Lamentations 3 - Introduction

Lamentations 3:1-21. Laments mingled with hope

For remarks upon (a) the character of this ch., (b) its more elaborate acrostic structure, and (c) its probable date see Intr. chs. 1 § 4, 2 § 4, 3 § 2.

The question which has most exercised commentators in connexion with the ch. is, whether we are to take the singular number, which prevails in it, as used (a) by an individual of himself, or (b) as representing the nation. Löhr, who (1893) followed Stade and Smend in adopting (b), "the community appearing under the figure of one who is visited severely by the Lord's wrath," has since (see Zeitschrift d. A. T. Wiss., 1894, pp. 1 16 and his ed. of 1907) accepted (with Budde) the other view. He further holds that the poem has a threefold origin. (i) Lamentations 3:1, before being brought to their acrostic shape, he considers to have formed a Psalm, not known otherwise, but quoted in its earlier stage by the author of Psalms 143, where Lamentations 3:3 is identical with Lamentations 3:6 here, only that there it is not yet acrosticized. (ii) Lamentations 3:52 he thinks are the words of another Psalm, surviving thus in its adapted form. (iii) The intermediate vv. (25 51) according to him are the composition of one living at a post-exilic date who desired to speak in the name of Jeremiah, and with the help of references to the sufferings of the prophet's life to preach repentance. In support of this view he quotes many parallels, more or less convincing, with passages in Jeremiah. He supports his view as to the different origins of (i) and (ii) by pointing out that in (i) Jehovah is viewed as the enemy, in (ii) as the friend, in (i) as rejecting, in (ii) as hearkening to prayer. Moreover, in the former the poet is on the verge of despair, in the latter, he exhibits a consciousness of the hope inspired by Jehovah's inherent justice. He adds that, while it is true that two such fundamentally distinct attitudes of religious thought might be experienced by the same man at different times in his life, he would not be likely himself to combine them in the same poem. Thus his theory needs the intermediate vv. (25 51) as the poet's own. The above view, though not compelling acceptance as virtually certain (for the real change of tone from misery to hope comes in Lamentations 3:22), is yet not without some probability. On the other hand in support of the view that the community are the subject may be pleaded the analogy of the other poems in the Book, as in them the nation is clearly the subject. Ball, who adopts (b), remarks that in this ch. "the poet deals less with incident and more with the moral significance of the nation's sufferings. If this be the application here, we may note a remarkable parallelism between the language descriptive of Zion in her misery and that used in the story of Job as the typical sufferer. Cp. Lamentations 3:2 with Job 12:25; Lamentations 3:15 with Job 9:18; Lamentations 3:16 with Lamentations 2:8; Lamentations 3:31 with Lamentations 5:18, and see further in Lamentations 3:7; Lamentations 3:12; Lamentations 3:30below. It is the religious culmination of the book." With regard to the theological tone of the ch. Löhr points out characteristic features in the middle portion of the three components, viz. (a) the universal sway of Jehovah, indicated in the title "the most High" (Lamentations 3:35; Lamentations 3:38), in accordance with which the evil and injustice that a man suffers from others cannot be wrought without His leave, and (b) the individuality of religion, as stamped upon each soul that seeketh the Lord (Lamentations 3:25) and has silently to bear His yoke (Lamentations 3:27 ff.). When these two features are combined, as here, then the conflict between personal consciousness and Jehovah's omnipotence leads at once to the perplexing problem relating to the sufferings of the righteous. The narrator here does not pass beyond the general O.T. standpoint in explaining all suffering as punishment for sin and he has no counsel to offer but that of calm resignation and hope. Cp. Psalms 37:7. If the Lord sends calamity, yet He will have compassion later.