Lamentations 3:64

wing his trust in God, Lam 3:21, encourages his people to the like resignation and trust in the Divine and never-failing mercy, Lam 3:22-27. He vindicates the goodness of God in all his dispensations, and the unreasonableness of murmuring under them, Lam 3:28-39. He recommends self-examination and repentance; and then, from their experience of former deliverances from God, encourages them to look for pardon for their sins, and retribution to their enemies, vv. 40-66. Verse 1 I am the man that hath seen affliction - Either the prophet speaks here of himself, or he is personating his miserable countrymen. This and other passages in this poem have been applied to Jesus Christ's passion; but, in my opinion, without any foundation. Verse 2 He hath - brought me into darkness - In the sacred writings, darkness is often taken for calamity, light, for prosperity. Verse 5 He hath builded against me - Perhaps there is a reference here to the mounds and ramparts raised by the Chaldeans in order to take the city. Verse 7 He hath hedged me about - This also may refer to the lines drawn round the city during the siege. But these and similar expressions in the following verses may be merely metaphorical, to point out their straitened, oppressed, and distressed state. Verse 9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone - He has put insuperable obstacles in my way; and confounded all my projects of deliverance and all my expectations of prosperity. Verse 12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow - One might conjecture that the following thought in the Toozek i Teemour was borrowed from this: - "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 succor?' The caliph replied, 'The children of Adam must flee unto the Lord.'" This was the state of poor Jerusalem. 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. Verse 13 The arrows of his quiver - בני אשפתו beney ashpatho, "The sons of his quiver." The issue or effect; the subject, adjunct, or accident, or produce of a thing, is frequently denominated its son or child. So arrows that issue from a quiver are here termed the sons of the quiver. Verse 15 He hath filled me with bitterness - במרורים bimrorim, with bitternesses, bitter upon bitter. He hath made me drunken with wormwood - I have drunk the cup of misery till I am intoxicated with it. Almost in all countries, and in all languages, bitterness is a metaphor to express trouble and affliction. The reason is, there is nothing more disagreeable to the taste than the one; and nothing more distressing to the mind than the other. An Arabic poet. Amralkeis, one of the writers of the Moallakat, terms a man grievously afflicted a pounder of wormwood. Verse 16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones - What a figure to express disgust, pain, and the consequent incapacity of taking food for the support of life; a man, instead of bread, being obliged to eat small pebbles till all his teeth are broken to pieces by endeavoring to grind them. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. The next figure is not less expressive. He hath covered me with ashes - הכפישני באפר hichphishani beepher, "he hath plunged me into the dust." To be thrown into a mass or bed of perfect dust, where the eyes are blinded by it, the ears stopped, and the mouth and lungs filled at the very first attempt to respire after having been thrown into it - what a horrible idea of suffocation and drowning! One can scarcely read this without feeling a suppression of breath, or a stricture upon the lungs! Did ever man paint sorrow like this man? Verse 17 Those 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. Verse 18 And my hope - That first, that last support of the miserable - it is gone! it is perished! The sovereign God alone can revive it. Verse 20 By soul - is humbled in me - 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. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives, Lam 3:21. Verse 22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed - Being thus humbled, and seeing himself and his sinfulness in a proper point of view, he finds that God, instead of dealing with him in judgment, has dealt with him in mercy; and that though the affliction was excessive, yet it seas less than his iniquity deserved. If, indeed, any sinner be kept out of hell, it is because God's compassion faileth not. Verse 23 They are new every morning - Day and night proclaim the mercy and compassion of God. Who could exist throughout the day, if there were not a continual superintending Providence? Who could be preserved in the night, if the Watchman of Israel ever slumbered or slept? Verse 24 The Lord is my portion - See on Psa 119:67 (note). Verse 26 It is good that a man should both hope - Hope is essentially necessary to faith; he that hopes not, cannot believe; if there be no expectation, there can be no confidence. When a man hopes for salvation, he should not only waft for it, but use every means that may lead to it; for hope cannot live, if there be no exercise. If hope become impatient, faith will be impossible: for who can believe for his salvation when his mind is agitated? He must therefore quietly wait. He must expect, and yet be dumb, as the words imply; ever feeling his utter unworthiness; and, without murmuring, struggle into life. Verse 27 That he bear the yoke in his youth - Early habits, when good, are invaluable. Early discipline is equally so. He who has not got under wholesome restraint in youth will never make a useful man, a good man, nor a happy man. Verse 28 He sitteth alone - He has learned that necessary lesson of independence, that shows him how he is to serve himself; to give no trouble to others; and keep his troubles, as far as possible, in his own bosom. Verse 29 He putteth his mouth in the dust - Lives in a state of deep humility. If so be there may be hope - Because there is room for hope. Verse 30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth - He has that love that is not provoked. He is not quarrelsome, nor apt to resent injuries; he suffers long and is kind. Or, it may be rendered, "let him give his cheek." He is filled full with reproach - Though all this take place, yet let his "trust be in God, who will not cast off for ever." God will take his part, and bring him safely through all hardships. Verse 31 The Lord - אדני Adonai; but one of my ancient MSS. has יהוה Jehovah. The above verse is quoted in reference to our Lord's passion, by Mat 26:62. Verse 33 For he doth not afflict willingly - It is no pleasure to God to afflict men. He takes no delight in our pain and misery: yet, like a tender and intelligent parent, he uses the rod; not to gratify himself, but to profit and save us. Verse 34 To crush under his feet - He can neither gain credit nor pleasure in trampling upon those who are already bound, and in suffering; such he knows to be the state of man here below. From which it most assuredly follows, that God never afflicts us but for our good, nor chastises but that we may be partakers of his holiness. All the prisoners of the earth - By the prisoners of the earth, or land, Dr. Blayney understands those insolvent debtors who were put in prison, and there obliged to work out the debt. Yet this is mercy in comparison with those who put them in prison, and keep them there, when they know that it is impossible, from the state of the laws, to lessen the debt by their confinement. In Lam 3:34, Lam 3:35, and Lam 3:36, 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. - Blayney. Verse 35 To turn aside the right of a man - To make a man lose his right, because one of the higher orders opposes him. Dr. Blayney thinks that עליון elyon, instead of being referred to God, should be considered as pointing out one of the chief of the people. I do not see that we gain any thing by this. The evil fact is, turning aside the right of a man; and the aggravation of it is, doing it before the face of the Most High; that is, in a court of justice, where God is ever considered to be present. Verse 36 To subvert a man in his cause - To prevent his having justice done him in a lawsuit, etc., by undue interference, as by suborning false witnesses, or exerting any kind of influence in opposition to truth and right. - Blayney. The Lord approved not - Instead of אדני Adonai, seventeen MSS., of Kennicott's, and one ancient of my own, have יהוה Yehovah. Approveth not, לא ראה lo raah, doth not see, turns away his face from it, abhors it. Verse 39 Wherefore doth a living man complain - He who has his life still lent to him has small cause of complaint. How great soever his affliction may be, he is still alive; therefore, he may seek and find mercy unto eternal life. Of this, death would deprive him; therefore let not a living man complain. Verse 40 Let us search - How are we to get the pardon of our sins? The prophet tells us: 1. Let us examine ourselves. 2. "Let us turn again to the Lord." 3. "Let us lift up our heart;" let us make fervent prayer and supplication for mercy. 4. "Let us lift up our hand;" let us solemnly promise to be his, and bind ourselves in a covenant to be the Lord's only: so much lifting up the hand to God implies. Or, let us put our heart on our hand, and offer it to God; so some have translated this clause. 5. "We have transgressed;" let our confession of sin be fervent and sincere. 6. And to us who profess Christianity it may be added, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as having died for thee; and thou shalt not perish, but have everlasting life. Lam 3:46, Lam 3:47, Lam 3:48, beginning with פ phe, should, as to the order of the alphabet, follow Lam 3:49, Lam 3:50, Lam 3:51, which begin with ע ain, which in its grammatical position precedes the former. Verse 47 Fear and a snare - See on Jer 48:13 (note). Verse 48 Mine eye runneth down - I weep incessantly. Verse 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. The daughters of my city - The villages about Jerusalem. Verse 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. Verse 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. Verse 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. Verse 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. Verse 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. Verse 66 Persecute and destroy them - Thou wilt pursue them with destruction. These are all declaratory, not imprecatory. 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. Introduction The present deplorable sate of the nation is

God's Goodness Acknowledged; An Appeal to God. ( b. c. 588.) 55 I called upon thy name, O Lord , out of the low dungeon. 56 Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. 57 Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not. 58 O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life. 59 O Lord , thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause. 60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me. 61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord , and all their imaginations against me; 62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day. 63 Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their music. 64 Render unto them a recompence, O Lord , according to the work of their hands. 65 Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. 66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord . 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 Ps. xlii . 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 ( v. 44 ), yet upon second thoughts, or at least upon further trial, they find it otherwise, and that God had not said unto them, Seek you me in vain. When they were in the low dungeon, as free among the dead, they called upon God's name ( v. 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 ( Ps. cxxx. 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 ( v. 57 ): " Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou didst graciously assure me of thy presence with me, and give me to see thee nigh unto me, whereas I had thought thee to be at a distance from me." 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. xli. 10 , 13 , 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 ( v. 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 ( v. 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 ( 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." 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 ( 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." 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, Jude 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, v. 59 . Let them be dealt with," (1.) "As they deserve ( v. 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 ( v. 65 ), perplexity of heart " (so some read it); "let them be surrounded with threatening mischiefs on all sides, and not be able to see their way out. 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, v. 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, v. 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 ( Ps. ii. 4 ), and may own that the heavens do rule, " Dan. iv. 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. x. 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 ( Ps. cxv. 16 ) and which those therefore are unworthy to be taken under the protection of who rebel against him.