungeon, as free among the dead, they called upon God's name (Lam 3:55); their weeping did not hinder praying. Note, Though we are cast into ever so low a dungeon, we may thence find a way of access to God in the highest heavens. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee (Psa 130:1), as Jonah out of the whale's belly. And could God hear them out of the low dungeon, and would he? 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. We read it as a petition for further audience: Hide not thy ear. 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. Observe how he calls prayer his breathing; for in prayer we breathe towards God, we breathe after him. Though we be but weak in prayer, cannot cry aloud, but only breathe in groanings that cannot be uttered, yet we shall not be neglected if we be sincere. Prayer is the breath of the new man, sucking in the air of mercy in petitions and returning it in praises; it is both the evidence and the maintenance of the spiritual life. Some read it, at my gasping. "When I lay gasping for life, and ready to expire, and thought i was breathing my last, then thou tookest cognizance of my distressed case."2. He had silenced their fears and quieted their spirits (Lam 3:57): " 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."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. But this was not all: Thou saidst, Fear not. This was the language of God's prophets preaching to them not to fear (Isa 41:10, Isa 41:13, Isa 41:14), of his providence preventing those things which they were afraid of, and of his grace quieting their minds, and making them easy, by the witness of his Spirit with their spirits that they were his people still, though in distress, and therefore ought not to fear. 3. He had already begun to appear for them (Lam 3:58): " O Lord! thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul "(that is, as it follows), " thou hast redeemed my life, hast rescued that out of the hands of those who would have taken it away, hast saved that when it was ready to be swallowed up, hast given me that for a prey."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."

II. He comforts himself with an appeal to God's justice, and (in order to the sentence of that) to his omniscience.

1. He appeals to God's knowledge of the matter of fact, how very spiteful and malicious his enemies were (Lam 3:59): " O Lord! thou hast seen my wrong, that I have done no wrong at all, but suffer a great deal."He that knows all things knew, (1.) 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."Note, We should consider, to our terror and caution, that God knows all the revengeful thoughts we have in our minds against others, and therefore we should not allow of those thoughts nor harbour them, and that he knows all the revengeful thoughts others have causelessly in their minds against us, and therefore we should not be afraid of them, but leave it to him to protect us from them. (2.) The designs and projects they had laid to do him a mischief: Thou hast seen all their imaginations against me (Lam 3:60), and again, " Thou hast heard all their imaginations against me (Lam 3:61), both the desire and the device they have to ruin me; whether it show itself in word or deed, it is known to thee; nay, though the products of it are not to be seen nor heard, yet their device against me all the day is perceived and understood by him to whom all things are naked and open."Note, The most secret contrivances of the church's enemies are perfectly known to the church's God, from whom they can hide nothing. (3.) The contempt and calumny wherewith they loaded him, all that they spoke slightly of him, and all that they spoke reproachfully: " Thou hast heard their reproach (Lam 3:61), all the bad characters they give me, laying to my charge things that I know not, all the methods they use to make me odious and contemptible, even the lips of those that rose up against me (Lam 3:62), the contumelious language they use whenever they speak of me, and that at their sitting down and rising up, when they lie down at night and get up in the morning, when they sit down to their meat and with their company, and when they rise from both, still I am their music; they make themselves and one another merry with my miseries, as the Philistines made sport with Samson."Jerusalem was the tabret they played upon. 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. Note, God will one day call sinners to account for all the hard speeches which they have spoken against him and his people, Jud 1:15.

2. He appeals to God's judgment upon this fact: " Lord, thou hast seen my wrong; there is no need of any evidence to prove it, nor any prosecutor to enforce and aggravate it; thou seest it in its true colours; and now I leave it with thee. Judge thou my cause, Lam 3:59. Let them be dealt with,"(1.) "As they deserve (Lam 3:64): Render to them a recompence according to the work of their hands. Let them be dealt with as they have dealt with us; let thy hand be against them as their hand has been against us. They have created us a great deal of vexation; now, Lord, give them sorrow of heart (Lam 3:65), 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. Give them despondence of heart "(so others read it); "let them be driven to despair, and give themselves up for gone."God can entangle the head that thinks itself clearest, and sink the heart that thinks itself stoutest. (2.) "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, Lam 3:65. They have loaded us with curses; as they loved cursing, so let it come unto them, thy curse which will make them truly miserable. Theirs is causeless, and therefore fruitless, it shall not come; but thine is just, and shall take effect. Those whom thou cursest are cursed indeed. Let the curse be executed, Lam 3:66. Persecute and destroy them in anger, as they persecute and destroy us in their anger. Destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord; let them have no benefit of the light and influence of the heavens. Destroy them in such a manner that all who see it may say, It is a destruction from the Almighty, who sits in the heavens and laughs at them (Psa 2:4), and may own that the heavens do rule, "Dan 4:26. 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. They shall be not only excluded from the happiness of the invisible heavens, but cut off from the comfort even of these visible ones, which are the heavens of the Lord (Psa 115:16) and which those therefore are unworthy to be taken under the protection of who rebel against him.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:40-42

Confession of sins, and complaint against the cruelty of enemies, as well as over the deep misery into which all the people have sunk. Lam 3:40-42. The acknowledgment of guilt implies to prayer, to which also there is a summons in Lam 3:40, Lam 3:41. The transitional idea is not, "Instead of grumbling in a sinful spirit, let us rather examine our conduct" (Thenius); for the summons to examine one's conduct is thereby placed in contrast with Lam 3:39, and the thought, "let every one mourn over his own sins," transformed into a prohibition of sinful complaint. The real transition link is given by Rosenmüller: quum mala nostra a peccatis nostris oriantur, culpas nostras et scrutemur et corrigamus . The searching of our ways, i.e., of our conduct, if it be entered on in an earnest spirit, must end in a return to the Lord, from whom we have departed. It is self-evident that עד יהוה does not stand for אל יי , but means as far as (even to) Jahveh, and indicates thorough conversion - no standing half-way. The lifting up of the heart to the hands, also, - not merely of the hands to God, - expresses earnest prayer, that comes from the heart. אל־כּפּים , to the hands (that are raised towards heaven). "To God in heaven," where His almighty throne is placed (Psa 2:4), that He may look down from thence (Lam 3:59) and send help. With Lam 3:42 begins the prayer, as is shown by the direct address to God in the second member. There is no need, however, on this account, for supplying לאמר before the first member; the command to pray is immediately followed by prayer, beginning with the confession of sins, and the recognition of God's chastisement; cf. Psa 106:6; Dan 9:5. נחנוּ is contrasted with אתּה . "Thou hast not pardoned," because Thy justice must inflict punishment.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:43-48

God has not pardoned, but positively punished, the people for their misdeeds. "Thou hast covered with anger," Lam 3:43, corresponds to "Thou hast covered with a cloud," Lam 3:44; hence "Thou hast covered" is plainly used both times in the same meaning, in spite of the fact that לך is wanting in Lam 3:43. סכך means to "cover," here to "make a cover." "Thou didst make a cover with anger," i.e., Thou didst hide Thyself in wrath; there is no necessity for taking סכך as in itself reflexive. This mode of viewing it agrees also with what follows. The objection of J. D. Michaelis, qui se obtegit non persequitur alios, ut statim additur , which Böttcher and Thenius have repeated, does not hold good in every respect, but chiefly applies to material covering. And the explanation of Thenius, "Thou hast covered us with wrath, and persecuted us," is shown to be wrong by the fact that סכך signifies to cover for protection, concealment, etc., but not to cover in the sense of heaping upon, pouring upon (as Luther translates it); nor, again, can the word be taken here in a sense different from that assigned to it in Lam 3:44. "The covering of wrath, which the Lord draws around Him, conceals under it the lightnings of His wrath, which are spoken of immediately afterwards" (Nägelsbach). The anger vents itself in the persecution of the people, in killing them unsparingly. For, that these two are connected, is shown not merely in Lam 3:66, but still more plainly by the threatening in Jer 29:18 : "I will pursue them with sword, and famine, and pestilence, and give them for maltreatment to all the kingdoms of the earth." On "Thou hast slain, Thou hast not spared," cf. Lam 2:21. In Lam 3:44, לך is further appended to סכּותה : "Thou makest a cover with clouds for Thyself," round about Thee, so that no prayer can penetrate to Thee; cf. Psa 55:2. These words form the expression of the painful conclusion drawn by God's people from their experience, that God answered no cry for help that came to Him, i.e., granted no help. Israel was thereby given up, in a defenceless state, to the foe, so that they could treat them like dirt and abuse them. סחי (from סחה , Eze 26:4), found only here as a noun, signifies "sweepings;" and מאוס is a noun, "disesteem, aversion." The words of Lam 3:45, indeed, imply the dispersion of Israel among the nations, but are not to be limited to the maltreatment of the Jews in exile; moreover, they rather apply to the conduct of their foes when Judah was conquered and Jerusalem destroyed. Such treatment, especially the rejection, is further depicted in Lam 3:46. The verse is almost a verbatim repetition of Lam 2:16, and is quite in the style of Jeremiah as regards the reproduction of particular thoughts; while Thenius, from the repetition, is inclined to infer that chs. 2 and 3 had different authors: cf. Gerlach on the other side. The very next verse might have been sufficient to keep Thenius from such a precipitate conclusion, inasmuch as it contains expressions and figures that are still more clearly peculiar to Jeremiah. On פּחד ופחת , cf. Jer 48:43; השׁבר is also one of the favourite expressions of the prophet. hashee't is certainly ἅπ. λεγ. , but reminds one of בּני , Num 24:17, for which in Jer 48:45 there stands בּני שׁאון . It comes from שׁאה , to make a noise, roar, fall into ruins with a loud noise, i.e., be laid waste (cf. Isa 6:11); and, as Raschi has already observed, it has the same meaning as שׁאיּה , "devastation," Isa 24:12. It is incorrect to derive the word from the Hiphil of נשׁא (J. D. Michaelis and Ewald), according to which it ought to mean "disappointment," for the ה does not form an essential portion of the word, but is the article, as והשׁבר shows. Still more erroneous are the renderings ἔπαρσις (lxx, from נשׂא ) and vaticinatio (Jerome, who has confounded השּׁאת with משּׂא ).

Over this terrible calamity, rivers of tears must be shed, until the Lord looks down from heaven on it, Lam 3:48-51. The prophet once more utters this complaint in the first person, because he who has risked his life in his endeavour to keep the people in the service of God must feel the deepest sympathy for them in their misfortunes. "Rivers of water" is stronger than "water," Lam 1:16, and "tears like a stream," Lam 2:18; but the mode of expression is in the main like that in those passages, and used again in Psa 119:136, but in a different connection. The second member of the verse is the same as in Lam 2:11.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:49-50

נגּר means to be poured out, empty self; cf. 2Sa 14:14; Mic 1:4. "And is not silent" = and rests not, i.e., incessantly; cf. Jer 14:17. מאין הפגות does not mean, eo quod non sint intermissiones miseriarum vel fletus (C. B. Michaelis and Rosenmüller, following the Chaldee), but "so that there is no intermission or drying up." As to הפגות , which means the same as פּוּגה , see on Lam 2:18. "Until the Lord look down from heaven and examine," in order to put an end to the distress, or to take compassion on His people. On ישׁקיף , cf. Psa 14:2; Psa 102:20.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:51

Lam 3:51, taken literally, runs thus: "Mine eye does evil to my soul" ( עולל with ל signifies to inflict an injury on one, cause suffering, as in Lam 1:2, Lam 1:22; Lam 2:20), i.e., it causes pain to the soul, as the Chaldee has already paraphrased it. The expression does not merely signify "causes me grief" (Thenius, Gerlach); but the eye, weakened through incessant weeping, causes pain to the soul, inasmuch as the pain in the eye increases the pain in the soul, i.e., heightens the pain of the soul through the superaddition of physical pain (Nägelsbach). Ewald has quite missed the meaning of the verse in his translation, "Tears assail my soul," and in his explanatory remark that עוללה is used in a bad sense, like the Latin afficit ; for, if עולל had this meaning, עיני could not stand for tears, because it is not the tears, but only the eyes weakened by weeping, that affect the soul with pain. Ewald is also wrong in seeking, with Grotius, to understand "the daughters of my city" as signifying the country towns, and to explain the phrase by referring to Lam 2:22. For, apart from the consideration that the appeal to Lam 2:22 rests on a false conception of that passage, the meaning attributed to the present verse is shown to be untenable by the very fact that the expression "daughters of my city" is never used for the daughter-towns of Jerusalem; and such a designation, however possible it might be in itself, would yet be quite incomprehensible in this present connection, where there is no other subject of lamentation, either before or after, than Jerusalem in its ruined condition, and the remnant of its inhabitants (Gerlach). "The daughters of my city" are the daughters of Jerusalem, the female portion of the inhabitants of the city before and after its destruction. Nor will what is added, "because of the daughters of my city," seem strange, if we consider that, even in Lam 1:4, Lam 1:18 and Lam 2:20-21, the fate and the wretched condition of the virgins of the city are mentioned as peculiarly deplorable, and that, in fact, the defenceless virgins were most to be pitied when the city fell; cf. Lam 5:11. But the objection of Böttcher and Thenius, that מכּל בּנות forms a harsh construction, whether we view it grammatically or in the light of the circumstances, inasmuch as מן , after "mine eye pains me," is unsuitable, whether taken in a causal or a comparative meaning: - this objection, certainly, has some truth in its favour, and tells against any attempt to take the words as indicating a comparison. but there is nothing against the causal meaning, if "mine eyes causes pain to my soul" merely signifies "my eye pains me," because the pain of the eye is the result of the profuse weeping. If those words, however, possess the meaning we have given above (the pain in the eyes increases the smart in the soul), then there is nothing strange at all in the thought, "The evil condition of the daughters of my city is so deplorable, that mine eyes fail through weeping, and the sorrow of my soul is thereby intensified." Gerlach has already refuted, though more fully than was necessary, the conjecture of Böttcher, that בּנות should be changed into בּכּות (from all the weeping of my city).

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:52

His pain and sorrow over the sad condition of the people recall to his memory the persecutions and sufferings which the godly have endured. The figure, "They who without cause are mine enemies have hunted me like a bird," is an imitation of Psa 11:1. איבי חנּם reminds one of שׂנאי , Psa 35:19 and Psa 69:5. But the prophet prefers איבי to שׂנאי , lest any one should restrict the words to persecutions which arose out of personal hatred.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:53-54

צמתוּ is here used transitively in Kal, as the Piel is elsewhere, Psa 119:139, and the Pilpel, Psa 88:17. צמתוּ בבּור , "they were destroying (cutting off) my life down into the pit," is a pregnant construction, and must be understood de conatu : "they sought to destroy my life when they hurled me down into the pit, and cast stones on me," i.e., not "they covered the pit with a stone" (Pareau, De Wette, Neumann). The verb ידה construed with בּ does not take this meaning, for ידה merely signifies to cast, e.g., lots (Jos 4:3, etc.), arrows (Jer 50:14), or to throw down = destroy, annihilate, Zec 2:4; and בּי does not mean "in the pit in which I was," but "upon (or against) me." The sing. אבן is to be understood in accordance with the expression רגם אבן , to cast stones = stone (1Ki 12:18; Lev 20:2, Lev 20:27). As to ויּדּוּ for ויידּוּ , see on ויּגּה in Lam 3:33. "Waters flowed over my head" is a figurative expression, denoting such misery and distress as endanger life; cf. Psa 59:2-3, Psa 59:15., Psa 124:4., Psa 42:8. 'I said (thought), I am cut off (from God's eyes or hand)," Psa 31:23; Psa 88:6, is a reminiscence from these Psalms, and does not essentially differ from "cut off out of the land of the living," Isa 43:8. For, that we must thereby think of death, or sinking down into Sheol, is shown by מבּור תּחתּיּות , Lam 3:55. The complaint in these verses (52-54) is regarded by some expositors as a description of the personal sufferings of Jeremiah; and the casting into the pit is referred to the incident mentioned in Jer 38:6. Such is the view, for instance, taken by Vaihinger and Nägelsbach, who point for proof to these considerations especially: (1) That the Chaldeans certainly could not, without good cause (Lam 3:53), be understood as the "enemies;" (2) that Jeremiah could not represent the people, speaking as if they were righteous and innocent; and (3) that the writer already speaks of his deliverance from their power, and contents himself with merely calling down on them the vengeance of God (Lam 3:55-66). But not one of these reasons is decisive. For, in the first place, the contents of Lam 3:52 do not harmonize with the known hostility which Jeremiah had to endure from his personal enemies. That is to say, there is nothing mentioned or known of his enemies having stoned him, or having covered him over with a stone, after they had cast him into the miry pit (Jer 38:6.), The figurative character of the whole account thus shows itself in the very fact that the separate portions of it are taken from reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, whose figurative character is universally acknowledged. Moreover, in the expression איבי חנּם , even when we understand thereby the Chaldeans, it is not at all implied that he who complains of these enemies considers himself righteous and innocent, but simply that he has not given them any good ground for their hostile conduct towards him. And the assertion, that the writer is already speaking of his deliverance from their power, rests on the erroneous notion that, in Lam 3:55-66, he is treating of past events; whereas, the interchange of the perfects with imperatives of itself shows that the deliverance of which he there speaks is not an accomplished or bygone fact, but rather the object of that assured faith which contemplates the non-existent as existent. Lastly, the contrast between personal suffering ad the suffering of the people, on which the whole reasoning rests, is quite beside the mark. Moreover, if we take the lamentations to be merely symbolical, then the sufferings and persecutions of which the prophet here complains are not those of the people generally, but of the godly Israelites, on whom they were inflicted when the kingdom was destroyed, not merely by the Chaldeans, but also by their godless fellow-countrymen. Hence we cannot, of course, say that Jeremiah here speaks from personal experience; however, he complains not merely of the persecutions that befall him personally, but also of the sufferings that had come on him and all godly ones. The same remark applies to the conclusion of this lamentation, - the prayer, Lam 3:55-66, in which he entreats the Lord for deliverance, and in the spirit of faith views this deliverance as already accomplished.

Keil-Delitzsch: Lam 3:55-66

Prayer for deliverance, and confident trust in its realization. Lam 3:55. "Out of the lowest pit I call, O Lord, on Thy name;" cf. Psa 88:7, Psa 88:14; Psa 130:1. The perfect קראתי is not a preterite,

(Note: The perfects are so viewed by Nägelsbach, who also thinks that the speaker, in Lam 3:55-58, thanks the Lord for deliverance from the pit, and in Lam 3:55 reminds the Lord of the prayer he has addressed to Him out of the pit. But could he possibly think that the Lord had forgotten this? What, we should like to know, would be the use of this reminder, even if ' תּעלם וגו , Lam 3:56, could be taken as the words of address to the Lord? For we can discover no thanksgiving in Lam 3:55-58. This whole mode of viewing the passage breaks down before Lam 3:59 : "Thou hast seen mine oppression; judge me!" For, if the perfects in Lam 3:55-58 are preterites, then also ראיתה , Lam 3:59, can only be a preterite; and the prophet can only be speaking of injustice that has been done him previously: hence he cannot add thereto the request, "Judge me," inasmuch as the Lord (according to Nägelsbach) has already judged him by delivering him from the pit. Moreover, it is quite arbitrary to understand the perfects in Lam 3:59 and Lam 3:62 as referring to what has been done and is still being done to the speaker by his enemies, if it be agreed that the perfects in Lam 3:55-58 refer only to past events.)

but expresses what has already happened, and still happens. This is evident from the fact that the corresponding perfect, שׁמעתּ , Lam 3:56, is continued by the optative אל־תּעלם . בּור תּחתּיּות is taken from Psa 88:7 : "pit of the lower regions of the earth,"-the תּחתּיּות ארץ , Psa 63:10; Eze 32:18, Eze 32:24, i.e., Sheol, essentially the same with מהשׁכּים , Lam 3:6, which is thereby connected with Psa 88:7, - the dark regions of the depth, whose open mouth is the grave for every one (see Delitzsch on Psalms, l.c.), hence the symbol of mortal danger.

Lam 3:56-66

"Thou hast heard my voice" expresses the full assurance of faith from which the request comes: "Cover not Thine ear from my sighing." רוחה , "breathing out again;" in Eze 8:11, mitigation of oppression, yet not here respiratio, relaxatio (C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, etc.), - since the asyndetic לשׁועתי does not accord with such an interpretation, - but a relieving of oneself by means of deeply-drawn sighs, as in Job 32:20; hence "sighing," as Luther has already rendered it, following the Vulgate: ne avertas aurem tuum a singultu meo (Thenius, Gerlach, etc.). - In Lam 3:57 and Lam 3:58, the writer still more fully expresses his confidence that the Lord will accept him. "Thou art near on the day when I call on Thee" is a sentence found in Psa 145:18, and uttered as the experience of all believers. "Thou sayest, Fear not," i.e., Thou assurest me of Thine assistance; cf. Jer 1:8, Jer 1:17, etc. "Thou dost conduct the causes (Ger. Streitsachen ) of my soul" ( ריבי נפשׁי ), i.e., not merely "my lawsuits," but causas quae vitam et salutem meam concernunt (C. B. Michaelis). This is shown by the parallel member, "Thou redeemest my life," sc. from the destruction which threatens it; cf. Lam 3:53., Psa 103:4. With this is connected the request in Lam 3:59, "Thou dost certainly see my oppression" ( עוּתה from עוּת , to bend, oppress), the oppression which I suffer; "judge my cause," i.e., help me in my cause, cf. Jer 5:28. The suppliant bases this request, Lam 3:60-62, on the recollection that God, as the Omniscient One, knows the plans and intentions of his opponents. "Thou seest all their plans for revenge." נקמה is not here the outcome of revenge, but the thought of revenge cherished in the heart; it does not, however, mean desire of revenge, or revengeful disposition, but simply the thinking and meditating on revenge, which certainly has the spirit of revenge for its basis, but is not identical with this. Their thoughts are the plans of vengeance. , לי dat. incomm ., "to my hurt;" the reading עלי of some codices is simply a correction after Lam 3:61. This revenge they express in reproaches and invectives. שׂפתי , "lips," for utterances of the lips; and קמי as in Psa 18:40, Psa 18:49 = קמים עלי , Psa 4:3, etc. שׂפתי קמי corresponds to חרפּתם , and חגיונם to מחשׁבתם , Lam 3:61; and the whole of Lam 3:62 still depends on "Thou hearest," without any need for supplying היוּ , as Rosenmüller does. Thenius and Nägelsbach would combine Lam 3:62 with 63, and make the former dependent on הבּיטה ; but this is unsuitable, nor do they consider that utterances or words are not seen ( הבּיט ), but heard ( שׁמע ). With this proposed combination there falls to the ground the further remark of Thenius, that "by lips, devising, sitting, rising up, are meant the conversation and consultation of the enemies one with another." Sitting and rising up have nothing in common with speaking about any subject, but merely form a circumlocution for action generally: cf. Psa 139:2; Deu 6:7; Deu 11:19; Isa 37:28. The form מנגּינה for נגינה occurs nowhere else: Ewald considers it a form that has been lengthened for the purpose of designating a mocking song - "Sing-song." This supposition has at least more to recommend it than the ingenious but worthless idea of Böttcher, that מנגּינה is contracted from מה־נגינה , "what a stringed instrument am I to them;" but it also is improbable. מנגּינה is the subject of the נגינה , as words formed with מ often express merely the subject of the idea contained in a noun or verb; cf. Ewald, §160, b , 3. After this statement of the hostile treatment which the speaker has to suffer, there follows the renewed and further extended request that God may reward the foes according to their deeds. תּשׁיב , "Thou shalt return," is a confident expression of the request that God would do this; hence the optative תּתּן follows in Lam 3:65. In Lam 3:64 is condensed the substance of what is contained in Psa 28:4. מגנּת לב , covering (veil) of the heart, - an expression analogous to the κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν , 2Co 3:15, - is not obduration, or hardening, but blinding of the heart, which casts into destruction; but it can scarcely signify "madness" (Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychology , Clark's translation), since the Arabic majannat , insania , furor , has probably received this meaning from jinn, genius, daemon ; cf. Gesenius, Thes. s. v. , and Rosenmüller, ad h. l. "Thy curse to them!" is not to be viewed as dependent on "give," but to be explained in accordance with Ps. 3:9, "Thy blessing [be] upon Thy people!" - thus, "May Thy curse be their portion!" The curse of God is followed by destruction. "Destroy them from under Jahveh's heaven!" i.e., not merely ut non sint amplius sub caelis (C. B. Michaelis), because יהוה is not considered in this latter rendering. The heaven of Jahveh is the whole world, over which Jahveh's authority extends; the meaning therefore is, "Exterminate them wholly from the sphere of Thy dominion in the world," or, Thy kingdom.

Constable: Lam 3:1-66

III. The prophet's response to divine judgment (the third lament) ch. 3

As mentioned previously, this lament is an acrostic in triplets; the same succeeding Hebrew consonant begins three verses instead of just one, as in the previous chapters. The verses are about one third as long as most of those in the first two chapters.

This chapter differs from the others in this book in that it contains a first-person narrative of the prophet's reactions to the sufferings he endured as the Lord's faithful servant. It is similar to the "confessions" sections in the Book of Jeremiah in that the prophet opened up and let the reader into his heart and mind.

"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 (vv. 22, 40-47)."³¹

Faithful servants of the Lord of all ages can identify with many of the prophet's sentiments expressed here.

"Chapter 3 is the heart of Jeremiah's short book. This chapter gives the book a positive framework around which the other chapters revolve. The black velvet of sin and suffering in chapters 1-2 and 4-5 serves as a fitting backdrop to display the sparkling brilliance of God's loyal love in chapter 3."³²

In parts of this chapter, Jeremiah spoke for the people of Jerusalem and Judah as well as for himself (e.g., vv. 22, 40-47).

"He speaks as a representative Israelite, facing the dark and baffling ways of Providence."³³

"In many respects this elegy crystallizes the basic themes of Lamentations, and as a fore-shadowing of the passion of Jesus Christ has definite affinities with Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22."³⁴

Constable: Lam 3:41-66

C. Jeremiah's prayer 3:41-66

The following section of the lament falls into two parts marked by Jeremiah's use of the plural (vv. 41-47) and singular personal pronouns (vv. 48-66). In the first part he called on the Judahites to confess their sins to God. In the second part he recalled God's past deliverance in answer to prayer, which motivated him to ask God to judge his enemies. In both sections the prophet modeled proper behavior for his people.

3:41 Jeremiah lifted up his heart as well as his hands to God in heaven; his praying was heartfelt, not just formal.

3:42 He and his people had transgressed the covenant and had rebelled against the Lord, and He had not pardoned their sin but allowed them to experience judgment.

3:43 The Lord had become angry over the sins of His people and had pursued them in judgment slaying them without stinting.

3:44 The Lord had blocked Himself off from His people, as a cloud blocks the heavens, so their prayers would not affect Him.

3:45-46 The Lord had made the Judahites as scum (Heb. sehi), namely, rejected as unfit for use.⁴⁵ This is how the other nations regarded them. Judah's enemies had also spoken against her (cf. 2:16).

3:47 The results of God's judgment for the Judahites had been panic. They had stumbled into pits that snared them. Devastation and destruction had become their allotment.

3:48-51 Jeremiah wept profusely and unremittingly because of the destruction that the Judahites had experienced (cf. Jer. 9:1; 14:17). He would do this until the Lord acknowledged the plight of His people by sending them some relief. What Jeremiah saw of the devastation of Jerusalem pained him greatly. Here "the daughters of my city" may refer to the dependent villages round about Jerusalem that the foe also took.⁴⁶

3:52 The prophet's enemies had pursued him mercilessly, as hunters track a bird.

3:53-54 They silenced him by placing him in a pit and covering its mouth with a large stone (cf. Jer. 38:1-6). He thought he would drown because of the water that engulfed him.

3:55-56 Jeremiah prayed to the Lord out of his desperate condition (cf. Ps. 88:7, 14; 130:1; Jon. 2:1). He believed the Lord had heard his prayer, and he begged that the Lord would pay attention to his petition and grant him deliverance.

3:57-58 In the past the Lord had heeded Jeremiah's prayers and had given him hope. The Lord had come to his rescue and had redeemed (delivered) him from destruction (cf. Lev. 25:25-28, 47-54; Ruth 4:1-12).

"No greater testimony can a sinner offer to God than to say, in thanksgiving, Thou hast redeemed my life' (3:58)."⁴⁷

3:59-61 Jeremiah knew that Yahweh had seen his affliction. He asked that He would judge him knowing that the Lord would be fair.

"Perhaps because of their status as the Chosen People the Jews were always sensitive to abuse and injury inflicted from outside, whatever the source. Consequently they found it impossible to overlook these hostile acts, with the result that the imprecations which they hurled at their enemies, while typical of such Near Eastern utterances, seem to possess an unexpected and unusual degree of vindictiveness (cf. Ps. 137:9)."⁴⁸

3:62-63 The prophet's enemies plotted against him constantly. But he called on God to witness all that his enemies were doing and how they had mocked him.

3:64-65 Jeremiah believed that the Lord would pay his enemies back as they deserved (cf. Ps. 28:4; 2 Cor. 3:15). He would harden their hearts and so bring judgment on them.

3:66 The Lord would pursue them anywhere they might go and destroy them in His anger. The Lord did this to Jeremiah's enemies when the city fell to the Babylonians (cf. Jer. 39:4-7; 52:7-11, 24-27).

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

In the Hebrew Bible these Elegies of Jeremiah, five in number, are placed among the Chetuvim, or "Holy Writings" ("the Psalms," &c., Luk 24:44), between Ruth and Ecclesiastes. But though in classification of compositions it belongs to the Chetuvim, it probably followed the prophecies of Jeremiah originally. For thus alone can we account for the prophetical books being enumerated by JOSEPHUS [Against Apion, 1.1.8] as thirteen: he must have reckoned Jeremiah and Lamentations as one book, as also Judges and Ruth, the two books of Samuel, &c., Ezra and Nehemiah. The Lamentations naturally follow the book which sets forth the circumstances forming the subject of the Elegies. Similar lamentations occur in 2Sa 1:19, &c.; 2Sa 3:33. The Jews read it in their synagogues on the ninth of the month Ab, which is a fast for the destruction of their holy city. As in 2Ch 35:25, "lamentations" are said to have been "written" by Jeremiah on the death of Josiah, besides it having been made "an ordinance in Israel" that "singing women" should "speak" of that king in lamentations; JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1], JEROME, &c., thought that they are contained in the present collection. But plainly the subject here is the overthrow of the Jewish city and people, as the Septuagint expressly states in an introductory verse to their version. The probability is that there is embodied in these Lamentations much of the language of Jeremiah's original Elegy on Josiah, as 2Ch 35:25 states; but it is now applied to the more universal calamity of the whole state, of which Josiah's sad death was the forerunner. Thus Lam 4:20, originally applied to Josiah, was "written," in its subsequent reference, not so much of him, as of the throne of Judah in general, the last representative of which, Zedekiah, had just been carried away. The language, which is true of good Josiah, is too strong in favor of Zedekiah, except when viewed as representative of the crown in general. It was natural to embody the language of the Elegy on Josiah in the more general lamentations, as his death was the presage of the last disaster that overthrew the throne and state.

The title more frequently given by the Jews to these Elegies is, "How" (Hebrew, Eechah), from the first word, as the Pentateuch is similarly called by the first Hebrew word of Gen 1:1. The Septuagint calls it "Lamentations," from which we derive the name. It refers not merely to the events which occurred at the capture of the city, but to the sufferings of the citizens (the penalty of national sin) from the very beginning of the siege; and perhaps from before it, under Manasseh and Josiah (2Ch 33:11; 2Ch 35:20-25); under Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah (2Ch 36:3-4, 2Ch 36:6-7, 2Ch 36:10-11, &c.). LOWTH says, "Every letter is written with a tear, every word the sound of a broken heart." The style is midway between the simple elevation of prophetic writing and the loftier rhythm of Moses, David, and Habakkuk. Terse conciseness marks the Hebrew original, notwithstanding Jeremiah's diffuseness in his other writings. The Elegies are grouped in stanzas as they arose in his mind, without any artificial system of arrangement as to the thoughts. The five Elegies are acrostic: each is divided into twenty-two stanzas or verses. In the first three Elegies the stanzas consist of triplets of lines (excepting Lam 1:7; Lam 2:19, which contain each four lines) each beginning with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in regular order (twenty-two in number). In three instances (Lam 2:16-17; Lam 3:46-51; Lam 4:16-17) two letters are transposed. In the third Elegy, each line of the three forming every stanza begins with the same letter. The stanzas in the fourth and fifth Elegies consist of two lines each. The fifth Elegy, though having twenty-two stanzas (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet), just as the first four, yet is not alphabetical; and its lines are shorter than those of the others, which are longer than are found in other Hebrew poems, and contain twelve syllables, marked by a cæsura about the middle, dividing them into two somewhat unequal parts. The alphabetical arrangement was adopted originally to assist the memory. GROTIUS thinks the reason for the inversion of two of the Hebrew letters in Lam 2:16-17; Lam 3:46-51; Lam 4:16-17, is that the Chaldeans, like the Arabians, used a different order from the Hebrews; in the first Elegy, Jeremiah speaks as a Hebrew, in the following ones, as one subject to the Chaldeans. This is doubtful.

JFB: Lamentations (Outline)

• THE SAD CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, THE HOPE OF RESTORATION, AND THE RETRIBUTION AWAITING IDUMEA FOR JOINING BABYLON AGAINST JUDEA. (Lam. 4:1-22)
• EPIPHONEMA, OR A CLOSING RECAPITULATION OF THE CALAMITIES TREATED IN THE PREVIOUS ELEGIES. (Lam. 5:1-22) (Psa 89:50-51).

TSK: Lamentations 3 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Lam 3:1, The prophet bewails his own calamities; Lam 3:22, By the mercies of God, he nourishes his hope; Lam 3:37, He acknowledges God’s justice; Lam 3:55, He prays for deliverance, Lam 3:64. and vengeance on his enemies.

Poole: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH

THE ARGUMENT

This book in Greek, Latin, and English hath its name from the subject matter of it, which is lamentation; so also amongst the Hebrew writers; but in the Hebrew it hath its name from the first word of the book, as also the five books of Moses have.

That it was wrote by Jeremiah none can reasonably question, because in the Hebrew it is styled, The Book of Jeremiah.

There is little controversy about the time or occasion of the writing of it. That the occasion was the miseries of the people, by reason of the famine, sword, and captivity, is evident to those that read any part of it; but whether they were those miseries which began with the death of Josiah, and held on till the city was taken, which was two and twenty or three and twenty years after, or those only which began with the siege and followed on many years, hath been doubted by some. That Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations, is plain from 2Ch 35:25 . But that these were the forms they used, or that they were composed upon that sad account, appeareth not; and the miseries which the prophet mentioneth befell not the people in the time of Josiah, but during the siege, more than twenty years after Josiah’ s death. Nor is there any thing which looks like a lamentation for Josiah through the whole book, unless Jer 4:20 , which (as we shall show) may also be fairly interpreted of Zedekiah. Some think that Jeremiah began to write them upon the death of Josiah, and continued his style to the time of the captivity, setting down all the miseries the people suffered all along that time.

The scope of the writing as to those whom it immediately concerned is plain and obvious, viz. to affect the people with those judgments which came upon them for their sins: as to us, (upon whom the ends of the world are come,) to mind us to take heed of their sins, lest we be sharers in their plagues.

The book is made up of complaints of their lamentable condition, petitions unto God for mercy, and prophecies both of their better estate and the ruin of their enemies.

In the four first chapters are several alphabets of letters beginning the several verses, each verse beginning with a new letter, only La 3 , every three verses begin with a new letter; the mystery of which we do not understand, nor possibly was there any mystery intended in it, only the chapters were so composed for the advantage of our memories.

The whole book lets us see from what a height of dignity to what a depth of misery sin may bring nations, how much soever interested in God; and likewise directs us to our duty in such states of affliction and misery if we would obtain mercy.

Poole: Lamentations 3 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 3

The faithful bewail their misery and contempt, Lam 3:1-21 . They nourish their hope by consideration of the justice, providence, and mercies of God, Lam 3:22-38 . They stir up themselves to repentance, patience, prayers, and confidence of deliverance for themselves, and Divine vengeance on their enemies, Lam 3:39-66 .

Some understand this of the prophet, some of the people, who were before set out under the notion of a woman, a daughter, here of a man.

MHCC: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

It is evident that Jeremiah was the author of the Lamentations which bear his name. The book was not written till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. May we be led to consider sin as the cause of all our calamities, and under trials exercise submission, repentance, faith, and prayer, with the hope of promised deliverance through God's mercy.

MHCC: Lamentations 3 (Chapter Introduction)

The faithful lament their calamities, and hope in God's mercies.

Matthew Henry: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Since what Solomon says, though contrary to the common opinion of the world, is certainly true, that sorrow is better than laughter, and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, we should come to the reading and consideration of the melancholy chapters of this book, not only willingly, but with an expectation to edify ourselves by them; and, that we may do this, we must compose ourselves to a holy sadness and resolve to weep with the weeping prophet. Let us consider, I. The title of this book; in the Hebrew it has one, but is called (as the books of Moses are) from the first word Ecah - How; but the Jewish commentators call it, as the Greeks do, and we from them, Kinoth - Lamentations. As we have sacred odes or songs of joy, so have we sacred elegies or songs of lamentation; such variety of methods has Infinite Wisdom taken to work upon us and move our affections, and so soften our hearts and make them susceptible of the impressions of divine truths, as the wax of the seal. We have not only piped unto you, but have mourned likewise, Mat 11:17. II. The penman of this book; it was Jeremiah the prophet, who is here Jeremiah the poet, and vates signifies both; therefore this book is fitly adjoined to the book of his prophecy, and is as an appendix to it. We had there at large the predictions of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, and then the history of them, to show how punctually the predictions were accomplished, for the confirming of our faith: now here we have the expressions of his sorrow upon occasion of them, to show that he was very sincere in the protestations he had often made that he did not desire the woeful day, but that, on the contrary, the prospect of it filled him with bitterness. When he saw these calamities at a distance, he wished that his head were waters and his eyes fountains of tears; and, when they came, he made it to appear that he did not dissemble in that wish, and that he was far from being disaffected to his country, which was the crime his enemies charged him with. Though his country had been very unkind to him, and though the ruin of it was both a proof that he was a true prophet and a punishment of them for prosecuting him as a false prophet, which might have tempted him to rejoice in it, yet he sadly lamented it, and herein showed a better temper than that which Jonah was of with respect to Nineveh. III. The occasion of these Lamentations was the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldean army and the dissolution of the Jewish state both civil and ecclesiastical thereby. Some of the rabbies will have these to be the Lamentations which Jeremiah penned upon occasion of the death of Josiah, which are mentioned 2Ch 35:25. But, though it is true that that opened the door to all the following calamities, yet these Lamentations seem to be penned in the sight, not in the foresight, of those calamities - when they had already come, not when they were at a distance; and these is nothing of Josiah in them, and his praise, as was no question, in the lamentations for him. No, it is Jerusalem's funeral that this is an elegy upon. Others of them will have these Lamentations to be contained in the roll which Baruch wrote from Jeremiah's mouth, and which Jehoiakim burnt, and they suggest that at first there were in it only the 1st, 2nd, and 4th chatpers, but that the 3rd and 5th were the many like words that were afterwards added; but this is a groundless fancy; that roll is expressly said to be a repetition and summary of the prophet's sermons, Jer 36:2. IV. The composition of it; it is not only poetical, but alphabetical, all except the 5th chatper, as some of David's psalms are; each verse begins with a several letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet, the first aleph, the second beth, etc., but the 3rd chapter is a triple alphabet, the first three beginning with aleph, the next three with beth, etc., which was a help to memory (it being designed that these mournful ditties should be got by heart) and was an elegance in writing then valued and therefore not now to be despised. They observe that in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chapters, the letter pe is put before ain, which in all the Hebrew alphabets follows it, for a reason of which Dr. Lightfoot offers this conjecture, That the letter ajin, which is the numeral letter for Septuagint, was thus, by being displaced, made remarkable, to put them in mind of the seventy years at the end of which God would turn again their captivity. V. The use of it: of great use, no doubt, it was to the pious Jews in their sufferings, furnishing them with spiritual language to express their natural grief by, helping to preserve the lively remembrance of Zion among them, and their children that never saw it, when they were in Babylon, directing their tears into the right channel (for they are here taught to mourn for sin and mourn to God), and withal encouraging their hopes that God would yet return and have mercy upon them; and it is of use to us, to affect us with godly sorrow for the calamities of the church of God, as becomes those that are living members of it and are resolved to take our lot with it.

Matthew Henry: Lamentations 3 (Chapter Introduction)

The scope of this chapter is the same with that of the two foregoing chapters, but the composition is somewhat different; that was in long verse, this is in short, another kind of metre; that was in single alphabets, this is in a treble one. Here is, I. A sad complaint of God's displeasure and the fruits of it (v. 1-20). II. Words of comfort to God's people when they are in trouble and distress (v. 21-36). III. Duty prescribed in this afflicted state (Lam 3:37-41). IV. The complaint renewed (Lam 3:42-54). V. Encouragement taken to hope in God, and continue waiting for his salvation, with an appeal to his justice against the persecutors of the church (Lam 3:55-66). 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. 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. Some think Jeremiah makes these complaints, not only as an intercessor for Israel, but as a type of Christ, who was thought by some to be Jeremiah the weeping prophet, because he was much in tears (Mat 16:14) and to him many of the passages here may be applied.

Constable: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Position

The English title of this book comes from the Talmud (Baba Bathra 15a), which called it "Lamentations" (Heb. qinoth). The Hebrew Bible has the title "Ah, how" or " Alas" (Heb. ekah), the first word in the first, second, and fourth chapters. The title in the Septuagint is "Wailings" (Gr. Threnoi).

The position of Lamentations after Jeremiah in the English Bible follows the tradition of the Septuagint and Vulgate versions. They placed it there because of its connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, which Jeremiah recorded, and the Jewish tradition that Jeremiah wrote both books.

In the Hebrew Bible Lamentations occurs between Ruth and Ecclesiastes as the third book of the "Megilloth" or "Scrolls" within the third and last major division of the Old Testament, namely, the "Hagiographa" or "Writings."¹

Writer and Date

This book does not identify its writer. The common view that Jeremiah wrote it rests on a preface in the Greek Septuagint, which the Latin Vulgate adopted and elaborated on. The Septuagint version of Lamentations begins, "And it came to pass after Israel had been taken away into captivity and Jerusalem had been laid waste that Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented this lamentation over Jerusalem and said." The Vulgate added, "with a bitter spirit sighing and wailing." The translators of these ancient versions may have deduced Jeremiah's authorship of Lamentations from 2 Chronicles 35:25: "Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations."²

Moderate scholars, both conservative and liberal, who reject the Septuagint tradition, divide fairly equally over the question of Jeremiah's authorship of the book. Those who favor him as the writer do so because of the theological similarities between this book and the Book of Jeremiah, the stylistic similarities with other writings of the same period, and for sentimental reasons. I think probably Jeremiah wrote these lamentations in view of the similarities in style and subject matter between the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations (cf. Lam. 1:2 with Jer. 30:14; Lam. 1: 16; 2:11 with Jer. 9:1, 18; Lam. 2:20; 4:10 with Jer. 19:9; and Lam. 4:21 with Jer. 49:12).³ Also, an eye-witness of Jerusalem's destruction must have written both books.⁴

Almost all Lamentations scholars believe the date of composition lay between 586 and 538 B.C., namely, during the Babylonian Captivity. Most believe that they were written before 561 B.C., when Evilmerodach, King of Babylon, released Jehoiachin from prison (2 Kings 25:27-30; Jer. 31-34). The basis for this view is the absence of national hope in the book. The hope expressed in chapter 3 is personal rather than national. We do not know when Jeremiah died, but if he was born about 643 B.C., as seems probable, the earlier years of the Captivity seem to be a more likely time of composition. The vivid accounts of Jerusalem's destruction also argue for a time of composition not far removed from 586 B.C., probably only a few months or years later.

Some scholars have suggested that the chronological order of the five laments that make up the five chapters is 2, 4, 5, and 1, with 3 unknown.⁵ It is now impossible to discover in what order the writer composed each of the five laments. Their order in the canonical text may not necessarily reflect the order in which the writer wrote them.⁶

Place of Composition

Assuming that Jeremiah wrote the book, he probably did so in Judah following the destruction of Jerusalem, or in Egypt shortly thereafter, or both.

Purpose

Since the Jews read Lamentations on the annual fast that celebrated Jerusalem's destruction as far back as tradition reaches (cf. Zech. 7:3, 5; 8:19), it may be that the writer wrote this book to be read then. Its purpose then would have been to memorialize God's faithfulness in bringing covenant punishment on His people for their unfaithfulness to the Mosaic Covenant. The book would then have taught later generations the importance of covenant faithfulness and God's faithfulness.

"The author of the Book of Lamentations was attempting to show the fulfillment of the curses presented in Deuteronomy 28."⁷

"It [Lamentations] is a mute reminder that sin, in spite of all its allurement and excitement, carries with it heavy weights of sorrow, grief, misery, barrenness, and pain. It is the other side of the eat, drink, and be merry' coin."⁸

"This is one of the most tragic books in the Bible."⁹

Structure and Genre

The book consists of five laments (funeral or mourning songs, elegies). All but the third of these describe the Babylonians' destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and its aftermath. Each chapter exhibits its own special qualities of form and content, and each of the five laments looks at the destruction of Jerusalem from a different point of view.¹⁰ Yet the basic structure of the book is chiastic.

A The misery of Jerusalem's citizens ch. 1

B God's punishment of Jerusalem ch. 2

C Jeremiah's personal reactions ch. 3

B' God's severity toward Jerusalem ch. 4

A' The response of the godly ch. 5

The whole book is poetry. Chapters 1-4 are in the common meter in which most laments appear in the Hebrew Bible (the so-called qinah meter), with a few verses being exceptions. In the qinah meter the second line is one beat shorter than the first line, giving an incomplete or limping impression to the reader of the Hebrew text. Chapter 5 has the same number of beats in each line and is more like a prayer poem.

The first four chapters are acrostic poems. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 each contain 22 verses, and each verse begins with the succeeding consonant of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapters 2, 3, and 4, however, the Hebrew letter pe comes before the Hebrew letter ayin, contrary to the usual order.

"Several Hebrew abecedaries (alphabets scratched on pieces of broken pottery by Hebrew children learning to write) have been found by archeologists. Some of these alphabetical lists are in the normal order for the Hebrew letters but others are in the reverse pe-'ayin order. Evidently both arrangements of the alphabet were acceptable. Thus the writer of Lamentations was merely employing two forms of the Hebrew alphabet, both of which were used in his time."¹¹

Chapter 3 contains 66 verses. In this chapter the first three verses begin with the first consonant of the Hebrew alphabet, the second three with the second consonant, and so on.¹² The acrostic form may have helped the Jews remember these laments, but it definitely expressed the completeness of their sorrow, controlled their emotions, provided variety of expression, and demonstrated the writer's virtuosity.

Chapter 5 also contains 22 verses, but it is not an acrostic poem perhaps because the writer could not express all that he wanted to say in this chapter in that form.¹³

"Dirge poetry of the kind exemplified by Lamentations was by no means uncommon in Near Eastern antiquity. The Sumerians were the first to write sombre works commemorating the fall of some of their great cities to enemy invaders, one of the most celebrated being the lament over the destruction of Ur. The author of Lamentations stood therefore in a long and respected literary tradition when he bewailed the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Judah in 587 B.C."¹⁴

These laments became a part of Israel's sacred writings the same way many of the Psalms did.

Theology

There are two books in the Old Testament that deal primarily with the problem of suffering. Job treats the problem of personal suffering, and Lamentations deals with the problem of national suffering. Both books present the problem of God's justice and His love, or divine sovereignty and human responsibility, though both of them fall short of solving it. Indeed, this problem is insoluble this side of heaven (cf. Mark 15:34). Both books also present God rather than man as the central figure in human history.

The writer viewed the devastation of Jerusalem and the punishment of the Judahites as divine judgment, not primarily the result of the Babylonian invader from the north. This added a depth to the tragedy that it would not have had if viewed as simply a loss in war.

"It [the book] is a reminder that sin carries with it the consequences of sorrow, grief, misery, and pain."¹⁵

The lack of hope in these laments is due in part to the writer's viewing the tragedy as divine discipline. The destruction had been so great that the people could not see, or had perhaps forgotten, God's promises of a future beyond the conquest. Similarly, Jesus' disciples did not remember the promises of His resurrection because the tragedy of His death so overwhelmed them initially.

Nevertheless, the laments are full of prayer (1:20-22; 2:20-22; 3:55-66), especially the lament in chapter 5, which is entirely prayer. The writer cried out to God, again like Job, in view of the present tragedy. His prayers sound a note of hope in a situation that would otherwise have been completely devoid of hope.

"His prayers provide the faithful of all ages with a model of how God's people should approach the Lord after they have experienced His discipline."¹⁶

There are no messianic predictions in Lamentations as such. Nevertheless, what is true of Yahweh is, of course, true of Jesus Christ. Thus much of the theology of the book is applicable to Christ if not directly revelatory of Him (cf. 3:22; Jude 21). Many expositors have seen foreshadowings of Christ's passion in the dark sayings of Lamentations.

"Protestant Christians, one regrets to say, have too often neglected the reading of these solemn poems. Yet in these days of personal, national, and international crises (and disaster) the message of this book is a challenge to repent of sins personal, national, and international, and to commit ourselves afresh to God's steadfast love. Though this love is ever present and outgoing, a holy and just God must surely judge unrepentant sinners."¹⁷

Message

The church at the beginning of the twenty-first century is very similar to Judah at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Our times are very similar to Jeremiah's times. We minister in a cultural context that is remarkably like that in which Jeremiah ministered. Lamentations helps us to see the parallels between our culture and Jeremiah's. Francis A. Schaeffer has pointed out many similarities in Death in the City.

First, people had abandoned God. It was not that they ceased to believe that He existed but that they felt He was irrelevant to their lives. This was true of the pagans generally, but it was also true of God's people. Normally in any particular culture what marks unbelievers also marks believers. Temple worship had become formal and unsatisfying. The religious leaders were catering to the people's desires rather than confronting them with their sins. Jeremiah was one of only a few exceptions to this trend in his day.

Second, the people had departed from God's Word. When people believe that God is irrelevant, they quickly stop paying attention to what He says. Jeremiah's contemporaries had neglected the promises of covenant blessing for obedience and punishment for disobedience. Most of the people had stopped reading and studying the Mosaic Law. This opened the door to ignorance of God's will and consequent disobedience and punishment.

Third, the people transferred their trust from God to inadequate objects of hope, namely their political allies and the temple. Rather than turning to Yahweh for provisions and protection, they chose to rely on what they could see and what appeared to be strong. Egypt and Babylon appealed to them especially, but these allies proved to be unreliable and even treacherous. The people also regarded the temple as a fetish. They believed that since God had blessed the temple by inhabiting it, and He had promised to remain faithful to them, nothing could happen to the temple. This conclusion was the result of selective listening to God's Word. They believed only what they wanted to believe, not all that God had said about how He would deal with them.

So Lamentations teaches us that when God's people abandon Him and depart from His Word, tragedy follows inevitably. This is one of the most tragic books in the Bible. It pictures the results of apostasy.

Lamentations is quite similar to the Book of Job.

Both Lamentations and Job deal with the problem of suffering. Job deals with this problem on the personal level. Job suffered greatly as an individual, and the book that bears his name describes his suffering. Lamentations deals with the problem of suffering on the national level. In it we see God's people suffering greatly. This book describes in painful detail the suffering of the nation of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. You will notice as you read Lamentations carefully many statements that recall what Job wrote about his sufferings.

The suffering of God's people is a problem because it pits the love of God against His justice. On the one hand, God loves people and has promised to do what is best to bring about their blessing. But on the other hand, God punishes people for their sins, and this seems to be unloving. This is the same problem that children have who grow up in homes were their parents tell them they love them and then turn around and punish them. Careful attention to the Word of God solves this problem in most cases because God has explained why He punishes those whom He loves. Yet at other times, as in the case of Job, there does not appear to be adequate reason for the judgment. In Jeremiah's day the people did not understand the reason for their suffering. They only saw the punishment, and they had forgotten the reasons for it under the Mosaic Covenant.

But this problem of suffering has an even deeper dimension. It eventually boils down to the antinomy between God's sovereignty and human freedom. If God is sovereign, are human beings genuinely free moral agents? Is God rather than man really responsible for sin? Almost all students of the Scriptures have concluded that the resolution of the biblical teaching of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility lies beyond our present power to comprehend. The best that we can do now is acknowledge that God is indeed sovereign; He is the ultimate authority in the universe. But at the same time human beings are genuinely responsible for their choices. The Jews in Jeremiah's day struggled to keep these revelations in balance, as anyone does who experiences extreme and apparently unjustified punishment. They denied either the sovereignty of God or their own responsibility. Job, too, struggled with these issues but in his personal life.

The great revelation of Lamentations is the covenant faithfulness of God in spite of the covenant unfaithfulness of His people.

God is the central figure in this book, not Jeremiah (who goes unnamed in the book) or the Judahites. This book is a revelation of God, as is every book in the Bible. The aspect of God's character that shines through the book from beginning to end is His sorrow. Sin and apostasy not only result in inevitable discipline for people, but they cause God great pain. He does not enjoy punishing His people for their unfaithfulness. Behind the heartbreak that Jeremiah articulated we can sense the heartbreak of God Himself. We can also see the foreshadowings of Jesus Christ's heartbreak over rebels against God that come through strongly in the Gospels and recall the sentiments that Jeremiah expressed in Lamentations.

The key verses in the book are 3:22-23. These verses appear, appropriately, near the structural center of the book. More importantly, they express the positive truth of God's faithfulness against the black backdrop of the Judahites' unfaithfulness. Unless God was faithful to His covenant promises, the siege of Jerusalem would have spelled the end of Israel. This reference to God's faithfulness is one of the few notes of hope in the litany of tragedy that is the Book of Lamentations. Judgment had to come on Judah because of her covenant unfaithfulness, but Yahweh was faithful to His covenant promises and provided compassion every morning.

There are several abiding values of this book that make it useful for us today.

The first is the revelation Lamentation provides of the heart of God. How does God feel when His people wander away from Him, squander His blessings, and get into trouble? He still loves them and remains committed to their blessing even though He allows them to reap the whirlwind that they have sown. The great New Testament parallel to this revelation is Jesus' parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).

A second abiding value of this book is that sin eventually and inevitably results in devastation. This is perhaps the most obvious lesson of the book. The terrible consequences of the siege of Jerusalem, which Jeremiah chronicled in all their horrors, were the fruit of unfaithfulness to God. People cannot escape the death that sin brings, even God's people. Romans 6:23 expresses a universal truth: sin always results in death in some form. The Judahites thought they could get away with their sins, but even though God was slow to judge them, they finally experienced the devastating consequences of sin. I think one of the reasons we do not hear more preaching on Lamentations today is that our contemporaries do not want to be reminded of their sin any more than Jeremiah's did. If there was more preaching on Lamentations people would have to face up to the fact that sin leads to terrible devastation.

A third value of this book is its example of how to deal with God after He has brought the devastation of His punishment on us because of our sins. Jeremiah modeled this for us. After judgment people need to turn back to God. We see Jeremiah doing this in his prayers. A prayer concludes each of the first three laments. In each of these chapters Jeremiah focused first on the terrible judgment of God, but then he appealed to God for mercy and restoration. Chapter 5, the climax of the book, is entirely prayer (cf. Habakkuk 3). Having painted graphic pictures of the siege of Jerusalem and its consequences, the prophet concluded his book by praying to God. The normal reaction to devastating circumstances is to turn away from God. Jeremiah teaches us that when we find ourselves flat on our faces in the dust we need to turn back to Him in prayer and repentance.

There is not much hope in Lamentations. The emphasis is on the terrible consequences of apostasy. But the book ends with a reminder of the eternal sovereignty of Yahweh (5:19-22). Its mini-acrostic structure suggests that it is the answer to all the devastation described in the other acrostics in chapters 1-4. Jeremiah's question in verse 20 recalls Jesus question from Calvary: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is not so much a clueless question, in both instances, as it is a question that highlights the drastic consequences of sin. Verse 21 proceeds to request that God will initiate restoration, the only hope of downtrodden sinners. Verse 22 reminds us that God does not utterly reject His people even though His anger may burn against them, though it does so in an almost hopeless way that finishes off the essentially negative message of the book.

God is angry with the church of our day and with professing Christians of our day. We have departed from God, and we can count on His judgment. We may spend too much time on the good news of salvation by grace and not enough time on the bad news that judgment is coming because of sin. Lamentations helps us remember why we need salvation. Its message is much needed in our day.

Constable: Lamentations (Outline)

Outline

I. The destruction and misery of Jerusalem (the first lament) ch. 1

A. An observer's sorrow over Jerusalem's condition 1:1-11

B. Jerusalem's sorrow over her own condition 1:12-22

II. The divine punishment of Jerusalem (the second lament) ch. 2

A. God's anger 2:1-10

B. Jeremiah's grief 2:11-19

C. Jerusalem's plea 2:20-22

III. The prophet's response to divine judgment (the third lament) ch. 3

A. Jeremiah's sorrows 3:1-18

B. Jeremiah's hope 3:19-40

C. Jeremiah's prayer 3:41-66

IV. The anger of Yahweh (the fourth lament) ch. 4

A. Conditions during the siege 4:1-11

B. Causes of the siege 4:12-20

C. Hope following the siege 4:21-22

V. The response of the godly (the fifth lament) ch. 5

A. A plea for remembrance 5:1-18

B. A plea for restoration 5:19-22

Constable: Lamentations

Lamentations

Bibliography

Archer, Gleason L., Jr. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Revised ed. Chicago: Moody Press, 1974.

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "A Theology of Jeremiah and Lamentations." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 341-63. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Dyer, Charles H. "Lamentations." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1207-23. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Ellison, H. L. "Lamentations." In Isaiah-Ezekiel. Vol. 6 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986.

Harrison, R. K. Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969.

_____. Jeremiah and Lamentations: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series. Leicester, Eng. and Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973.

Heater, Homer, Jr. "Structure and Meaning in Lamentations." Bibliotheca Sacra 149:595 (July-September 1992):304-15.

Jamieson, Robert; A. R. Fausset; and David Brown. Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961.

Jensen, Irving L. Jeremiah and Lamentations. Everyman's Bible Commentary series. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966 (Jeremiah), 1972 (Lamentations).

Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. A Biblical Approach to Personal Suffering. Chicago: Moody Press, 1982.

Keil, Carl Friedrich. "The Lamentations of Jeremiah." In The Prophecies of Jeremiah, 2:333-455. Translated by David Patrick. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Reprint ed. 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960.

Martin, John A. "The Contribution of the Book of Lamentations to Salvation History." Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1975.

Price, Ross. "Lamentations." In The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, pp. 695-701. Edited by Charles F. Pfeiffer and Everett F. Harrison. Chicago: Moody Press, 1962.

Schaeffer, Francis A. Death in the City. Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1969.

Swindoll, Charles R. The Lamentations of Jeremiah. Bible Study Guide. Fullerton, Calif.: Insight for Living, 1977.

Young, Edward J. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

In these Jeremias laments in a most pathetic manner the miseries of his people, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, in Hebrew verses, beginning with different letters according to the order of the Hebrew alphabet. (Challoner) --- In the first chapter the order is exactly observed, but in the three next phe comes before ain, either for some mystery to us unknown, or by the derangement of transcribers, who perhaps thought that those verses were better connected, as they seem to be, (Calmet) though this is not very clear. (Haydock) --- In such pieces the sentiments of a pensive heart are poured out without much connection. (Worthington) --- The Greeks style this word Greek: threnoi, and Hebrew kinoth, or lamentations. (Haydock) --- St. Jerome, (2 Paralipomenon xxxv. 25.) thinks it was the first composition of Jeremias, and sung at the death of Josias. (Worthington) (St. Jerome, in Zacharias xii. 11.) --- The eulogy of the king seems to belong to him rather than to Sedecias, chap. iv. 20. (Calmet) --- Yet it might afterwards be applied to the latter, (Haydock) and to the ruin of Jerusalem, Ecclesiasticus xlix. 8. (St. Jerome, Pref.; Theodoret, &c.) --- The city is represented standing, and sometimes in ruins. Chap. v. seems to have been written after the rest, ver. 4, 18. (Calmet) --- It is not acrostic like them. The prophet alludes to the wretched condition of the Jews, after the murder of their Messias; and hence the Church makes use of the lamentations on the anniversary of our Saviour's passion, inviting all sinners, both Jews and Gentiles, to repent: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, be converted to the Lord thy God." (Worthington) --- Many passages are applicable to a soul fallen into sin, as the commentary under the name of St. Jerome, (Haydock) compiled by Rabanus, (Du Pin) shews. (Haydock)

Gill: Lamentations (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS

This book very properly follows the prophecy of Jeremiah, not only because wrote by him, but because of the subject matter of it, the deplorable case of the Jews upon the destruction of their city; and has been reckoned indeed as making one book with it; so Dean Prideaux ^a supposes it was reckoned by Josephus ^b, according to the number of the books of the Old Testament, which he gives; but it does not stand in this order in all printed Hebrew Bibles, especially in those published by the Jews; where it is placed in the Hagiographa, and among the five Megilloth; or with the books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song, read at their festivals, as this on their public fast, on the ninth of Ab, for the destruction of their city; because they fancy it was not written by the gift of prophecy, but by the Holy Ghost, between which they make a distinction; and therefore remove it from the prophets; but this is the most natural place for it. It is sometimes called by the Jews "Echa", from the first word of it, which signifies "how"; and sometimes "Kinoth", "Lamentations", from the subject of it; and so by the Septuagint version "Threni", which signifies the same; and which is followed by the Vulgate Latin, and others, and by us. That Jeremiah was the writer of it is not questioned; nor is the divine authority of it doubted of. The precise place and time where and when he wrote it is not certain: some say he wrote it in a cave or den near Jerusalem; and Adrichomius ^c makes mention of a place, called

"the Prophet Jeremiah's pit, where he sat in the bitterness of his soul, grieving and weeping; and lamented and described the destruction of Jerusalem made by the Chaldeans, in a fourfold alphabet in metre; where Helena the empress, according to Nicephorus, built some wonderful works;''

but it rather seems that he wrote these Lamentations after he was carried away with the rest of the captives to Ramah, and dismissed to Mizpah, at one or other of these places. It is written in Hebrew metre, though now little understood; and the first four chapters in an alphabetical manner; every verse beginning in order with the letters of the alphabet; and in the third chapter it is done three times over; three verses together beginning with the same letter: this seems to be done to make it more agreeable, and to help the memory. Jarchi thinks that this is the same book, which, having been publicly read by Baruch, was cut to pieces by King Jehoiakim, and cast into the fire ^d and burnt; which consisted of the first, second, and fourth chapters, and to which was afterwards added the third chapter; but it is without any reason or foundation; seeing that contained all Jeremiah's prophecies, not only against Israel and Judah, but against all the nations, Jer 32:2; which this book has nothing of; nor even the words, which are particularly said to be in that, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, Jer 32:29; Josephus ^e seems to have been of opinion that this book of Lamentations was written by Jeremy on account of the death of Josiah, 2Ch 35:25; and in which he is followed by many; but the lamentation made in this book is not for a single person only, but for a city, and even for the whole nation of the Jews; nor is there anything suitable to Josiah, and his case; what seems most plausible is in Lam 4:20; and that better agrees with Zedekiah than with him. It appears plainly to be written after the destruction of the city and temple, and the sad desolation made in the land of Judea, because of the sins of the priests and people; and the design of it is to lament these things; to bring them to repentance and humiliation for their sins, and to give some comfortable hope that God will be merciful to them, and restore them again to their former privileges, for which the prophet prays. The introduction to it, in the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, is,

"and it came to pass after Israel was carried captive, and Jerusalem laid waste, Jeremiah sat weeping, and delivered out this lamentation over Jerusalem; and said,''

what follows.

Gill: Lamentations 3 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 3

This chapter is a complaint and lamentation like the former, and on the same subject, only the prophet mixes his own afflictions and distresses with the public calamities; or else he represents the church in her complaints; and some have thought him to be a type of Christ throughout the whole; to whom various things may be applied. It is indeed written in a different form from the other chapters, in another sort of metre; and though in an alphabetical manner as the rest, yet with this difference, that three verses together begin with the same letter; so that the alphabet is gone through three times in it. Here is first a complaint of the afflictions of the prophet, and of the people, expressed by a rod, by darkness, by wormwood and gall, and many other things; and especially by the Lord's appearing against them as an enemy, in a most severe and terrible manner; shutting out their prayer; being as a bear and lion to them; and giving them up to the cruelty and scorn of their enemies, Lam 3:1; then follows some comfort taken by them, from the mercy, faithfulness, and goodness of God; from the usefulness of patience in bearing afflictions; and from the end of God in laying them upon men; and from the providence of God, by which all things are ordered, Lam 3:22; wherefore, instead of complaining, it would be better, it is suggested, to attend to the duties of examination of their ways, and of repentance, and of prayer, Lam 3:39; and a particular prayer is directed to, in which confession of sin is made, and their miseries deplored, by reason of the hidings of God's face, and the insults of their enemies, Lam 3:42; and then the prophet expresses his sympathy with his people under affliction, and declares what he himself met with from his enemies, Lam 3:48; and relates bow he called upon the Lord, and he heard and delivered him, Lam 3:55; and concludes with a request that he would judge his cause, and avenge him on enemies, Lam 3:59.