Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Lamentations 3:1-18
In His Initial Despair The Prophet Bewails His Own Sad Condition (Lamentations 3:1).
In this section God is simply spoken of as ‘He', the only mention of His Name being in Lamentations 3:18 where the prophet declares that his expectation from YHWH has perished. It describes what the prophet has had to endure in the most trying of circumstances, and the condition of soul that it has brought him to. He is almost in blank despair. But it is soul preparation which will then lead on to a recognition of God's faithfulness. God does not leave him in the dark. He prays through it. It is a reminder that life is not necessarily easy for the people of God. Sometimes we have to walk in a difficult pathway, so that God can seem far away, and even hostile, because we do not understand His ways. But always beyond the darkness there will be light.
(Aleph) I am the man who has seen affliction (misery),
By the rod of his wrath.
(Aleph) He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness,
And not in light.
(Aleph) Surely against me he turns his hand again and again,
All the day.
The prophet is very much aware that his afflictions, which are many, and the misery that he is enduring, are due to the wrath of God, not necessarily directly directed against him, but against his people, although he is a participant in it. He is aware that he is not blameless.
In terms later taken up by Jesus, Who spoke of walking in darkness (John 8:12), and Who brought light into the darkness, the prophet recognises that God has led him in a dark path. Although he is conscious that God is leading him, He feels that he is walking in darkness and not in light. But unlike the Psalmist in Psalms 23 he does not have the confidence that YHWH is with him in a positive way in the valley of deep darkness. Rather all is black. He sees no glimmer of hope for the future. (But he still sees himself as led by God. In that no doubt was his comfort).
Indeed he feels that God is turning His hand against him ‘again and again', from morning til night. He feels totally battered by God. Many who have truly known God have had similar experiences. Sometimes God can seem very far away. But elsewhere we learn that this can be due, not to God's lack of love, but to God's loving chastening (Proverbs 3:11).
For the phrase ‘the rod of His wrath' compare Proverbs 22:8. It is the rod of God's anger. See Job 9:34; Job 21:9; Isaiah 10:5.
(Beth) My flesh and my skin has he caused to waste,
He has broken my bones.
(Beth) He has built against me,
And encompassed me with gall and travail.
(Beth) He has made me dwell in dark places,
As those who are dead for ever.
‘Wasted.' The verb indicates a wasting away. It means to wear out by rubbing, to cause to fall away, from the verb, to be worn out, which is applied to clothes (Job 13:28), and then transferred to bodies (Psalms 49:14). For the breaking of the bones see Isaiah 38:13, where Hezekiah sees his bones as being broken by lions in a similar situation of despair. Compare Psalms 51:8. The prophet feels that God has worn away his flesh and broken his bones, not literally but metaphorically. He feels absolutely ‘wasted' both outwardly and inwardly. The whole of his being is affected.
‘He has built against me.' Indeed he feels under siege, under attack and surrounded by bitterness (gall) and stress (travail). He feels almost as though he in the grave with the dead, with no hope for the future (with those who are dead for ever), so dark is his experience. The thought is taken from Psalms 143:3. This could well have in mind Jeremiah's experience in the pit, which must have seemed like a burial (Jeremiah 38:6).
(Gimel) He has walled me about so that I cannot go forth,
He has made my chain heavy.
(Gimel) Yes, when I cry, and call for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
(Gimel) He has walled up my ways with hewn stone,
He has made my paths crooked.
He feels himself like a prisoner, walled in so that he cannot go out, and bowed down by a heavy chain, constricted in his movements. Life has hemmed him in. The thought here is metaphorical, but it would again fit in with Jeremiah's literal experience.
Indeed things are so bad that he feels that God is shutting out his prayer. Compare Psalms 18:41; Jeremiah 7:16. The heavens appear deaf and unresponsive. Everywhere he turns he finds his way blocked as though by hewn stone (therefore huge blocks of stone), so that he has to make his way through as best he can along devious paths.
(Daleth) He is to me as a bear lying in wait,
As a lion in secret places.
(Daleth) He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces,
He has made me desolate.
(Daleth) He has bent his bow,
And set me as a mark for the arrow.
With regard to the figure of a bear lying in wait see Hosea 13:8: Amos 5:19. For the lion in ambush see Psalms 10:9; Psalms 17:12; Psalms 17:12 appears to have been directly in writer's mind. Jeremiah often compared enemies to lions, e.g. Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44. The prophet feels as though YHWH is actually out to get him.
He feels that YHWH has prevented him from taking the way that he wanted, and has rather pulled him to pieces. This may well continue the thought of the lion and bear. He feels as though he has been savagely attacked, making him desolate. Indeed YHWH appears to him to have turned him into a target for His arrows, which are thudding into him one by one. Instead of the Hunter slaying the lion and the bear, He is slaying the prophet. The arrows represent the ills and sorrows appointed by God, compare Deuteronomy 32:23; Psalms 38:2; Job 6:4.
(He) He has caused the shafts (literally ‘children') of his quiver,
To enter into my reins.
(He) I am become a derision to all my people,
And their song all the day.
(He) He has filled me with bitternesses,
He has sated me with wormwood.
The thought of the arrows of YHWH continues. YHWH has caused them to enter into his ‘reins' (kidneys, mind, a man's inmost parts - see Jeremiah 11:20), the means by which his life is guided and controlled. He has also made him into a laughingstock and object of derision, as men derisively sing about him all day. Jeremiah was a good illustration of this. And He has filled him full with bitternesses and wormwood (something poisonous and accursed).
(Waw) He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
He has covered me with ashes.
(Waw) And my soul has despised peace;
I forgot prosperity.
(Waw) And I said, ‘My strength is perished,
And my expectation from YHWH.'
Proverbs 20:17 makes clear that the idea here is that the grain of which the bread he is given is made is so coarse that it breaks his teeth. This could well describe prison bread. The main idea, however, is that he has been given something hard to accept and unpalatable. To be covered with ashes indicated a state of real unpleasantness. It is a figure signifying either the deepest disgrace and humiliation, or indicating mourning and deep sorrow (Ezekiel 27:30).
Indeed things have become so bad for him that he has lost all peace, something that he lays at God's door, whilst well-being, both spiritual and material, has become a thing of the past. He has thus lost all hope. His strength has gone and so has any expectation that he had from YHWH. He has reached the bottom of the barrel.