lamentations 3 explained

Whatever measure he was to receive, whatever inheritance, whatever future, it would all be found in Yahweh. 1 Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament, 334.LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush affirm that Some rabbis also used the name Qinot, meaning 'funeral dirges' or 'lamentations (Old Testament Survey, 617).2 LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush, Old Testament Survey, 617.. 3 Hill and Walton write, The despairing tone of the petition for national renewal in the closing lines of the final poem (5 . Before the face of the Most High, 7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. 5. Like many psalms (see Psalms 22 and 88 for examples), the poem begins with painful and heartfelt statements about the horrors of the author (Lamentations 3:1-20). It is evident that in the preceding verses there is a bitterness of complaint against the bitterness of adversity, that is not becoming to man when under the chastising hand of God; and, while indulging this feeling, all hope fled. Verse 22. O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; ( Lamentations 3:21-23 KJV) Verse 23 tells us, "They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness," like we sing in the old hymn. Verse 7. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient. He answers in the following verses, 1. But the weakest believer is wrong, if he thinks that his strength and hope are perished from the Lord. (2.) It is good for young people to take that yoke upon them in their youth; we cannot begin too soon to be religious. They confess the righteousness of God in afflicting them (v. 42): We have transgressed and have rebelled. V. That afflictions are really good for us, and, if we bear them aright, will work very much for our good. Through the LORDs mercies we are not consumed, A mother listens for the breathing of her babe in the dark. This hindered God's favours from coming down upon them. See Jeremiah 38:6, &c. Verse 56. My eyes overflow with rivers of water: Earlier in Lamentations 2:18 Jeremiah expressed a prayer in the mouth of Jerusalems enemies, a prayer that the city and her walls would weep without end. When we are humble and patient under our affliction. Verse 35. 42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. Have opened their mouths against us. 3. To turn aside the justice due a man That, bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. For the destruction of the daughter of my people. Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it? All Rights Reserved. 2. In Lamentations 3:34-36, certain acts of tyranny, malice, and injustice are specified, which men often indulge themselves in the practice of towards one another, but which the Divine goodness is far from countenancing or approving by any similar conduct. Verse Lamentations 3:60. 4. With this should go the complete submission to God pictured in v. 29 by the Oriental obeisance. i. "Lamentations" was derived from a translation of the title as found in the Latin Vulgate (Vg.) Darkness is put for great trouble and perplexity, the want both of comfort and of direction; this was the case of the complainant (Lamentations 3:2; Lamentations 3:2): "He has led meby his providence, and an unaccountable chain of events, into darkness and not into light,the darkness I feared and not into the light I hoped for." b. He does not afflict with pleasure. (Lamentations 3:37-39) The God who cannot be opposed. (2.) These are the two things which our afflictions should put us upon. 1. It is barbarous to trample on those that are down, and to crush those that are bound and cannot help themselves. Note, Whatever hard things we suffer, we must never entertain any hard thoughts of God, but must still be ready to own that he is both kind and faithful. Give them sorrow of heart They shall have a callous heart, covered with obstinacy, and thy execration. But he does not do it willingly, not from the heart; so the word is. Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, 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? 6 He has made me dwell in darkness. 4. 2. II. 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. The Old Testament In offering the cheek to the smiter the captive was conveying the idea of absolute surrender. (Harrison). 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. Duty prescribed in this afflicted state, ver 37-41. 2. Thus emphatically does he speak of his affliction, for thus did he think of it, thus heavily did it lie when he reviewed it! No matter how bad the past day was, Gods people can look to the new morning with faith and hope. The yoke in his youth. 4. He hath made me drunken with wormwood. of Scripture. When nations go through times of tragedy and tribulation, the greatest suffering always takes place at the individual level. (Ryken), iii. 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. I have even given up all for gone, concluding, My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord (v. 18); I can no longer stay myself upon God as my support, for I do not find that he gives me encouragement to do so; nor can I look for his appearing in my behalf, so as to put an end to my troubles, for the case seems remediless, and even my God inexorable." Remember my affliction and roaming: Jeremiah did not prescribe positive thinking for this deep affliction. Thou saidst, Fear not. Note, It becomes us to have humble hearts under humbling providences, and to renew our penitent humiliations for sin upon every remembrance of our afflictions and miseries. He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; (Lamentations 3:57-63) Thankful and confident of future help. Why, he was accused of every crime that even Sodom knew; and perjury stood up and swore that all was true. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation, Select a Beginning Point Surely He has turned His hand against me My soul still remembers He is not quarrelsome, nor apt to resent injuries; he suffers long and is kind. He remembered that as beat down and defeated the people of Jerusalem and Judah were, they were not yet completely consumed. (3.) The walling-up of prisoners within confined spaces so that they died very quickly was a form of torture made popular by the Assyrians., iii. If he does not willingly grieve the children of men, much less his own children. Minor Prophets They cannot but know it is so, and therefore it is in defiance of him that they do it. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; he forms the light and creates the darkness, as he did at first. This was the method David took. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; But waiting is good because God is worth waiting for. (Ryken). And threw stones at me. I do not see that we gain any thing by this. There was still a remnant, and remnant with a promise of restoration. To subvert a man in his cause To prevent his having justice done him in a lawsuit, &c., by undue interference, as by suborning false witnesses, or exerting any kind of influence in opposition to truth and right.-Blayney. 63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their music. 2. 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? This chapter is another single alphabet of Lamentations for the destruction of Jerusalem, like those in the first two chapters. 37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? c. LORD, You have seen how I am wronged: Jeremiah rested in the confidence that God was a righteous judge, who would see how he was wronged and who would rightly judge his case. d. They are new every morning: Each dawning day gives mankind hope in fresh mercies and compassions from God. in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry. 2. Prophets Even when I cry and shout, The waters flowed over my head; And we must thus humble ourselves, if so be there may be hope, or (as it is in the original) peradventure there is hope. In the sacrificial tariffs of the Pentateuch, animal kidneys were held to be one of the locations of life, this being thought true of human kidneys also. It is evident that in the preceding verses there is a bitterness of complaint against the bitterness of adversity, that is not becoming to man when under the chastising hand of God; and, while indulging this feeling, all hope fled. Many times through the affliction he felt God to be his adversary, not his friend. These complaints we had before, ch. (Lamentations 3:10-18) God an adversary in many ways. If so be there may be hope. Observe here, 1. 64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. Luke-Acts The Jewish state may now be fitly compared to a man wrinkled with age, for which there is no remedy (v. 4): "My flesh and my skin has he made old; they are wasted and withered, and I look like one that is ready to drop into the grave; nay, he has broken my bones, and so disabled me to help myself, v. 15. Why should a living man complain, Or, let us put our heart on our hand, and offer it to God; so some have translated this clause. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives, Lamentations 3:21. I see nothing but misery; and I feel, in consequence, nothing but pain. Verse 26. VII. As for Wesley I have heard that on one occasion he said that he had been charged with every crime in the calendar, except drunkenness; and when a woman stood up in the crowd and accused him of that, he then said, Blessed God, I have now had all manner of evil spoken against me falsely, for Christs name sake. (Spurgeon). General Epistles In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. Gerlach has rightly opposed to these arguments the following considerations: (1) That, after the outburst of despair in Lamentations 3:18, "my strength is gone, and my hope from Jahveh," the words "my soul is bowed down in me" form far too feeble a conclusion; (2) That it is undoubtedly more correct to make the relief begin with a prayer breathed 2. In 1, 2, and 4, each of the 22 verses begins with a successive letter of the Greek alphabet. i. Distressed soul! There are times when the only thing a sufferer can do is wait for God. 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). What God does we must not open our mouths against, Ps 39 9. 55 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon. If you will turn to the lives of any of the saints of God, you will discover that they were the victims of slanders of the grossest kind. Bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. Verse 18. According to the multitude of His mercies. I. We should, we must, turn away from sin and self and turn back to the LORD. Yet these flashes of light are welcome and necessary. And broken my bones. 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. He has set me in dark places 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. If there be any way to acquire and secure a good hope under our afflictions, it is this way, and yet we must be very modest in our expectations of it, must look for it with an it may be, as those who own ourselves utterly unworthy of it. 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. He was overwhelmed like a man drowning in a pit (the waters flowed over my head). Silence implies both an acceptance of Gods will and a refusal to complain to men. According to the work of their hands. 2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Now Jeremiah prayed that Yahweh would repay their enemies, and give them a veiled heart even as Judah was blind. Our hearts must go along with our prayers. Mine eye runneth down I weep incessantly. God's compassions fail not; of this we have fresh instances every morning. 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. Verse 48. i. Are we punished for our sins? The Bibles Tab is found in the Tools feature on Bible pages: Note: MLA no longer requires the URL as part of their citation standard. More is implied than is expressed. Spurgeon suggested many reasons why it is good to bear the yoke when young: b. 3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me. It is good because it gives you more years to serve God. 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. Lamentations 3 - God's Mercy in the Midst of Disaster "The third poem is significantly different in structure from the others, being made up of single lines grouped in threes, and commencing with the same consonant of the Hebrew alphabet." (R.K. Harrison) This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope: For perhaps the first time in the book, hope is allowed. Instead of Adonai, seventeen MSS., of Kennicott's, and one ancient of my own, have Yehovah. He delights not in the death of sinners, or the disquiet of saints, but punishes with a kind of reluctance. 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. Like a lawyer pleading for his client, God pleaded the case for his life. 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. Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. At the south of Africa the sea was generally so stormy, when the frail barks of the Portuguese went sailing south, that they named it the Cape of Storms; but after that cape had been well rounded by bolder navigators, they named it the Cape of Good Hope. 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. You have made us an offscouring and refuse With Lamentations 1:3 begins the specific account of the misery over which Jerusalem sorrows so deeply. 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. Jeremiahs personal lament is a reminder that suffering is always personal. The poets mention of the LORD broke the spell of misery that had bound him. (Ellison). We are afflicted by the rod of his wrath, but it is of the lord's mercies that we are not consumed, v. 22. Here is one word of comfort. 65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. (Read Lamentations 3:21-36) Having stated his distress and temptation, the prophet shows how he was raised above it. 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. He comes out of his place to punish, for his place is the mercy-seat. As Abraham said of God, shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? c. And turn back to the LORD: All the self-examination in the world does little good if it does not lead us back to this place. 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. i. Having sunk low in his soul (Lamentations 3:20), Jeremiah now remembered something that started hope within. Lamentations 3:21-23. Judge my case. 43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. "I recall it to mind; therefore have I hope, and am kept from downright despair." An Arabic poet. 2. Let us lift our hearts and hands How great soever his affliction may be, he is still alive; therefore, he may seek and find mercy unto eternal life. Read full chapter Lamentations 2 Lamentations 4 New International Version (NIV) In the process of remembering Gods attributes, Jeremiah was drawn back into living fellowship and intimate communion with his faithful God. (Ryken). Approveth not, lo raah, doth not see, turns away his face from it, abhors it. Its New Testament counterpart (1 Corinthians 4:13) is equally rare, depicting the suffering of the apostles. (Harrison), ii. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation, Use semicolons to separate groups: 'Gen;Jdg;Psa-Mal' or 'Rom 3-12;Mat 1:15;Mat 5:12-22', There are options set in 'Advanced Options', The Whole Bible 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." For the Lord will not cast off forever. The Blue Letter Bible ministry and the BLB Institute hold to the historical, "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." For the Lord will not cast off forever: The suffering endured was not everlasting. b. "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," Ps 80 19; Dan 9 17. Jeremiah had no other place of satisfaction, so he was settled with the portion received, and that portion was the LORD Himself. Are we healthful or sickly, rich or poor? That which is most impressive in this song is the identification of the prophet with the people and with God. 48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 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. Lamentations 3 is the third chapter of the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, . We are sinful men, and what we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. (Lamentations 3:52-56) Praying for help under enemy attack. Usernames should only contain letters, numbers, dots, dashes, or underscores. Or subvert a man in his cause 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. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives. (Clarke). That, when God does cause grief, it is for wise and holy ends, and he takes not delight in our calamities, v. 33. 5. They complain of their own excessive grief and fear upon this account. That those who deal with God will find it is not in vain to trust in him; for, 1. They complain of the contempt of their neighbours and the reproach and ignominy they were under (v. 45): "Thou hast made us as the off-scouring, or scrapings, of the first floor, which are thrown to the dunghill." Your partnership makes all we do possible. He has hedged me in: Harrison saw this as a picture of cruel imprisonment. It is very applicable to the yoke of God's commands. He has led me and made me walk in darkness: This seems to be the hardest part of our lot, that God should lead us into darkness: He hath led me, and brought me into darkness. Yet dear brethren, that is, on the other hand, the sweetest thing about our trial; because, if the darkness be in the place where God has led us, it is best for us to be in the dark. (Spurgeon). The New Testament 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. Verse 34. Do not fear: How powerful is this word when spoken by the Spirit of the Lord to a disconsolate heart. The faithful lament their calamities, and hope in God's mercies.1-20 The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. It is good because obedience to God is best learned when young. 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. 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." 2. His experience of God's goodness even in his affliction. I have drunk the cup of misery till I am intoxicated with it.

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