Lamentations 3:1-66
1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He hath caused the arrowsa of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He hath filled me with bitterness,b he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath coveredc me with ashes.
17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.d
18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
19 Rememberinge mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbledf in me.
21 This I recallg to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willinglyh nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,i
36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.j
37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Wherefore doth a living man complain,k a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye affecteth mine heartl because of all the daughters of my city.
52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
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 musick.
64 Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them sorrowm of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.
Lamentations 3. The Third Lament. Here it is the singer that comes chiefly to the front; whereas in Lamentations 3:1 it had been Zion, and in Lamentations 3:2 it was Yahweh. EV hardly puts Lamentations 3:1 forcibly enough: it should read, It is I, even I the strong man, who know now, alas, what abasement means. The chant is artistically more clever than Lamentations 3:1 and Lamentations 3:2, but its heart is not so great. In form it has a cunning device all its own; for the first stanza has three initial Alephs, the second has three Beths, and so on throughout the twenty-two stanzas. This is a skilful bit of scholastic development; scribal indeed, but not great. Editors have usually regarded each line as a separate verse, so that there result sixty-six verses in all. Similarities between Psalms 143 and our poem have led Lö hr to think that the two are based on a common original (cf. Lamentations 3:6 with Psalms 143:3). Certainly our poem seems closely related to late Jewish Pss., and it is impossible that a Jeremiah did or ever could invent such a fantasia on three A's, three B's, three C's, and so on. Nevertheless the Lament has several good features.
Lamentations 3:1, a quarter of the whole, is a personal wail. Yahweh has beaten this strong man, has misled him, torn him, hemmed him in, and, as it were, actually buried him alive. Yahweh has torn the man's inmost soul, like a bear, like a lion that has crouched and leaped upon him. Worst of all, the sufferer has become a laughing-stock in his own city: this is bitterest wormwood. Evidently the people were not all so excited and troubled as was our poet: possibly his feelings arose largely amid the fancies of his private study, where he could have time to dream and calculate over his Alephs and Beths. In Lamentations 3:16 he has an apt figure of one who is mocked, He has made my teeth grind on sand. Then his extremity of vexation drives him to God. He feels he has been away from his best counsellor. He begins to pray (Lamentations 3:19), sure that Yahweh will remember him. As he thus remembers Yahweh, his meditation is at times so beautiful that many a sentence of it became a household word in the Christianity that soon was born, e.g. Yahweh's loving-kindness cannot cease. A Greek commentator in the LXX has added a fine remark here, We are not ended, because His care is not ended. The singer grows jubilant and rises to the threshold of all apocalyptic expectations, saying, It is good to wait. So he takes in the wide future as well as his present view of things and conditions and sufferings. All are only light afflictions. He is probably a priest, and therefore remembers Deuteronomy 18:2, quoting it as he sings, Yahweh is my portion. The eternally abiding God is enough. Three times we read, It is good: Yahweh is good, and a man must have twice goodness, first in hoping, and then in waiting. Like Paul long afterwards (cf. Romans 8:33 ff.) he seems to love the wonderful Servant-Song of Isaiah 50:4, for he probably alludes to it in Lamentations 3:30. In Lamentations 3:31 he pens a confession of faith worthy of any of the great confessors in all the ages. Every line here is precious and familiar: we need not quote any as the best.
Lamentations 3:42. After confession comes supplication; and here first (in Lamentations 3:42) the sorrows are rehearsed, but in submissive tones this time. He acknowledges that Yahweh has come near to him, has actually spoken to him, has repeated for him the great eternal watchword of Isaiah 41, Fear thou not. Truly he does touch the hem of the Father's garment; or, as the Scotch saint would say, he gets far ben.
But now, after three stanzas of such exquisite beauty, what is it that he prays for eagerly? Pursue thou my enemies in anger: destroy them from under heaven! Alas that a curse should be the climax of communion for such a soul! How did they need to hear the death-cry of Jesus, that was soon to sound among them, Father forgive them. The Lament proves thus to be the utterance and the picture of a priest who, at moments, seemed to be the very Rutherford of Anwoth of his time; but who, nevertheless, needed sorely that there should be breathed upon him the Gospel of Forgiveness and Love for enemies. The Lament is surely another scene in the background of Christianity.