lamentations 3 explained

Wisdom Literature God had been for him, but no "Surely against me is he turned (v. 3), as far as I can discern; for his hand is turned against me all the day. You have slain and not pitied. In addition, emotional attributes of joy (Proverbs 23:16) and sorrow (Job 19:27; Psalm 73:21) were credited to them. (Harrison). The more I look upon the desolation of the city and country the more I am grieved. 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." 42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. b. If you turn to the life of Whitfield our great and mighty Whitfield in more modern times, what was his character? It is before the face of the Most High (v. 35); it is in his sight, under his eye, and is very displeasing to him. of Minor Prophets a. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath: In chapters 1 and 2, Jeremiah wrote mainly as Jerusalem personified. Their enemies had brought them into the deepest miseries. (Poole). VI. Persecute and destroy them Thou wilt pursue them with destruction. It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. 1. He has been to me like a bear lying in wait: Using the eloquence that misery sometimes brings, Jeremiah described all the ways that they felt God opposed and even attacked them. Salem Media Group. This was the language of God's grace, by the witness of his Spirit with their spirits. (2.) Do men shoot at those thy are enemies to? Thus we may get good by former corrections and prevent further. Prophets 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. it was to no purpose; he remembers, upon all occasions, the affliction and the misery, the wormwood and the gall. The prophet complains, 1. This was a pathway to hope for him. Thank you for registering. My soul, having them in remembrance, is humbled in me, not only oppressed with a sense of the trouble, but in bitterness for sin. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. i. 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. 37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? 13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. He has torn, and he will heal us, Hos 6 1. 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. What have I contributed to the public flames?" He retains his kindness for his people even when he afflicts them. Pursue and destroy them "When I have lost all I have in the world, liberty, and livelihood, and almost life itself, yet I have not lost my interest in God." We have little reason to complain of our trouble, for it is our own doing; we may thank ourselves. Bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. 2. 2. The daughters of my city. That even in the depth of their affliction they still have experience of the tenderness of the divine pity and the truth of the divine promise. They were under Gods severe discipline, and that because of their deep and persistent sin. 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. You have covered Yourself with anger That they were satisfied that God's gracious regard to them in their miseries would be an effectual redress of all their grievances. 6. II. For the Lord will not cast off forever. You have not pardoned. Fear not. 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 (v. 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 (v. 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." b. 16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. "Let us lift up our heart;" let us make fervent prayer and supplication for mercy. They cannot but know it is so, and therefore it is in defiance of him that they do it. Having sunk low in his soul (Lamentations 3:20), Jeremiah now remembered something that started hope within. When those who are afflicted in their youth accommodate themselves to their afflictions, fit their necks to the yoke and study to answer God's end in afflicting them, then they will find it good for them to bear it, for it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are thus exercised thereby. 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. It will make our duty the more acceptable to God, and easy to ourselves, if we engage in it when we are young. But, as there, so here, faith gets the last word and comes off a conqueror; for in these verses he concludes with some comfort. When we are in affliction, 1. Or subvert a man in his cause He does indeed afflict, and grieve the children of men; all their grievances and afflictions are from him. 4 He has made my skin and flesh grow old. He has broken my bones. Would you prayerfully consider a gift of support today? Keep silent: There came a young man to Demosthenes to learn oratory; he talked away at a great rate, and Demosthenes said, I must charge you double fees. Why? he asked. b. Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul: From formerly feeling forsaken, Jeremiah rested in the confidence that God was his advocate. Though God was righteous, they were unrighteous. Thus restless was the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless. 9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. i. You have seen all their vengeance, i. My soul still remembers and sinks within me: It was good for Jeremiahs soul to sink, to find its bottom point so that he could build on the right foundation. here are mercies in the plural number, denoting the abundance and variety of those mercies. (Lamentations 3:64-66) Giving vengeance to God. He recognized the necessity of the suffering, but suffered with the sufferers. (Morgan), iv. So unworthy we are that nothing but an abundant mercy will relieve us; and from that what may we not expect? (2.) Pentateuch The lips of my enemies 5. Nor grieve the children of men. 4. Judah has gone into exile, but she does not find any rest there among the nations. He has aged my flesh and my skin, And broken my bones. He is not quarrelsome, nor apt to resent injuries; he suffers long and is kind. Yet the consideration of Gods sovereignty would also become the source of their hope. And broken my bones. In a season of great suffering or calamity, it may be difficult to remember that God rules over all things if not directly, then in what He allows. God has access to the spirit, and can so embitter that as thereby to embitter all the enjoyments; as, when the stomach is foul, whatever is eaten sours in it: "He has made me drunk with wormwood, so intoxicated me with the sense of my afflictions that I know not what to say or do. Desolation and destruction. III. like those long dead. It is good because it gives you more years to serve God. 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. Observe how he calls prayer his breathing; for in prayer we breathe towards God, we breathe after him. We have work enough to do at home; we must each of us say, "What have I done? Give them despondence of heart" (so others read it); "let them be driven to despair, and give themselves up for gone." I. 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). Yet He will show compassion Verse 52. I make to return to my heart (so the margin words it); what we have had in our hearts, and have laid to our hearts, is sometimes as if it were quite lost and forgotten, till God by his grace make it return to our hearts, that it may be ready to us when we have occasion to use it. 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, ver 55-66. All rights reserved. The stanzas consist of three lines, each of which begins with the same Hebrew letter. Please see Blue Letter Bible's Privacy Policy for cookie usage details. Verse 12. Read full chapter Lamentations 2 Lamentations 4 New International Version (NIV) Jeremiah proposes his own experience under afflictions, as an example as to how the Jews should behave under theirs, so as to have hope of a restoration; hence the change from singular to plural ( Lamentations 3:22 Lamentations 3:40-47 ). God had said once (Hos 5 14), I will be as a lion to the house of Judah, and now he has made his word good (v. 10): "He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, surprising me with his judgments, and as a lion in secret places; so that which way soever I went I was in continual fear of being set upon and could never think myself safe." That which is most impressive in this song is the identification of the prophet with the people and with God. My seeing eye affects my heart. Because His compassions fail not. Does the Bible Condemn Using Tarot Cards? No; they are new every morning; every morning we have fresh instances of God's compassion towards us; he visits us with them every morning (Job 7 18); every morning does he bring his judgment to light, Zeph 3 5. My enemies without cause But here it seems to be meant of the yoke of affliction. Verse 26. That God turns a deaf ear to his prayers (v. 8): "When I cry and shout, as one in earnest, as one that would make him hear, yet he shuts out my prayer and will not suffer it to have access to him." The distemper was in continual extremity, and they had no better day. 3. He that has seasonably succoured particular saints will not fail the church in general. He marvels that God should have drawn near to him, for his condition was a very pitiful one. They have done it without cause, without any provocation given them. He does not himself crush under his feet the prisoners of the earth, but he regards the cry of the prisoners; nor does he approve of men's doing it; nay, he is much displeased with it. I see nothing but misery; and I feel, in consequence, nothing but pain. My soul still remembers He has set me in dark places 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. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth: There are seasons of adversity, and sometimes it is better to have those seasons when one is young. I said, I am cut off! (2.) That, when we are cast down, yet we are not cast off; the father's correcting his son is not a disinheriting of him. It is sin that makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. That God is angry. ii. He is good to those who do so, v. 25. 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. Remember my affliction and roaming, Wherefore doth a living man complain He who has his life still lent to him has small cause of complaint. Whatever measure he was to receive, whatever inheritance, whatever future, it would all be found in Yahweh. It seemed as a butt for all God's arrows; and each arrow of calamity entered into the soul, for God was the unerring marksman. In the sacrificial tariffs of the Pentateuch, animal kidneys were held to be one of the locations of life, this being thought true of human kidneys also. Here is, I. Verse 17. Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Complete). The streams of mercy acknowledged: We are not consumed. Many times through the affliction he felt God to be his adversary, not his friend. d. They are new every morning: Each dawning day gives mankind hope in fresh mercies and compassions from God. With gravel: It could be argued that it refers to the type of bread made from the sweepings of the granary floor that Jeremiah must have received toward the end of the siege. (Ellison), iv. Surely He has turned His hand against me: Jeremiah did not stay in this dark and desperate place, but he would not deny being there. Luke-Acts We must keep silence under the yoke as those that have borne it upon us, not wilfully pulled it upon our own necks, but patiently submitted to it when God laid it upon us. Thou hast removed my soul Prosperity is at such an utter distance from me, that it is impossible I should ever reach it; and as to happiness, I have forgotten whether I have ever tasted of it. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, Search out and examine our ways: Sins must not be casually and superficially confessed and dealt with. As Abraham said of God, shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. He has hedged me in: This also may refer to the lines drawn round the city during the siege. This is the result of their searching and trying their ways; the more they enquired into them the worse they found them. i. If God disciplines us when we are young, it is to train us for a fruitful future. Before the face of the Most High, But he is in a particular manner good to those that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. II. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. I am chastened every morning," Ps 73 14. 2. The people of this once great city experienced the judgment of the holy God, and the results were devastating. i. But these and similar expressions in the following verses may be merely metaphorical, to point out their straitened, oppressed, and distressed state. (Clarke), ii. in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry. 57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not. 6. 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. 3. By this rod we must expect to see affliction, and, if we be made to see more than ordinary affliction by that rod, we must not quarrel, for we are sure that the anger is just and affliction mild and mixed with mercy. 4. Verse Lamentations 3:60. Therefore I have hope. Bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. "One addressed the caliph Aaly, and said, 'If the heavens were a bow, and the earth the cord thereof; if calamities were arrows, man the butt for those arrows; and the holy blessed God the unerring marksman; where could the sons of Adam flee for succour?' Lamentations 3 introduces another character: the geber, or "strongman," who is expected to defend the city from its attackers (verse 1). Our enemies have opened their mouths against us (v. 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." It was an affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of . If therefore you cannot speak, weep - tears also have a voice; [Psalms 39:12] if you cannot weep, sigh - a storm of sighs may do as much as a shower of tears; if you cannot sigh, yet breathe, as here. Though He causes grief, (Lamentations 3:52-56) Praying for help under enemy attack. Una eademque manus vulnus opemque tulitThe same hand inflicted the wound and healed it. In his own day he was called the German beast, that for lust must needs marry Catharine. If he be tempted to murmur, let him remember that he is yet alive, and that is more than his part cometh to, since it is the Lords mercy that he is not consumed, and sent packing hence to hell. It was only a breathing. Amralkeis, one of the writers of the Moallakat, terms a man grievously afflicted [Arabic] a pounder of wormwood. Early discipline is equally so. What hope is there of either peace or prosperity? To turn aside the right of a man To make a man lose his right, because one of the higher orders opposes him. Are we punished for our sins? That God appears against him as an enemy, as a professed enemy. 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? 5. Verse 33. These are the two things which our afflictions should put us upon. The designs and projects they had laid to do him a mischief: Thou hast seen all their imaginations against me (v. 60), and again, "Thou hast heard all their imaginations against me (v. 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." Their case was really pitiable, yet they complain, Thou hast not pitied, v. 43. Thou saidst, Fear not. Look at their sitting down and their rising up; The sufferers in the captivity must submit to the will of God in all their sufferings. And could God hear them out of the low dungeon, and would he? Verse 28. 59 O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause. He has made my paths crooked. 20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

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