Lamentations 3:52-58

Mine enemies chased me sore “The prophet in this, and the following verses, describes his own sufferings, when his enemies seized him and put him into the dungeon, Jeremiah 37:16; Jeremiah 38:6. He compares them to a fowler in pursuit of a bird; so, saith he, they sought all opportunities to take an advantage against me, and to deprive me of my life and liberty: and this they did without any provocation given on my part. So the word חנם, without cause, signifies.” Lowth. They have cut off my life I was not only sequestered from all human society, like a dead man, but in apparent danger of losing my life in the dungeon. And their laying a stone upon the entrance of that dark pit resembled the burying me alive. Waters flowed over my head; then I said, &c. When I sunk down into the mire in this dungeon, I despaired of my life, just as if I had been sinking over head in a river. I called upon thy name, O Lord I had recourse to thee, O Jehovah, in my distress; out of the low dungeon As Jonah out of the whale's belly. Observe, reader, though we be cast into ever so low a dungeon of calamity and trouble, we may from thence find a way of access to God in the highest heavens. Thus the psalmist, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, Psalms 130:1. Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry So he terms his prayer. It was his breathing toward God, and after God. Prayer is the breath of the new man, drawing in the air of grace in petitions, and returning it in praises; it is both the evidence and 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. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee That is, thou didst graciously assure me of thy presence with me, and didst give me to see thee nigh unto me, whereas I had thought thee to be at a distance from me. Thou saidst, Fear not This was the language, 1st, of God's prophets, preaching to them not to fear, Isaiah 41:10; Isaiah 41:13; Isaiah 2 d, of his providence, preventing those things which they were afraid of; and, 3d, 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. Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul That is, as it follows, Thou hast redeemed my life, hast rescued it out of the hands of those that would have taken it away, hast saved it when it was ready to be swallowed up; thou hast given me my life for a prey.