Lamentations 3:1-66

Jeremiah Weeps in the Darkness

Lamentations

Roy Rohu

Chapter 3

Jeremiah speaks.

In this chapter, the writer speaks on behalf of all God’s people. Much of what he says is true also of the troubles that the *Lord Jesus suffered for us. Psalms 22 and 69 are other examples of this.

v1 I am a man who has known punishment from the heavy stick of an angry God.

v2 He has chased me into deep darkness where there is no light.

v3 He is against me. He punishes me again and again all day long.

Verse 1 God does not use the sword to kill all his people. But he does use his heavy stick to punish and to train them. See Hebrews 12:7-11.

Verse 2 God is in light. And if we walk in the light, all is well. See 1 John 1:7. We may walk in darkness. If so, it is because we have not agreed with God. See Amos 3:3.

Verse 3 Sometimes God punishes us. Then we must not think that he has also stopped loving us. God is not against us but he is against our *sins.

v4 God has worn out my skin and my body. He has broken my bones.

v5 He has made walls to surround me and has given me worry and trouble.

v6 He has made me live in darkness like those who have been dead for a long time.

Verse 4 God’s people are no longer strong like young people. They are weak like old people. That is what verse 4 is saying.

Verse 5 Compare this verse with verse 19, also with Psalms 69:21 and Matthew 27:34.

Verse 6 ‘darkness’ The writer means the place where dead people go.

v7 God has built a wall round me so that I cannot get out. It is as if he has bound me with heavy chains.

v8 Yes, and when I shout for help, he refuses to listen.

v9 He has kept me in with smooth walls and my paths just go nowhere.

Verse 7 See verse 9 and Hosea 2:6. The writer does not mean a real wall and chains. These are words that are like a picture.

Verse 8 See Psalms 80:4-6 and Psalms 66:18.

Verse 9 God loves his people. He will not allow them to avoid the lesson that he wants them to learn. See also verse 31.

v10 Like a bear or a lion that hides, God has waited for me.

v11 He has dragged me away from the road. He has torn me to pieces. And there is nobody to help me.

v12 He used his bow and aimed his arrows at me.

Verse 10 Compare with Hosea 5:14.

v13 Then God shot me. His arrows went deep into my body.

v14 All my people laughed at me. They even sang songs about me all the day.

v15 He has caused me to suffer greatly. He has filled my cup with bitter drink.

v16 He has broken my teeth with small stones and covered me with ashes.

v17 He has caused me to have many troubles in my mind. I forget what it is like to be happy.

v18 My strength has gone. What the *Lord allowed me to hope for has gone too.

v19 Remember well my trouble. Remember how sad I am. It is like the taste of a bitter liquid.

v20 I think about it all the time and I feel so miserable.

v21 But I remember something else. And so I can hope again.

v22 It is because of God’s goodness that we are still alive. He will not fail to love his people.

v23 Hope comes again with each new day. God keeps his promises to his people.

v24 ‘The *Lord is mine’, I say to myself, ‘that is why I will hope in him.’

Verse 20 We all *sin sometimes. Then we should remember how great God is. And we should remember how small we are. That is the start of the way back to God.

Verses 21-22 The writer begins to hope again because God has not put an end to *Israel. See verse 2.

In chapter 2 verses 17 and 21, God’s people feel that God has forgotten to be kind. Now they have started to think. They are saying right things about God. We may lose things that we loved. But, if we are his, we shall not lose him.

Verses 23-24 It is always good to trust God but especially when bad things happen to us.

v25 The *Lord is good to people who wait for him. He is good to everyone who looks for him.

v26 It is good for a person to go on hoping and to be quiet. And it is good if he waits patiently for God to rescue him.

v27 It is also good for a man to obey God while he is young.

Verse 27 A person may not obey God’s rules while he is young. Then he will have to learn to obey God later. See Ecclesiastes 12:1.

v28 A young man should sit by himself and be quiet. Because that is what God wants for him.

v29 He should get so low in front of God that his face is touching the ground. If he does, there is hope for him.

v30 When someone slaps him, he should not try to hurt him back. He should accept it when people are cruel to him.

Verse 28 God does not speak to us when we are doing all the talking. Nor when we are too busy to listen to him.

Verse 29 When people felt small in front of God, they often lay down on the ground. See Genesis 17:3; Joshua 5:14; Ezekiel 1:28.

Verse 30 Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 5:39. And he set us an example to follow (Isaiah 50:6).

v31 The *Lord does not give up for ever with his people.

v32 Sometimes God has to punish people. That makes them sad. But he will also show them kindness out of his great store of love.

v33 He does not enjoy it when he causes people to suffer.

Verse 31 God waits until we have learnt our lesson. (See also verse 9.) When we are sorry, we go back to God. Then he is there for us. See James 4:8; Hosea 6:1; Luke 15:11-24.

v34-36 God is not pleased when you are too cruel to the prisoners.

He is not pleased when you cheat anyone.

He is not pleased when there is an unfair decision in the law court.

He sees all of these things.

v37 Nobody can order anything to happen unless the *Lord has ordered it.

v38 It is the great God who orders both good things and bad things to happen.

v39 No man should complain when God punishes him for his *sins.

Verse 37 See Proverbs 16:9 and Jeremiah 10:23.

v40 Instead, we should think carefully about how we behave. And we should turn again to the *Lord.

v41 We should raise our hands and pray to God in heaven.

v42 We have done bad things. We have not obeyed you, *Lord. You are not happy about that.

Verse 40 That is what another man did. See Psalms 119:59. See also Haggai 1:5-7.

Verse 41 Our hearts (minds) must agree with the words of our prayers. We must mean what we say.

v43 Our God, you have hidden yourself from us because you are angry. You have chased us. You have killed us. And you have not pitied us.

v44 You have hidden yourself from us in a thick cloud so that our prayer does not get to you.

v45 You have made us like rubbish, like things that are no more use to anyone.

Verses 42-44 See what another man said in Psalms 66:18.

v46 All our enemies say bad things against us.

v47 Fear and traps are all round us.

v48 My eyes are sore with all the tears because the enemy has destroyed my people,

Verse 47 Compare with Isaiah 24:17 and Jeremiah 48:43.

v49 So, streams of tears come from my eyes. They do not stop or even rest.

v50 They will not stop until the *Lord looks down. I will cry until he sees from heaven.

v51 What my eye sees upsets my heart (mind). I am upset because of what happened to all the women in my city.

Verse 51 The writer is talking about the bad things that the enemy has done to the women in *Jerusalem.

If we love God’s people as we should, their troubles will make us really sad. See Romans 12:15.

v52 My enemies hunted me like a bird, for no reason.

v53 They threw me alive into the well. Then they closed the well over me with a stone.

v54 The water closed over my head. Then I said, ‘My end has come.’

Verse 53 Something like this happened to *Jeremiah himself. See Jeremiah 38:6.

Verse 54 Some people have great troubles. Then they often think that God has forgotten them. See Psalms 31:12 and Jonah 2:4. But God has made a great promise to his people. See Hebrews 13:5-6.

v55 I called to you by name, *Lord, from the bottom of the well.

v56 You have heard my cry. Do not close your ear to my prayer.

v57 You came near to me as soon as I called to you. You told me not to be afraid.

Verse 55 ‘Call by name’ means when a person calls to God. And he is thinking about all the good that is in God. Sometimes we pray our best prayer when we are in great trouble. See Psalms 130:1.

Verse 56 The writer says that God has answered some of his prayer (done some things that he asked him to do). He now asks God to answer the rest of his prayer.

Verse 57 We notice that the writer’s thoughts change from fear to hope and back again. He complains. He feels better. He complains again. Psalms 42 is also like that. The important thing is how the writer speaks in the end.

v58 *Lord, you have rescued me. You have saved my life.

v59 The things that they did to me were not fair. You saw that, so please be my judge.

v60 You have seen all the bad things that they did to me. And you know all their bad plans for me.

Verses 58-60 It is a great comfort to know that God loves us. And he knows all about our troubles. He loves us and he will make all things work together for our good. See Romans 8:28.

v61 You have heard their insults against me, *Lord. And you know all their plots against me.

v62 These people attack me all the day, with words and whispers.

v63 They sing about me, when they are sitting. And they sing about me when they are standing. Whatever they are doing, they sing about me.

v64 Punish them for what they have done to me, *Lord.

v65 Do bad things to them and cause them to have despair.

v66 Chase them in your anger! Completely remove them from the earth!

Verses 61-66 It is good that the writers in the Bible are real people with real feelings like us. In that way, we see that God can use us too. But Jesus tells us what to do about our enemies. See Matthew 5:41-45.

Lord ~ a special name for God that his people use. He will do what he has promised them. That is what this name means.
sin ~ to do things against God and other people; an bad action that we do against God and other people.
Israel ~ Israel is the group of people that God chose to be his people.
Jerusalem ~ the Jews’ capital city; God told King Solomon to build God’s sacred temple there.
Jew ~ a person who is born from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children.
temple ~ the sacred house in Jerusalem where Israel’s people went to pray.
Israel ~ Israel is the group of people that God chose to be his people.
Jeremiah ~ Jeremiah was a man who loved God. And he loved his own people. He may have written the book of Lamentations.