Deeper Commentary
Lamentations 3:1 I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath- The same word is used of Judah's affliction (Lam. 1:3); he was setting himself up as Judah's representative in the hope they too would pass through his pattern of depression, the stages of grief, and then repentance and begging for the restoration of the Kingdom which we find at the end in Lam. 5:16-21. See on Lam. 1:1.
Jeremiah speaks of being like "the man" rather than "a man", because he is comparing himself with some specific "man". And he clearly has Job in view here, the man who complained about the rod of God's wrath (Job 9:34), who likewise lamented that he walked in darkness rather than light (:2 = Job 10:22). The unusual word geber is used for "man" here, just as it is by Job about himself (Job 3:3). Jeremiah cries out to God for help but doesn't get it (Lam. 3:8 = Job 30:20; 35:12). He wrongly assumes that all Job says is true, misreading the book as many do today; and so he comes close to cursing God as Job did, although there is no final repentance recorded of Jeremiah.
The language of "the rod of His wrath" is very similar to Is. 10:5,6: "Alas Assyrian, the rod of My anger, the staff in whose hand is My indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger Me will I give him a command to take the spoil and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets". The rod of God's wrath was clearly the Gentile nation used to execute God's wrath upon His people. It is Babylon who Jeremiah has in view. But the Babylonians were very good to Jeremiah personally, indeed the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon was Jeremiah's salvation. But he feels that he has come beneath their rod- because of his strong identity with Judah.
This is an allusion to Job who asks God to remove His rod from him, and then he will dialogue with God (Job 9:34). See on :12. "Man" here is not ish but geber, 'mighty man', a term often used of Job ["Gird up your loins like a geber / man" etc.]. Perhaps Jeremiah means that he is the man who saw the affliction which the earlier prophets had predicted but not seen. He strongly identifies as being the one who has received the Divine judgment: "I am the one who has seen oppression by the rod of his wrath. Me he drove to walk in darkness without light. Against me he turns his hand... He has worn away my flesh and my skin, He has shattered my bones, constructed siege- works and encircled me". We are given an insight into the extent to which the Lord bore our sin through identifying with us in our condemnation.
It's very hard to argue that the book of Lamentations somehow reveals a spiritual progression in Jeremiah's thought. We would like to see Lamentations 5 expressing specific repentance and acceptance of Judah's sins, an acceptance of their judgments as right and legitimate, and a looking forward to the wonderful restoration which Jeremiah had himself prophesied. Instead we generally find a Job-style accusation of God, an acceptance of sin both current and historical, but the continual argument that God was punishing too hard, and had unreasonably withdrawn from His people. In Lamentations 3, however, we see Jeremiah being more spiritually realistic. He speaks of God's grace, and recalls his own miraculous deliverance from the dungeon and wonders whether this could be a pattern for Judah. Even here, there remains some element of complaint against God. But it is far better than the laments in the rest of the book. Each chapter of Lamentations has 22 verses, and apart from chapter 5, they are used as an acrostic. But Lamentations 3 has 66 verses, and is a triple acrostic. Nearly as long as the rest of the book. We tend to read Bible books with Greek style step logic, which is embedded in the European mind when it comes to reading books. We expect to start at the start, and see a progression towards a conclusion. But Hebrew literature isn't always like that. If we read Lamentations in a linear way, we find the centre of the book as being hopeful, and the rest of the book still wallowing in despair and anger with God. I suggest that the structure of the book is in fact not linear but concentric. The heart of the book is the more hopeful, spiritually realistic material we have in Lamentations 3- but it is embedded within two chapters each side which are bitter laments against God. This perhaps reflects how Jeremiah felt- in the midst of his despair with God, his anger with God and his complaints against God, there is this acceptance that indeed Judah had sinned, the judgments were all legitimate, and there was still God's abiding grace and plan to restore them. Evidenced by Jeremiah's own experiences in the dungeon. This approach makes sense of the structure of Lamentations:
Lamentations 1: Lament after the destruction of Jerusalem
Lamentations 2: Lament during the destruction of Jerusalem
Lamentations 3
Lamentations 4: Lament during the destruction of Jerusalem
Lamentations 5: Lament after the destruction of Jerusalem
I have suggested that Jeremiah was bipolar, in Jeremiah 20 he
flips between ecstatic praise of God and then cursing the day of his
birth, quoting Job's regret he had been born. Within Lamentations we see
the same thing- confession of sin followed immediately by self
justification and anger with God for judging sin. The book of Lamentations
is consciously, carefully written, as we see from the acrostic structure.
And Jeremiah wrote it this way to reflect his own feelings- that within
his anger with God and desire for immediate rectification of everything,
there was also at one and the same time, embedded within that, a sense of
God's grace and a hope in His restoration. And this is actually how every
man is- spirituality and spiritual focus is never total. It is embedded
within our own unspirituality. But Lamentations 3 is at the core of the
book. It is that hope in God's grace which is to be at the core of our
often very unspiritual living and thinking. That is of course not to
justify unspirituality, neither our own nor Jeremiah's.
Lamentations 3:2 He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light-
Lam. 2:21,22 have revealed a peak of identity between Jeremiah and his
sinful people, who had tried to murder him previously. Although he appears
to go too far in justifying his people, his identity with his people
reflected God's identity with them even in their suffering for disobedience.
Walking in darkness rather than light is the language of condemnation, and is
used in John's letters in that sense. He was identified with Israel even in
their condemnation, and in this looks forward to the intensely
representative work of the Lord Jesus.
Lamentations 3:3 Surely against me He turns his hand again and again all the day-
The idea may be 'against me alone'.
If Jeremiah, a sinful man, was able to achieve this level of identity with
God's condemned people- how much more the Lord on the cross. This fleshes
out our understanding of Emmanuel, "God with us" in our sinful state, and
for all time shows that man is not alone, never, even in his sin and
condemnation. We see again and again "Sin and its condemnation, love and
its victory". Jeremiah personalizes the suffering of Israel; he really felt he was
the one being judged and condemned. See on :12.
Lamentations 3:4 My flesh and my skin He has made old; He has broken my bones-
"He rotted my flesh", another identification of himself with
Job; see on :12. LXX "He has made old my flesh and my skin". Job's
skin likewise suffered premature ageing: "You have filled me with
wrinkles" (Job 16:8), and he is promised that his skin would "return to
the days of youth" and become "fresher than a child's" (Job 33:25).
What follows is based upon Jeremiah's experience in the dungeon. But
he seems to have reapplied those feelings to how he felt as the
representative of God's people in their condemnation and suffering at the
hands of their invaders; see on :19. Just as his lamentations were
originally written to lament the death of Josiah, but he has extended and
reapplied them to his grief for Zedekiah and Jerusalem (2 Chron. 35:25).
He applies his lament for himself in the dungeon to how he laments for
himself as the subject of Divine condemnation at the hands of the
Babylonians. Even though he was personally innocent and didn't unduly
suffer from the Babylonian invasion. In all this we have a window into the
nature of the feelings of the Lord Jesus as He died on the cross, the
death of a criminal, thereby tasting death for every sinful man- whilst
personally innocent.
Lamentations 3:5 He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail-
Building against could refer to the building of bulwarks against the wall
of Jerusalem (s.w. Dt. 20:20), as if Jeremiah feels as if he is Jerusalem.
But the same words are used of how Jeremiah had been given God's word, in
order to build against as well as destroy (Jer. 1:10). He felt torn
between identification with God's word, and identification with his sinful
people and his pity for them. "Gall" was specifically the judgment for
Israel's sins (Jer. 8:14; 9:15) and for the false prophets (Jer. 23:15)-
the very ones who had plotted to murder Jeremiah. But now he identifies
himself even with his worst enemies in pity for them.
Jeremiah feels that he has been given "gall",
when this was the specific judgment for Judah: "Yahweh our God has put us
to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned
against Yahweh" (Jer. 8:14); "I will feed them, even this people, with
wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink" (Jer. 9:15). This man's
amazing identity with God's sinful people, when he didn't have to feel
like that... is but a poor shadow of the Lord's amazing psychological
achievement on the cross. He really was and is "God with us".
Jeremiah's deep identity with his people in their sinfulness and suffering for it all points forward to the Lord's identity with us, bearing our nature and on the cross totally identifying with sinners. Therefore His sufferings on the cross have connections with the punishments for Israel's sins (e.g. being offered gall to drink = Jer. 8:14; Lam. 3:5). Israel were temporarily forsaken by God because of their sins (Is. 49:14; 54:7), and therefore so was Christ. Christ was chastened with the rod of men "and with the stripes of the children of men", i.e. Israel (Is. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24; Mic. 5:1), in His death on the cross. This was not a punishment on the Lord for having human nature; it was an outcome of His total identity with us.
Lamentations 3:6 He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been
long dead-
And in this case, a priest like Jeremiah would feel ritually unclean
and separated from God. It was the Lord's intense identity with us as
sinners which likewise led Him to genuinely feel forsaken by God (Mt.
27:46). These feelings were in the first instance Jeremiah reworking his
feelings when in the dungeon; see on :4. Perhaps that dark place felt like
a tomb, and maybe dead bodies were thrown into it.
Lamentations 3:7 He has walled me about, that I can’t go forth; He has made my
chain heavy-
The idea of being fenced in by God is taken from Job; see on
:12. Jeremiah was kept it seems in a cabin in the wall of the dungeon, and
in chains. This would have been the basis for his feelings of being walled
about. As he sees Judah going into captivity in chains, he recalled the
time when he was in chains. Thus he reapplied his feelings in the dungeon
to how he now felt as he saw Judah taken captive; see on :4.
Lamentations 3:8 Yes, when I cry, and call for help, He shuts out my prayer-
Jeremiah seems to be recalling how his cries for help were initially not heard, but then they were, and there was dramatic intervention and salvation for him. And he hopes that this can be the case for Judah.
The only way to eat in the dungeon would have been to have food lowered down, and seeing the city was suffering famine, chances of survival were slim. The pit in which there was no water (Jer. 38:6) would have reminded him of Joseph's experience (Gen. 37:24), and he may well have looked therefore towards some miraculous deliverance. His thoughts at this time are here in Lam. 3, where he wrote in his mind a prayer or psalm about it, but now reapplies this to his feelings for Israel. But he felt his prayers were shut out by the covering placed upon the dungeon (Lam. 3:8,53), and he was enclosed within hewn stone (Lam. 3:9)- what the dungeon walls were made of. It was presumably a sewer, with excrement falling before his face. He therefore felt he was in a living death and burial, surrounded by gravel stones as if in a grave (Lam. 3:16). His enemies mocked him from above (Lam. 3:14), pouring water that was probably excrement upon him (Lam. 3:54; as the dungeon was a sewer), his teeth were broken from the beating and perhaps from the descent into the dungeon (Lam. 3:16), and he felt bitter with God rather than full of faith and hope in deliverance (Lam. 3:15). But then his faith revived, reflecting how God had still not destroyed Judah by His great grace (Lam. 3:22), and therefore every day he survived until morning he saw as God's grace to him, in which he could hope (Lam. 3:23). He realized he was Judah's representative; for they too were to be sent forth from Babylon, the pit in which there was no water (Zech. 9:11). And this gave him hope for the restoration of the Judah whom he knew he represented; just as God's great grace to Israel historically should be basis for our hope. And so again we see his totally identity with Israel; God would not hear their prayers, having told Jeremiah not to pray to Him for them; and he feels that is true for himself personally, such was his identity with his people.
Lamentations 3:9 He has walled up my ways with cut stone; He has made my paths
crooked-
The cut stone was what he would have remembered from being in the
dungeon; see on :8. The Jews had made their own paths crooked or perverse
(s.w. Jer. 3:21; 9:5). But now Jeremiah seems to blame God for their sin
as well as the judgment for it; see in :11. This total taking of their
side is in one sense wrong, but yet it indicates the amazing identity of
the Lord Jesus and even God Himself with impenitent sinners. For at the
exile, God's heart bled for His sinful people, as Jeremiah's did, despite
their impenitence.
LXX "has hedged my paths", the language of Job 3:23: "Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?".
Lamentations 3:10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret
places-
"He pounced on me like a lion" (GNB) is again Job: "You hunt me like a lion" (Job 10:16). Lion and bear are the common symbols of Israel's enemies. And God is in them, just as Job was shown that Leviathan and Behemoth, beasts of land and sea, were both actually on God's side.
Babylon and the nations are portrayed as the beast waiting to pounce upon Judah in judgment. Jeremiah clearly sees that God is behind them, and appears more angry with God than he does with those Gentile nations. But he repeatedly refuses to see Israel's sin as the root cause for all this. See on :46.
Lamentations 3:11 He has turned aside my ways-
"Forced me off my ways".
As in :9, Jeremiah blames God for their sins. He recognizes that
Israel's way had turned aside from God (s.w. 'revolted' Jer. 5:23; 6:28;
Ez. 6:9), and he identifies with them in that, feeling he has personally
turned aside. But he wrongly blames God for it. OMIT: It is this nadir of
spirituality which serves to highlight the wonderful climax of the book in
Lam. 5:16-21 when he comes to total confession of sin and desire for
restoration, taking full guilt for sin without blaming God or
circumstance.
And pulled me in pieces; He has made me desolate- Continuing the likeness of Yahweh to a lion in :10. But Jeremiah was treated very well by the Babylonian lion; he was given preferential treatment and offered a good retirement package in Babylon. But he as it were ignores that, and focuses upon his identity with God's people who had been torn apart by the lion.
Lamentations 3:12 He has bent His bow, and set me as a target for the arrow-
This is again word for word what Job said (Job 7:20; 16:12).
But Job was wrong in what he said, and was condemned for it by Elihu and
God. Jeremiah has
himself condemned Judah for bending their bow and firing arrows of
deceitful words (Jer. 9:3,8). But now he complains that these arrows are
as it were returning to them. Again as in :3, Jeremiah is intensely personalizing Judah's
suffering. He feels he himself is mere target practice for God, and is the
sole target for God's wrath; and yet as noted on :33, he does move on from
this. This is typical depressive feeling; that the
sufferer alone is suffering. And yet Jeremiah arrived in that position
because of his deep identity with God's people. Depression is at times
caused by identification with others who are suffering; internalizing
their situation can be a factor in personal depression. It was so with
Jeremiah; and yet he comes to this position from a basic love for the
people.
Lamentations 3:13 He has caused the shafts of His quiver to enter into my kidneys-
Notice how Jeremiah’s bowels were turned for his people, because he
felt that he had shared in their sin. The arrows of God entered
into his
kidneys, and this is why he so cried out in pain.
But God’s arrows were against a sinful Judah (Lam. 2:4 "He has bent
His bow like an enemy, He has stood with His right hand as an adversary,
has killed all that were pleasant to the eye"). Yet Jeremiah so
identified with them that he felt they had entered him; and this is
why he could cry out in the way he did. Even though he hadn’t rebelled, he
felt that because they had, so had he, as he was so identified with them. He
reached such a level of grief through identifying himself so closely with
those for whom he grieved. Time and again, the descriptions of his personal
suffering and grief are expressed in the terms of the very sufferings which
he had prophesied as coming upon a sinful Israel. And so with us, if we feel
and show a willful solidarity with the people of this world, with our
brethren, then we will grieve for them. If we maintain the selfish, modern detachedness from them, then we will never have a heart that bleeds
for them. Jeremiah could so easily have shrugged his shoulders and reasoned
that Judah had had their chance; and it wasn’t on his head. But he didn’t.
His attitude was that he had to seek the sheep until he found it.
And so Jeremiah feels that he himself has committed Israel’s sin along
with them: “We have transgressed and have rebelled” (Lam. 3:42).
He feels that God will not hear his prayer (Lam. 3:44), even
though this was only true for the people and not for Jeremiah personally.
In this he looks forward to how the Lord Himself genuinely felt forsaken
by the Father, even though He Himself was never forsaken.
Lamentations 3:14 I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the
day-
Jeremiah has been identified so closely with the people, as
demonstrated throughout this commentary so far. But this is the more
noteworthy because he achieves this even although that people mocked him
continually. He loved those who mocked him, and loved to the point of
total self-identification with them.
The reference is to the historical Jeremiah: "I am become a laughing-stock
all the day, every one mocks me" (Jer. 20:7). And yet he is also speaking
for his people, such was his identity with them. Insofar as Jeremiah is
expressing Zion's pain at being mocked, he was overlooking his own earlier
prophecy as to why this must definitely happen: "I will bring such a
disaster on them that all the nations of the world will be terrified.
People will make fun of them, make jokes about them, ridicule them, and
use their name as a curse everywhere I scatter them... I will pursue them
with war, starvation, and disease, and all the nations of the world will
be horrified at what they see. Everywhere I scatter them, people will be
shocked and terrified at what has happened to them. People will make fun
of them and use their name as a curse" (Jer. 24:9; 29:18 GNB).
We have another allusion here to Job (Job 30:9 "Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them"); likewise :12 complains that God has used Jeremiah and Zion merely for target practice, which is exactly the blasphemy uttered by Job (Job 16:12). Indeed, more than allusion- this is conscious quotation. Jeremiah thought that by quoting Job, he was on safe ground. But he failed to accept that Job was condemned for saying things like that, both by God and Elihu. And had to repent. For Job started 'perfect' but was convicted of sin by God and Elihu until he finally repented. His sin which he repented of was therefore his cursings of God in his speeches. Jeremiah seems to ignore that, and in fact places himself in Job's position.
Lamentations 3:15 He has filled me with bitterness, He has sated my thirst with
wormwood-
When in the dungeon, which is the basis for this chapter, Jeremiah
was at the mercy of his tormentors for food and water. And they lowered
down to him water with wormwood. The Lord too was offered such bitter
drink on the cross.
Lamentations 3:16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; He has covered me
with ashes-
This gives the impression of a living death, as if the ashes of the
funeral pyre and the gravel of the grave had been poured upon his body.
Jeremiah didn't die, neither in the dungeon nor in the Babylonian conquest
of Jerusalem. But he felt as if he had. He thereby as it were "tasted
death for every man" as did the Lord, so intense was his identification
with his people (Heb. 2:9).
Lamentations 3:17 You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity-
GNB "I have forgotten what health and peace and happiness are".
Jeremiah had only known peace and prosperity before his prophetic call. So
he seems to be complaining about and resenting his entire prophetic call.
Lamentations 3:18 I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh-
Jeremiah appears to be alluding to Prov. 10:28; 11:7
["the hope of the wicked will perish"; "When a wicked man dies,
hope perishes"], using the same
Hebrew words as there; with the implication that he is now amongst the
condemned, who are left without hope- in contrast to the righteous, whose
hope doesn't perish. He so identified with his condemned people that he
absolutely felt a personal, condemned sinner; and perhaps there was
something of that in the Lord's desperate cry "Why have You forsaken me?";
see on Mt. 27:46. "Expectation" is the
word for "hope", and Jeremiah had frequently prophesied of the hope of
Israel. He felt that their hope had in fact perished; he failed to see
that the hope was in the restoration, not in some dramatic overnight
reversal of the Babylonian tragedy. He will go on to reflect that when he
was in the dungeon and assumed his hope was perished, God surprised him.
And he will go on to hope that this might still be the case for Judah whom
he represented. But even here in Lam. 3, still he expresses no hope in the
restored Kingdom and coming of Messiah which he had so often prophesied.
Because he wasn't getting the Kingdom immediately, he assumed that hope
had perished.
Lamentations 3:19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall-
See on :1. He had likely been given gall to drink as this was the
punishment for false prophets (Dt. 29:18; Jer. 23:15). And yet in the
judgment of Jerusalem, Jeremiah so pitied those who did this to him that
he feels as if he has drunk the gall which they were to drink, such was
his identity with them (see on :5). Thus he reapplied his dungeon
experiences to his grief for Jerusalem; see on :4. GNB gives
"homelessness" for "misery"; as if he felt his own uncertain residency,
living temporarily at Gedaliah's house, was a way of fellowshipping the
homeless exiles.
Jer. 40:6
observes: "Then went Jeremiah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and
lived with him among the people who were left in the land". It is repeatedly emphasized that
Jeremiah "lived... among the people". Even though he lived in Gedaliah's
house in relatively luxury, his living is described according to how
Jeremiah perceived it- he lived "among the people" (also Jer. 40:1; Jer.
39:14). And this of course is an example to us, wherever our lot be cast.
Lamentations 3:20 My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me-
The referent of "them" is unclear. If the suggestion on :19 is correct,
then it would refer to the homeless exiles, with whom Jeremiah identified
through his far less radical homelessness. Or the reference could be to
his former peace and prosperity noted on :17.
Lamentations 3:21 This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope-
The referent of "this" would seem to refer to the grace of Yahweh which he
comments upon in :22. Jeremiah had previously been looking only negatively
at what he "remembered"- a former life of peace and prosperity (:17,20).
But now he recalls to mind Yahweh's many graces toward him. And again
we
have a lesson here for us in depression. We can focus solely upon the past
losses, the negatives; but we can also choose to remember all the past
graces. We have some power over what we recall to mind. And Jeremiah, who
had been saved from death in the dungeon and other plots on his life by
divine grace alone, had many "graces" he could remember.
LXX "Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing"- whereas previously Jeremiah says that there is no hope. Lamentations, although poetry, is expressing flow of consciousness feelings, with all the ups and downs involved in that. Jeremiah rallies himself with the thought of how he had died and figuratively resurrected when in the pit. This gives him hope that as he had been saved, so Yahweh would save Judah. This looks forward to how the Lord's death and resurrection is the guarantee of our salvation. "Therefore have I hope" shows his total identity with the people- for he himself had an assurance of a comfortable retirement in Babylon.
Additionally, the following verses
give reasons why Jeremiah has returned to hope. Those verses are fill of
allusions to God's basic character as revealed in Ex. 34:5,6
["compassionate and gracious... great in mercy and truth"], and to His
faithfulness to the covenant. Every morning is a reminder that His
covenant is sure to those who want to be part of it, and that His basic
personality hasn't changed. He is still the same, essentially loving and
saving, and in our age that is shown in His Son, Yah's salvation.
Lamentations 3:22 It is because of Yahweh’s graces that we are not consumed,
because His compassion doesn’t fail-
So far in Lamentations, the tone has been of despair, without hope. Even though Isaiah and even Jeremiah himself had prophesied of the final "hope of Israel". We can know all that but like Jeremiah, wallow in despair because we want immediate resolution. However, I suggest that Lam. 3:22-39 is a turning point. Jeremiah rallies himself with the trust that God's grace has not ended (:22), salvation must be waited for (:26), because God has not cast off His people eternally (:31). Yet Lamentations 3 is full of allusion to Jeremiah's personal miraculous experience of salvation from the dungeon. He sees this as a hint that Judah likewise can be saved.
See on :21. Jeremiah was commanded not to make lamentation for the punishment of
his people (Jer. 16:5). But he did, and God inspired the record of them in
Lamentations, and because they are inspired words, He spoke through those
words to all subsequent generations.
Lamentations 3:23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness-
Given that the wages of sin is death, the fact life goes on morning by morning is itself a huge example of God's
grace (:21) and faithfulness. In the dungeon, existence was a daily
struggle. The fact Jeremiah was alive each morning was evidence to him of
God's grace, and he recalls this to mind and applies it to the suffering
of Judah. The fact some of them remained alive was evidence enough of His
faithfulness. Remember that in the context, Jeremiah has been accusing God
of unreasonably rejecting him and Judah. But now he sees that whilst there
is life, there is no simply hope- but also the actual experience of God's
faithfulness and grace every morning. See on :39.
Lamentations 3:24 Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him-
Jeremiah was a priest, and the priesthood were promised that although they
would have no "portion" or inheritance, yet Yahweh was their portion (s.w.
Num. 18:20; Dt. 10:9). Jeremiah returns to his basic, core spirituality.
He had lost his peace, stability and prosperity (:17). But he shouldn't
have focused on those things, because his relationship with Yahweh was his
real portion. And he therefore had hope that in the restored kingdom, he
would receive an eternal inheritance. Jeremiah was identified with Israel,
and they were to be a nation of priests. They had lost their physical
inheritance, so that they might become a nation of priests who had Yahweh
as their inheritance. Here we see how the Father was working through their
loss of their natural inheritance. And Jeremiah is emerging from his
depression in appreciating this.
The Hebrew for "hope" is the same word as "wait", and is a major theme for Jeremiah at this point (:18,21,24,26). The hope of Israel entailed waiting for the prophesied 70 years exile to finish and for the restoration under Messiah to come. Jeremiah seems to start to get this, hence in :25 he recognizes that God "is good to those that wait for Him". He recalls his waiting / hoping for God to rescue him from the dungeon, which he sees as possibly programmatic for Judah's salvation. For after all, the restoration from Babylon had been spoken of as bringing "the prisoners out of the dungeon" (Is. 42:7). And yet despite this understanding of the need to "wait", his request is basically for some instant reversal of Judah's woes, overnight. His acceptance of the need to "wait" is still only passing and theoretical.
Lamentations 3:25 Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks
Him- Jeremiah reflects that in the dungeon, he had waited for Yahweh,
and been delivered. Instead of focusing solely upon the losses, the
tragedy of the invasion... he now turns towards the concept of waiting for
Yahweh, and hoping in Him. But he confesses that the waiting and hoping
will only be for the one who seeks Yahweh. We could argue that
Jeremiah is yet to come to the
unconditional repentance which is the climax of the book in Lam. 5:16-21,
but he is edging towards it by reflecting that the "hope" for those who
"wait" for Yahweh is only for those who seek Yahweh. Isaiah's prophecies
of a restored Kingdom for the exiles were for those who "wait for Him"
(s.w. Is. 40:31; 49:23). And Jeremiah was surely aware of those
prophecies.
Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of Yahweh- Jeremiah had so far in Lamentations been
implying that he expected Yahweh to act immediately to save Judah from
their tragedies. But now he recognizes that it is good to have to wait for
that salvation. He still hasn't stated clearly that Judah must repent, and
their condemnation [from which they needed salvation] was solely due to
their sins. But he is edging closer to it. "Wait for" is LXX
"expect". Surely Paul has this in view when he writes of "the
patient waiting for Christ" (2 Thess. 3:5). Jeremiah is coming to realize
that the Hope of Israel he had prophesied was only for those who waited
for the years of exile to pass; although we would be happier if he
actually made this explicit. And after Lam. 3, he slips back into his
hopeless laments and desire for immediate reversal of fortune.
Lamentations 3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth-
Jeremiah realizes that his own sufferings had led him to wait and hope in
Divine salvation, especially when he was in the dungeon awaiting death.
And he realizes that his personal path must be Judah's. He had literally
carried a yoke in the acted parable of warning Judah to submit to the yoke
of Babylon (Jer. 27:2). And Judah were now themselves beneath that yoke,
which was a figure of servitude to the Gentiles in Jer. 2:20. And he
realized that it had been spiritually "good" for him. So instead of
lamenting the exile, he was beginning to see a long term purpose and
blessing in it. He has earlier
lamented the yoke of Judah as if it were his own yoke: "The yoke of my
transgressions is bound by His hand; they are knit together, they have
come up on my neck" (Lam. 1:14). Now he recalls that he had carried a
literal yoke in his youth, had suffered for it- but was still alive. He
had himself taught that to take on the yoke of Babylon, go into exile
there, die there and be resurrected into the restored Kingdom... was
indeed the right and good thing, and the way to life: "Bring your necks
under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and
live" (Jer. 27:11,12). And so he starts to see hope for Judah. He was
Judah's representative just as the Lord is ours; but still that doesn't
guarantee automatic salvation for all those represented. They have to
themselves repent and accept the identification, which Judah didn't do.
And in any case, the salvation available in Jeremiah's time was not
immediate, as he hoped, but involved waiting for the exile to finish,
Judah to repent / return and the restoration of the Kingdom to happen.
Lamentations 3:28 Let him sit alone and keep silence, because He has laid it on
him-
Lamentations 3:29 Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be that in this case
there may be hope- Here Jeremiah edges closer towards the concept of
repentance; for putting the mouth in the dust surely implies some regret.
But GNB "We should bow in submission, for there may still be hope" would
continue the allusion to the need to bear the yoke of the Babylonians in
:27,28, and thereby come to the ultimate freedom of God's restored Kingdom
in Israel. Jeremiah is perhaps alluding
to Job's comment that he lays his hand upon his mouth. But as discussed on
Job 40:4, this was an inadequate statement of repentance. The idea of
"perhaps there is hope" is hardly a strong confession of faith. There
definitely was the prophesied hope of Israel at the time of restoration.
But Jeremiah's idea that there might just possibly be hope of an immediate
reversal of judgment- was just not realistic, indeed it was wrong in that
it denied all the words of God which required such judgment.
Lamentations 3:30 Let him give his cheek to Him who strikes him; let him be filled
full with reproach- The
shame of having the cheek struck is yet another connection with Job (Job
16:10 "They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me
insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me"). The
Lord's command to turn the other cheek, to offer the other cheek to be
struck, is surely alluding here (Mt. 5:39). We are to accept we deserve
condemnation and shame. And the Lord Himself was surely inspired by
Jeremiah here: "I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to
those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and
spitting" (Is. 50:6 NRSV). Without yet appealing for unconditional
repentance, Jeremiah edges yet further towards it. For to be smitten on
the cheek was the sign of reproof for some kind of wrong doing; and he
urges Judah to give their cheek to God to strike, and to allow themselves
["let him be..."] to filled with shame. For it was from this basis that
they could come to a position of waiting for the Lord in hope. When the
Lord Jesus was smitten on the cheek we see how He absorbed the spirit of
these things.
Lamentations 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off forever-
Yahweh 'cast off' Judah (Jer. 12:7; 23:33) but only because they had cast
Him off (Jer. 15:6 s.w.). And yet God did not cast off His people (Jer.
33:26); Jeremiah personally was persuaded that God would not cast off His
people for ever (Lam. 3:31). He will show them mercy as if He had not cast
them off (Zech. 10:6); this reversal of their casting off was to be
through the repentance of the exiled community (Lev. 26:44). But even this
didn't happen, and yet God still did not cast them away (Rom. 11:2). His
love and grace was such that He holds on to them. This desperate holding
on to His people is seen in the experience of every person who joins God's
people through baptism into Christ. They may indeed be cast off
ultimately, but that is because they cast Him off, and wrestled against
His insistent desire to keep hold of them eternally.
It has been observed that Lam. 3:31-36 is the central point of Lamentations: "Chapters 1-2 and 4-5 consist of twenty-two verses each (all except ch. 5 being acrostics), while chapter 3 is a triple acrostic consisting of sixty-six verses... Thus the book’s careful literary crafting makes it very easy to locate its center, and it is instructive to note that Lamentations reaches its exact midpoint in 3:31-36, the kaph and lamed verses, which form both a numerical as well as thematic core".
Lamentations 3:32 For though He cause grief, yet He will have compassion according
to the multitude of His graces- "Grief" or 'to grieve' here is the
same word for in :33, where Jeremiah moves on from simply lamenting the
"grief" to appreciate that this was not done willingly; and he now
realizes that at best there is a paradox, in that God causes grief and yet
at the same time is the God of all grace. And somehow His compassion will
be revealed. Previously in the Lamentations, Jeremiah has seen only one
part of the picture- the immediate suffering. But now he moves on to
realize that there is another side to the dialectic, and that is God's
grace. "Compassion" is the word used of what would be revealed when the
exiled Israel repented and returned to God (s.w. Dt. 30:3). Jeremiah is
moving towards the conclusion that radical repentance is required to
release that revelation of compassion.
There is some breakthrough here. In Lam. 1:5,12 the same term for 'causing grief' has been used as a lament; but now Jeremiah sees that at some point, that causing of grief will end and Yahweh will show the compassion which Jeremiah had prophesied of in the restoration prophecies. Jeremiah has been lamenting that Zion is shown no compassion (Lam. 1:2,7,9,16,17,21- a major complaint); but now he sees that at some point God will show compassion, and there are hints of it every morning in man's continued existence despite being a sinner worthy of immediate death. Earlier Jeremiah had prophesied: "Then I will smash them like jars against one another, old and young alike. No pity, compassion, or mercy will stop Me from killing them" (Jer. 13:14). Jeremiah so far has been lamenting that God is showing no compassion. But now he realizes that God's mercy and compassion is still there- but it must therefore be revealed at some future point, at the establishment of the Kingdom. But from this high point he soon goes back downwards into wanting an immediate resolution, as we see throughout the final two laments.
Lamentations 3:33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of
men- This is a marked improvement from his earlier tone of criticism
toward God. He had earlier complained that God was but an archer, using
him for His target practice (:12). But now he recognizes that the ever
present 'gracious' side of God means that we can never conclude that
suffering is inflicted willfully by God nor in any merely capricious
sense. Literally, 'He does not
afflict from the heart'. The same phrase is found in Num. 16:28: "Hereby
you shall know that Yahweh has sent me to do all these works;
for they are not from my own mind".
The same idea is in Is. 10:7 about Assyria's behaviour toward Judah:
"However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so". God's
essential core heart is not in punishment but in salvation, although for
now, there has to be that retribution for sin. God likewise finally judges
man not according to surface actions, but according to our core heart
positions. Jeremiah at this point briefly comes to see that God's
essential core heart position is of love for His people, and compassion-
and that will finally be realized, in the restored Kingdom he had so
extensively prophesied about. We have similar insights into God's heart in
Hosea, where His anger and His love struggle within Him, His changes of
mind are real internal struggles within Him- but the pole of His saving
love and compassion always wins out.
Lamentations 3:34 To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth-
Instead, the restoration prophecies speak of Yahweh's releasing of the
prisoners (s.w. Zech. 9:11,12; Ps. 68:6; 69:33; 79:11; 102:20). And yet
Judah were prisoners, and apparently crushed. But Jeremiah begins to see
that this is not to be man's last end. The prophecies of restoration,
uttered by himself too, spoke of freedom for the prisoners. They were not
to be always imprisoned, let alone crushed. Jeremiah is speaking here
firstly of his own experience of prison- he had not been crushed there,
but released. And his path was to be Israel's. But this is not to say that
exiles were not crushed; the word is used about their crushing in Is.
57:15. But Jeremiah was coming to see that this was part of a bigger
picture. He had used the same word of how a repentant Judah would be
humbled or crushed, and then the suffering would end (Jer. 44:10). They
were not willingly crushed nor need they remain crushed; for salvation and
restoration was and is part of God's essential purpose and personality.
Lamentations 3:35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most
High- The idea is that when men come before God's face to be judged,
God will not pervert their "right" or 'sentence'. This is parallel with
:36- God will not "condemn a man unjustly in his judgment" (LXX). Jeremiah
is rapidly moving away from his depressive focus upon just one part of the
picture- i.e. the immediate suffering before his eyes. He accepts that God
is just and will not bring condemnation for the sake of His own ulterior
motives. Jeremiah is also recognizing that all the suffering was a result
of a judgment given by God- and it was a right judgment.
We have noted throughout Lamentations that
Jeremiah frequently alludes to Job. God and Elihu condemn Job for
repeatedly arguing that God is unjust; it's a big theme in the book of
Job. Jeremiah perhaps now gets it, that Job was wrong.
Lamentations 3:36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve-
LXX "condemn a man unjustly in his judgment". As explained on :35,
Jeremiah is now realizing that the judgments which Judah were experiencing
were just. God would never condemn unjustly. God would not allow
any injustice in the court of heaven. Judah's judgment had been fairly
arrived at. Perhaps this is in answer to the complaint or suspicion that
in heaven, there were evil influences that were making Judah to be counted
guilty. But there is no sin nor sinful being in heaven.
Lamentations 3:37 Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t
command it?- The obvious complaint a reader would make to Jeremiah's
earlier lamentations, his complaining about the judgments, is that they
had all been prophesied by none other than Jeremiah himself. He had almost
disassociated himself from his prophetic past. But now he reflects that
the evil being experienced had all been spoken by Yahweh ahead of time. It
was all within a tightly controlled Divine program.
Lamentations 3:38 Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?-
As noted on :37, Jeremiah is now accepting what to us the readers is
glaringly obvious- the tragedy he has been lamenting had all arisen from
the prophetic words which he himself had spoken. The evil came from
Yahweh's mouth or word. And Jeremiah is driven to the same conclusion as
the restoration prophecy of Is. 45:5-7- that both good and evil are alike
from Yahweh. In his depressed state, he had seen only the evil as coming
from Him. But now he starts to see a wider picture.
Jeremiah has just been speaking of the "good" from God: "Yahweh is good to those who wait for Him... it is good that a man should hope... it is good for a man that he bear the yoke" (:25-27). Previously he has lamented the "evil" from God, complaining that Zion bears a yoke (Lam. 1:14) when now he sees that this is in fact good for a man. Now he accepts the more complete picture, that both good and evil all come from God. Thus the complaint that Yahweh has "rejected" His altar (Lam. 2:7) is now nuanced with the awareness that He will "not reject for ever" (Lam. 3:31). The restoration would sometime happen, even if it was so far in the future that it would necessitate Jeremiah's death and resurrection at Messiah's coming. Just as he would receive the field he bought- not in this life, but at the restoration. So here at this point in Lam. 3, Jeremiah begins to see the glass half full rather than half empty. He grasps what Job did in Job 2:10, that we shall receive both good and evil at Yahweh's hand; but like Job, he soon slips back to his depressive positions.
Lamentations 3:39 Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his
sins?- He had learnt in the dungeon that just to be alive is a sign
of God's grace. And the more we appreciate and understand the function of
our own bodies, the more we will likewise accept that our existence every
moment is but by God's grace. This has been the force of Jeremiah's
conclusions in :22,23. And so a living man should not complain. And
Jeremiah moves again closer to the final truth he will arrive at in Lam.
5:16-21; here he recognizes that the judgment is a punishment for sin, and
anyone left alive after it had no reason to complain about anything. This
may be a helpful tool in coping with depression. The "living man" whom he
challenges may well be himself.
GNB "Why should we ever complain when we are punished for our sin?". But this is exactly what Jeremiah has been doing so far in Lamentations. The poetry of Lamentations is reflecting his flow of consciousness feelings. "Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?" (NRSV) reminds us that every breath we take is of grace; the wages of sin is death, and we should be dead. We are alive, and that is of grace alone.
Lamentations 3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh-
"Let us examine and explore our ways"-
quite the introspection, under which every man squeals. I have argued that the book of Lamentations begins with Jeremiah bitterly
complaining that God is as good as dead (see on Lam. 1:1), with him
looking solely at the tragedy before his eyes, and progresses to a climax
of unconditional repentance in Lam. 5:16-21. But the progression is a
jagged graph. There are increasingly points at which he does recognize
that the sufferings are directly due to Judah's sins, he increasingly sees
that there is a future hope and the God of judgment is also a God of
grace. And he vaguely implies that repentance is needed, but always
quickly returns to accusing God of unreasonable behaviour. And now in
these verses he does speak clearly of the need for repentance.
But his
appeal for repentance here is still tinged with a cynicism, that God will
not hear and has not listened (:42), and that He still lacks pity (:43),
and has put a barrier between human prayer and His response (:44).
OMIT:
Jeremiah has yet to come to the appeal for unconditional repentance with
which the book climaxes.
And so in likely allusion to the descriptions of God searching and trying our hearts in the Psalms, Jeremiah says that Judah should "search and try our hearts"- we should seek to know ourselves as God does. David's invitations to God to search and try him (Ps. 17:3; 26:2; 139;23) imply he has done so himself (cp. Ps. 77:6). God now searches and tries the hearts, and will [at judgment day] give every man as his work shall be (Jer. 17:10 cp. Rev. 22:12). The spirit of man is [i.e. is intended to be] the candle which God also uses for His examination of men (Prov. 20:27); there is thus a link intended between our self-examination and the way God looks at us. His judgment must be ours. As sin is condemned by Him, so we should examine ourselves to the point of self-condemnation.
Lamentations 3:41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens-
As noted on :40, this appeal for repentance is still far from
unconditional. Sacrifice was now impossible because the temple had been
destroyed. But as a priest, Jeremiah surely had in view how that instead
of 'lifting up' the heave offerings of animal sacrifice, the people were
instead to grab hold of their own hearts and lift them up to God, and they
could lift them as high as heaven. This is surely consciously alluding to
how David realized that sacrifice and offering was not what God was
essentially looking for, but rather broken, repentant and contrite hearts
(Ps. 51:16,17). We marvel at how God worked through the loss of the temple
to bring His people more fully to Himself.
Lamentations 3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled; You have not pardoned-
Again the quality of repentance is questionable. He doesn't
say 'We have sinned and repented but You didn't forgive us'. His wrong
assumption is that forgiveness is somehow automatic. He is stating here
what we often subconsciously assume; subconsciously pleading 'special
status' for ourselves as God's people that somehow automatically waives
the consequence of sin. The contrast is clear in the Hebrew between "We"
and "You" [using what is known as a parataxis]: "We
transgressed... but
You! You
have not forgiven...". It's as if Jeremiah expects forgiveness from God to
be somehow automatic, irrespective of repentance. Just as we see all the
time in dysfunctional and abusive relationships. 'You have to put up with
me because you are you... my parent / partner / child / co-worker'.
As noted on :40, this apparent appeal for repentance is tinged with the self justification which robs 'repentance' of its real power. To say 'OK let's repent, OK we sinned... but God, You didn't forgive us, and so [by implication] all this grief came upon us unfairly'... is to miss the point. Repentance axiomatically requires a declaration that God is right and we are wrong, our sin is inexcusable, His judgment is right, and only by utter grace can we now be saved. David learnt all this very well at the time of his great repentance. Jeremiah has alluded to it in theory (see on :41), but he is still far from grasping the real spirit of David. And our repentance is often so similar. It's why repentance in practice seems to end up a process, rather than the one time act that it is intended to be.
Lamentations 3:43 You have covered with anger and pursued us; You have killed, You
have not pitied-
See on :40,42. Jeremiah is appealing for repentance, but goes
straight on to accuse God of being a pitiless murderer. The word for
"pitied" is used in a word play in 2 Chron. 36:15,17. God had pitied His
people by patiently sending prophets like Jeremiah to them. But because
they despised that pity, they didn't want it, He sent upon them the
Babylonians who did not pity them. And so in
Jer. 15:5, Jeremiah had asked the rhetorical question: "For who will have
pity on you, Jerusalem?". And the answer was, only Yahweh. But now
Jeremiah has slipped back to seeing only part of the picture, focusing on
the tragedy before his eyes; and this refusal to see a bigger picture
leads him to charge God wrongly with being pitiless. When Yahweh's pity is
one of the most recurrent themes of His self revelation. Truly God had
threatened in
Ez. 5:11: "Neither shall My eye spare, and I also will have no pity".
But the wonder of God's grace was that His eye did spare and He did pity
at the restoration (Ez. 36:21; Joel 2:18; Mal. 3:17 s.w.), just as His eye
had spared them in the desert (Ez. 20:17). This reveals the emotion of
God, His pity even for the spiritually weak, and how this triumphs over
His judgment.
Lamentations 3:44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can
pass through-
As explained on :40, here and in :43 Jeremiah seems to be tingeing
his appeal for repentance with the thought that God had cut Himself off
from His people, and placed a barrier between Him and them through which
repentance couldn't pass. OMIT: This all sets the scene for the final
unconditional confession and appeal for repentance and restoration by
grace which we have at the end of the book in Lam. 5:16-21. Here Jeremiah
appears to be almost sarcastic; the cloud of incense from the incense
altar, which as a priest he was familiar with, represented prayer (Rev.
8:3,4). But Jeremiah is saying that this cloud has been used by God as a
barrier through which prayer could not pass. So his appeal for repentance
in :40,41 is far from absolute.
We note Jeremiah laments that God is angry (:43) with their prayers. This is exactly the complaint of Ps. 80:4 where the exiles [or possibly Jeremiah] complained: "How long will You be angry against the prayer of Your people?". God had explained to the exiles quite clearly why their prayers made Him angry. They were a smoke in His nostrils because they offered them whilst burning the incense of prayer to other gods: "These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that burns all the day" (Is. 65:5). He has stated there why He was angered by their prayers. And their response is not to repent, but instead to ask 'How long till You just get over it?'. They ignored all the reasons why their prayers were angering God: "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!" (Is. 1:15 NIV); "though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them" (Ez. 8:18); "as He called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen" (Zech. 7:13). All these words were spoken to the exiles. We too can totally overlook God's conviction of us of our sins, and simply complain that He doesn't remove the consequences. That in fact is exactly what most people do. They lament all the outcomes of living in a fallen creation, without taking any serious personal responsibility for their sins.
Lamentations 3:45 You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the
nations-
Paul alludes to this in 1 Cor. 4:13, where he says that God made him
and the apostles like this to "the nations" to whom they preached; and yet
more specifically, Paul considers that they were off-scouring and refuse
in the eyes of the Jews. It's as if he realized that Jeremiah was not
quite correct here; for Israel had made themselves to be despised amongst
the nations, to whom they had prostituted themselves. And so Paul is
saying that the Gentile "nations" are as the Jews, and the true Jews are
prophets like himself, the true and spiritual Israel.
GNB "You have made us the garbage dump of the world" again recalls Job, sitting on the garbage dump outside the town.
Lamentations 3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us-
Jeremiah likens the Gentiles to a devouring beast, and yet He has
called God just that (:10). He sees God as making Himself gross, in that
He was manifest through those nations. And that is a deeply unfair take on
the whole situation. Again, Jeremiah has slipped back to seeing only one
aspect of the picture. As with Job, God may well have cut him some slack
in this because he was reasoning as someone who is the parade example of a
man in depression.
Lamentations 3:47 Fear and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction-
Jeremiah initially wrote the lamentation of chapter 3 concerning his
own enclosure in the pit / dungeon, in fear for his life. And yet he now
reuses the material concerning Israel, his people with whom he was so
identified; and yet apparently forgetting that he had been revived from
that pit by grace.
Jer. 48:44; 49:5 describe condemnation as fear being brought upon people (as Job 3:25; Prov. 1:27), and Is. 24:18 and other passages speak of the condemned fleeing from “the noise of the fear”. “The fear” is almost a way of saying ‘the judgment of God’ (Lam. 3:47). The torment of the rejected will be their fear (1 Jn. 4:18). Psychologically, we need to get in touch with our own fears now, face our fears of condemnation eye to eye, and work through them- in repenting and coming to believe firmly in God’s gracious acceptance, living in the spirit of the true love which casts out fear. I know men and women who knew God and walked with the Lord, but now say ‘it means nothing to me’. They shrug when I nervously mention to them the reality of judgment to come- and I’m not very bold at bringing the conversations around to that issue, because it is just so fearsome and of such magnitude. They tell me that they’re indifferent. But somewhere deep within them, no matter what good actors they are before the stage of our human eyes, there has to be a deep and awful fear. And it is that fear which will be revealed and which will grip them in that final day. Perhaps the greatest mental torment of the rejected will be realizing how they could have been in the Kingdom of God; they will then perceive how great was the potential which they had had in the brief years of their mortality.
Lamentations 3:48 My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of
the daughter of my people- What he saw with his eye affected his mind / heart
(:51).
Let us not see the doom of others, the pain and suffering of another life,
and walk on by not permanently moved. What we see should affect our heart-
if we have a heart that bleeds. And a bleeding heart doesn’t merely bleed-
it does something concrete, in prayer and action. Consider
other examples of the bleeding heart of Jeremiah: “Mine eyes do fail with
tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth [“my
stomach is in knots”, the Net Bible], for the destruction of the daughter of
my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of
the city” (Lam. 2:11)
Lamentations 3:49 My eye pours down, and doesn’t cease, without any intermission-
He considers his tears to be his prayer to God, begging for
intervention (:50). God often considers our situation and feelings to be
our prayer of intercession. Otherwise, the acceptability of prayer would
simply be a reflection of our ability to verbalize. And some are better at
this than others. His lack of "intermission" is alluding to the appeal of
Is. 62:7 to give God no rest until He reestablish Jerusalem. But again he
is pleading a Scripture without attention to the wider context- which is
that the reestablishment would come when Judah returned to their God. And
then they would be returned to their land and Zion would return to her
glory. Jeremiah has so often made this point in his prophecies, repeatedly
playing on the word shub, to return / repent.
Lamentations 3:50 Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven- The
aspect of repentance is still missing from all this emotional appeal to
God. At this stage, Jeremiah is still asking God to respond to the tragedy
simply for the sake of the tragedy. See on :49.
Verses 48-50 are a quotation of Jeremiah's own prophecy in Jer. 14:17-19, where God asked them to lament in this way and with these words after the destruction of Zion, but in that passage He goes on to ask them to repent. He gives them the words for repentance, just as Elihu did to Job. But like Job, Jeremiah simply laments but doesn't define that lamentation and weeping as being for their sin. The words or formula for repentance is carefully omitted by Jeremiah; he stops short of quoting it: "I will pour their wickedness on them. You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound... Have You utterly rejected Judah? Has Your soul loathed Zion? Why have You struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against You". This careful refusal to repent as requested is surely significant. Whilst at times almost casually mentioning the connection between Judah's sin and her suffering, Jeremiah can't bring himself to see that repentance is necessary- because he is too sold on his Job-like narrative, that the punishment for their sin was disproportionate. As in Lam. 2:19, his appeal for Judah to join in with his weeping doesn't clearly present an object for that weeping; it is not specifically in repentance, but rather is it an appeal for some instant reversal of Divine judgment overnight. And his own prophecies had shown that this was not God's path towards the Kingdom, as it is not in any man's life.
Lamentations 3:51 My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city-
What he saw with his eye affected his mind / heart. Let us not see
the doom of others, the pain and suffering of another life, and walk on by
not permanently moved. What we see should affect our heart- if we have a
heart that bleeds.
Lamentations 3:52 They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my
enemies without cause- Jeremiah now reuses material from a previous
composition about his feelings in the dungeon, but reapplies those
feelings to suffering Israel with whom he so identified. Those who had
chased Jeremiah without cause were the Jews. And now he parallels those
Jews with the Babylonians, and himself with the Jews. He ought to have
perceived that in fact the Jews who had so persecuted him were but
receiving the same judgment which they had passed upon him. But he didn't
want to see that, because he in the end had a heart of love for his
people; and that love manifested itself in a sense of identity with them.
See on :66.
LXX "I was trapped like a bird by enemies who had no cause to hate me". "Trapped like a bird" was the phrase used by Sennacherib of how he encircled Jerusalem. Jeremiah had been put in the dungeon for "no cause" and he seems to be seeing in his experience a parallel for Judah, whom he felt so identified with like Job suffering "without cause" (Job 2:3). But of course he was not one and the same as Judah. Their sufferings were not without cause. And what was done to Jeremiah was by the Jews and not the Babylonians!
Lamentations 3:53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone
on me- See on :52. The rest of this lamentation directly concerns
Jeremiah's experience in the dungeon, where he experienced a living death.
His point is that he now saw those experiences as those of Judah; he
identified with them even in their death. And thus he points forward to
the Lord Jesus, who by God's grace tasted the death of a sinner for every
sinful person; and yet was like Jeremiah resurrected from it and was
personally innocent of their sins.
Lamentations 3:54 Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off-
Jeremiah in the dungeon felt as if he was dead; see on :54. His enemies
mocked him from above (Lam. 3:14), pouring water that was probably
excrement upon him, as the dungeon was a sewer. His hope was that
his experience of death and resurrection in the dungeon might result in
Judah's immediate resurrection and salvation. That didn't happen, because
he was not the Lord Jesus. But we marvel at how close he got to Him in
spirit.
Lamentations 3:55 I called on Your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon-
The implication was that as Jeremiah had called upon Yahweh and been
saved from the dungeon, so should Judah. But still Jeremiah is begging for
divine intervention simply on the basis that the people were in dire
straits. Still he is not emphasizing the need for unconditional
repentance, and that was what would lead to the deliverance and
restoration he so hoped for.
Lamentations 3:56 You heard my voice; don’t hide Your ear at my breathing, at my
cry- This implies that Jeremiah was literally about to die, or he
felt he was; and his last breaths were in prayer. And he wished Judah to
pray likewise; although still in the analogy, there is no place for their
repentance, which was so critical.
But we must consider carefully the tenses. "You
heard my voice" could be Jeremiah's recollection of how God had heard his
cry for help when sinking in the dungeon. "Don't hide Your ear at my...
cry" could then be read as a further, yet unanswered cry. It is his cry
for his people, just as urgent as his own earlier cry for personal
salvation from death. Just as the Lord's resurrection is intimately bound
up in that of us His people. The Targum here makes sense: "My prayer you
received at that time, so do not cover your ear now, in order not to
receive my prayer". This would be similar to many psalms in which David
recalls a previous deliverance, and asks for God now to deliver him in his
present crisis. It's just that for Jeremiah, his present crisis is not so
much his personally, but that of his people whom he so identified with.
Lamentations 3:57 You drew near in the day that I called on You; You said, Don’t be
afraid- We don't know whether or not Jeremiah heard a literal voice
telling him not to be afraid; perhaps the voice of Yahweh was manifest in
the voice of Ebedmelech, who would have removed the stone and called down
to Jeremiah "Don't be afraid!". But Jeremiah is now seeing this as
hopefully representative of the restoration prophecies which assured Jacob
not to fear, because they would be restored (Is. 43:1; Jer. 30:10). And
likewise Yahweh would 'draw near' to the restored Judah (s.w. Jer. 30:21).
Lamentations 3:58 Lord, You have pleaded the causes of my soul; You have redeemed
my life- Jeremiah understood his prayer as having entered the court
of heaven, although it was offered from the absolutely lowest point; death
by thirst and starvation in a deep sewer. And there in heaven, his case
was judged, and the decision given to redeem his life from that living
death. And so Ebedmelech was motivated by God to rescue him. And Jeremiah
clearly thought this was possible for Judah, if they likewise prayed. But
he is carefully omitting the factor of repentance, which was so critical
for Judah.
Lamentations 3:59 Yahweh, You have seen my wrong. Judge my cause-
Jeremiah was the innocent suffering wrongfully, and he could rightly ask
Yahweh to judge his case and deliver him by doing justice rightly. But the
analogy with Judah breaks down; because they needed to repent, and were
suffering less than their iniquities deserved, but rightfully. See on :58.
It's as if Jeremiah feels that God's salvation of him personally could mean that He would do the same for Judah; he understands himself as totally identified with Judah, their total representative, and asks for their salvation on that basis, as he was miraculously raised from certain death in the dungeon. But Jeremiah was not Jesus. It didn't work. He uses the very terms about himself in the dungeon as he does about Judah's suffering- "my wrong... judge my cause... You have seen all their vengeance and their plans against me" (:59,60).
Lamentations 3:60 You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against
me- The motive for Jeremiah's persecution and consignment to death
was a wrongful desire for revenge because he had faithfully spoken God's
word. But the situation of Judah was not analogous, because they were
being judged for their "devices" against God (s.w. Jer. 6:19).
Jeremiah had asked to see Divine "vengeance" upon the Jews who threw him
into the dungeon (s.w. Jer. 11:20). But now he did see it, and his prayer
was answered, he likes to change around the analogy; Babylon was taking
vengeance upon Judah wrongfully, so he implied; and he asks God to take
note of that and change things. But his appeal for 'right' to be done by
reversing the Babylonian victory is misplaced- only repentance and
throwing themselves upon grace rather than any concept of vengeance could
change things.
Lamentations 3:61 You have heard their reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices
against me- Jeremiah had prayed that the Jews would suffer Divine
vengeance for reproaching him (s.w. Jer. 15:15). But now he is asking for
God to revenge the Babylonians for reproaching those same Jews. As
explained on :60, his appeal for 'right' to be done by reversing the
Babylonian victory is misplaced- only repentance and throwing themselves
upon grace rather than any concept of vengeance could change things. The
reproach against Israel was to be "everlasting" (s.w. Jer. 23:40). Only a
desperate, repentant appeal to God's grace could change that, and not
until Lam. 5:16-21 does Jeremiah finally advocate such an appeal.
Lamentations 3:62 The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device
against me all the day- God not only heard the words spoken against
Jeremiah, He even observed the lips of those who framed those words. This
is how intensely He is sensitive to words; but see on :60,61.
Lamentations 3:63 You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song-
As noted on :62, God sees the lips of those who speak hard things,
just as He sees the fingers which tap them on keyboards today. And He
watched their sitting down and rising up, their body language. This is His
sensitivity to His people, and Jeremiah is asking that God be likewise
sensitive to the sufferings of Judah; but see on :60,61.
"Their sitting down and their rising up: look thou upon their eyes" (LXX). This suggests that God would eyeball them. For God to eyeball a man means instant death for sinners. But the wonder is that we shall see God's face and He will wipe away our tears from our faces.
Lamentations 3:64 You will render to them a recompense, Yahweh, according to the
work of their hands- These are the words of Joel 3:4,7; Obad. 15
about the works of Judah's enemies being rendered back to them. Jeremiah
had prayed for this to be done to Israel; but now he asks for this policy
to be applied to Israel's enemies. But see on :60,61. The truth was that
Jeremiah had prayed for a recompense upon the Jews, and that was now
happening before his eyes. And he was in vain seeking to backtrack and
change things.
Lamentations 3:65 You will give them hardness of heart, Your curse to them-
This is yet more evidence that God can work directly upon the human
heart, even in response to the prayers of others for that. The climax of
Jeremiah's imprecations against Israel was that they would be given hard
hearts, and receive the curses for breaking the covenant. And indeed his
prayer was heard. But now he was desperately trying (albeit in vain) to
have his prayer reapplied to the enemies of Israel.
Lamentations 3:66 You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the
heavens of Yahweh- Yet Jeremiah in :43 has just complained that God
had pursued His people at the hands of the Babylonians. Now Jeremiah's
imprecation, uttered in the dungeon, had come true... he bitterly
regretted it and resented God doing what he had asked. The lesson clearly
is to be careful what we pray for, lest it come true. To be destroyed from
under the heavens is what God wanted to do to Israel for their idolatry,
meaning to disown them as His people (s.w. Dt. 9:14). That is what
Jeremiah had prayed for his people when he was in the dungeon, and indeed
they had broken the covenant and the curses for that were coming upon them
(:65).
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