LAMENTATIONS 3
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2003 James Melough
Before beginning our study of this chapter it is necessary to note that above
and beyond the suffering of Judah and Jeremiah, much of the material is very
obviously a foreshadowing of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
3:1. “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.”
The lament continues as Jeremiah identifies himself with the guilty nation,
and speaks as their representative. It was Judah’s rebellion, and refusal to
repent within God’s time, that had brought the stroke of his wrath upon them,
their very great folly being demonstrated by the fact that repentant obedience
would just as surely have secured blessing.
3:2. “He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into
light.”
Israel, redeemed from Egyptian bondage, had been led by a pillar of cloud in
the daytime, and by a pillar of fire at night, for forty years in the
wilderness, while God provided them with food and water, and finally brought
them into Canaan with all its riches; but instead of remembering all His
kindnesses, the ungrateful nation had forgotten, and turned to give to idols
the worship that belonged to Him alone, with the result that He had cast her
out of that good land, bringing first the ten northern tribes (Israel) into
Assyrian bondage; and then the two southern tribes (Judah and Benjamin) into
captivity in Babylon.
It is to be remembered, however, that their being brought into darkness had
been because they themselves had preferred the darkness of idolatry rather
than the light of God’s presence. And so has it been with all men, as it is
written, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For
every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest
his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light,
that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God,” Jn
3:19-21.
God does not compel men either to sin or to live righteously, but leaves each
man to choose his own path: the majority choosing to walk in darkness to
eternal doom; a small minority trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior,
and being willing to walk according to His leading in the path of light that
leads to heaven.
3:3. “Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me
all the day.”
It was by her own foolish choice, in forsaking Him for idols, that Judah had
made God her enemy, thus compelling Him to treat her as an enemy rather than
as a well loved child: and so is it with all men. By choosing to rebel
against God, and to serve Satan, men make themselves the objects of His wrath
rather than of His blessing.
3:4. “My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.”
By refusing to accept God’s gift of eternal life through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the vast majority of men choose to remain in the state of death
into which each is born as a result of descent from Adam, who by his rebellion
brought death upon himself and all his children, so that whereas the believer,
born again through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, “is renewed day
by day,” 2 Cor 4:16, even though his body grows old, but the unbeliever,
lacking that new spiritual eternal life, simply grows old, the increasing
failure of his natural body bringing him daily nearer to that dreadful moment
when he enters the kingdom of death and darkness, “where their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched,” Mk 9:44.
3:5. “He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and
travail.”
This continues the description of rebel Judah, and of the natural man and his
relationship with God. Instead of being a protecting wall around him, as He
is with the believer, the Lord as it were builds a wall around the unbeliever
which encloses him within a realm of bitterness and hardship, from which there
is no hope of escape except by repentant confession of sin, and trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. For the unbeliever, the path over which he
travels through earthly life, leads to indescribable eternal torment.
3:6. “He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.”
Those who prefer darkness to light, because they think it hides their sin,
will have the terrible experience of entering into the impenetrable eternal
darkness, described in Jude 13, “the blackness of darkness for ever.”
3:7. “He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out: he hath made my
chain heavy.”
Judah’s self-chosen path of imagined liberty proved to be the cause of God’s
building an insurmountable wall around her, and of His loading her with heavy
chains from which there was no possibility of escape. And so is it with all
who choose to follow the path of imagined freedom. Though they are unaware of
it, it simply builds a higher and thicker prison wall around them, and chains
them more securely to the eternal torment of the lake of fire.
3:8. “Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.”
The further misery of the unconverted is declared in the fact that the God
whose voice they ignored when they reveled in sin, will refuse to hear them,
when in the agony of despair, they cry out to Him, groveling at His feet in
futile hope of mercy.
3:9. “He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths
crooked.”
Those who exhaust God’s patience by failing to avail themselves of His mercy
in His time, will discover too late for remedy, that He Who would have led
them in the paths of righteousness had they been submissive to His “good, and
acceptable, and perfect will,” then becomes, not their Guide on the path of
life, but their omnipotent Opponent Who blocks that way with immovable stones,
shutting them out from His presence for ever, and shutting them up to walk in
the way that ends in hell and the eternal torment of the lake of fire.
3:10. “He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret
places.”
As a bear or a lion crouched in hiding and waiting to pounce upon an unwary
victim, so had God made Himself to rebellious and unrepentant Judah, and as He
does to every man who refuses to repent of his sin and walk in obedience. The
hopelessness of the unrepentant sinner is clearly declared in the fact that a
man seized by a bear or a lion is as good as dead, for he is powerless against
them, and therefore even more helpless against the One Who has created them.
The unexpectedness with which death and judgment may come is further
illustrated by the speed with which a lurking bear or lion pounces upon its
victim.
3:11. “He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath
made me desolate.”
As a pouncing bear or lion tears its victim to pieces, so had God suddenly
devastated rebellious Judah, using the Babylonians as His instrument. The end
of many an unrepentant sinner has often come with the same speed and
unexpectedness, death cutting them down without a second’s warning, snatching
them from occupation with earthly things into the awful reality and torment of
hell.
Desolate is connected with the idea of being stunned, devastated, numbed,
astonished.
3:12. “He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.”
As an unerring archer draws his bow, and shoots at a target, so had God acted
toward rebel Judah, the deadly accuracy of His aim being demonstrated in that
that generation of Judah had been destroyed, those not slain in battle,
languishing in captivity in Babylon, her place to be taken by the new
generation which God would bring from Babylon seventy years later.
3:13. “He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my
reins.”
The completeness of Judah’s destruction is declared in that God is spoken of
as having discharged all His arrows into Judah’s kidneys, the organs believed
by the ancients to be synonymous with the mind. There was no hope for the
recovery of that unrepentant generation.
3:14. “I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.”
A more accurate translation of “my people” is all peoples: all nations,
for it is clear that the derision was that of the surrounding nations, not of
Judah herself. She had become the subject of their satirical songs.
3:15. “He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with
wormwood.”
The joy and gladness which had been God’s recompense of Judah’s former
obedience, had been replaced with bitter anguish, likened here to that which
results from having drunk poison; the lesson taught in this being that sin
brings death.
3:16. “He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath
covered me with ashes.”
Judah, who had feasted on Canaan’s milk and honey when she walked in obedience
before God, but now a captive in Babylon because of disobedience, was forced
to eat, what by comparison, was the equivalent of gravel: the coarse
unpalatable food given slaves. The food’s being likened to gravel may
dramatize its coarseness and inferiority, while the broken teeth may portray
the displeasure with which it was eaten: its revolting character making it as
unpleasant to the eater as ordinary food would be to a man whose teeth had
been broken thus making mastication extremely painful.
To put ashes or dust on one’s head, or to roll in ashes, was the expression of
deepest sorrow, and here indicates the depths of Judah’s woe.
3:17. “And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat
prosperity.”
In Php 4:7 obedient believers are assured that, “... the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus.” An obedient Judah had once walked in the enjoyment of that peace, but
her rebellion had long since removed it far from her.
“Prosperity” as used here goes beyond financial well being, and includes the
idea of all that is pleasant and conducive to happiness.
3:18. “And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord:”
Jeremiah, continuing to act as spokesman for banished Judah, declares that the
nation has been bereft of all power and hope because the Lord has departed
from them on account of their sin.
This declaration of helplessness stands in stark contrast with the confidence
of the obedient believer who can say, “I can do all things through Christ who
strengtheneth me,” Php 4:13.
3:19. “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the
gall.”
Added to the loss of strength and hope was Judah’s consciousness of affliction
and misery, coupled with the fact that God had compelled her to drink the cup
of His retribution filled with the equivalent of bitterness and poison. For
that generation of Judah there was no hope of recovery: her refusal to repent
in God’s time had sealed her doom.
3:20. “My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.”
Like every sinner who dies unrepentant, that doomed generation of Judah
remembered, as she would eternally, the rebellion that had cut her off from
God, making her the object of His fierce wrath and judgment.
The humbling of soul may not be construed as indicating that it was the
contrition which accompanies repentance exercised in God’s time, but rather
that hopeless crushing agony of spirit which will continue for ever, first in
hell, and then for ever in the lake of fire.
3:21. “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”
3:22. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because
his compassions fail not.”
This is clearly the confession of Jeremiah himself, not on behalf of that
doomed generation of Judah, but rather relative to that generation still
future that will emerge repentant and saved from the Great Tribulation, to
inherit millennial blessing.
God’s great mercy and compassion impelled Him to give His only Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, to die for the expiation of man’s sin, but it is effective only
to secure remission of the sins of those who confess that they are sinners,
and who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. In spite of God’s
great love, mercy, and compassion, and in spite of Christ’s vicarious death,
all who refuse to give that confession, and exercise that faith, must suffer
eternal torment in the lake of fire.
3:23. “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
God’s mercies and compassions are new every morning, not in the sense that
each new day presents a fresh opportunity for every sinner to repent and be
saved by trusting in Christ as his Savior; but that first of all they are
extended every day to every believer. No matter what the failure of
yesterday, each new day presents a fresh opportunity for each believer to live
that day for God’s glory, and his own eternal blessing.
From another perspective, each new day presents opportunity for sinners to
confess themselves sinners, and be saved by trusting in Christ, but there is
no guarantee that each morning of each sinner’s life will be invested with
that same character. For those who refuse to repent and trust in Christ as
Savior within God’s appointed time, there comes a day for each of them when
salvation is still available to others but not to them, God’s warning being,
“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,” 2 Cor
6:2, and again, “He, who being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly
be destroyed, and that without remedy,” Pr 29:1.
3:24. “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in
him.”
Each believer’s soul rests confidently on the sure foundation that the Lord
Himself is his inheritance, the basis of his confidence being God’s assurance
to every believer, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we
are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint
heirs with Christ....” Ro 8:16-17.
3:25. “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that
seeketh him.”
To wait for God is to live undismayed by the seeming adverse circumstances of
life, resting quietly in the knowledge that every circumstance is ordered or
permitted by Him, for His glory and our eternal blessing.
To seek God is to inquire about Him, to acquire a deeper knowledge of Him,
something that is accomplished by the daily, diligent study of His Word, for
it is in that Word that He reveals Himself. The better we know and obey
Scripture, the better we know God.
3:26. “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the Lord.”
It isn’t sufficient that we should just hope for the fulfillment of all God’s
promises, but that we should be tranquil while waiting. How often the joy of
our expectations is marred by perturbation! How easily we forget that, “...
all things work together for good to those who love God,” Ro 8:28!
3:27. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”
The thought appears to be that it is better for one to trust in, and obey
Christ, while he is still young, one obvious advantage being that such a
believer is not only preserved from youthful folly, but that he has the
privilege of being able to serve the Lord in the vigor of youth.
The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary adds the instructive
comment that, “... the old are full of prejudices,” and are therefore not
susceptible to new ideas.
3:28. “He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he (God) hath
borne (imposed, placed) it upon him.”
The obedient believer, in the midst of chastisement or testing, sits alone
with God, silent, uncomplaining, recognizing that what the Lord does to His
own is for their ultimate blessing.
3:29. “He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.”
To put one’s mouth in the dust was a figure of speech used to describe the
attitude of one who abjectly acknowledged his own unworthiness, and here it is
used to express Jeremiah’s attitude, as the representative of sinful Judah.
He took the place she should have taken, his hope being that God, after having
chastised her, would raise her up again; though, as noted already, the
generation delivered into Babylonian captivity, was beyond hope. It would be
a future generation, that which will emerge repentant and believing from the
Great Tribulation, that will ultimately inherit fulness of blessing in the
Millennium.
3:30. “He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full
with reproach.”
This continues the description of the godly man: he offers the other cheek to
those who strike him, and meekly endures their verbal abuse. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the One in Whom this attitude was perfectly exemplified, as it is
written, “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting,” Isa 50:6; “Who, when
he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but
committed himself to him that judgeth righteously,” 1 Pe 2:23. The godly man
likewise leaves his cause in God’s hands.
3:31. “For the Lord will not cast off for ever:”
This applies, of course, only to the believer, as it is written, “For whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not?” Heb 12:6-7.
Unbelievers, on the other hand, will be cast off for ever.
3:32. “But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies.”
The chastening with which God punishes the believer’s sins, causes temporary
grief, but His purpose is to teach His erring child the folly of sin; and with
that objective accomplished, He then lavishes His limitless love on that same
chastened child.
3:33. “For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of
men.”
It is only with reluctance that God imposes affliction upon men, that step
being taken only when they refuse to yield the obedience that enables Him to
bless them.
3:34. “To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,”
“... prisoners” is used here to describe those whose refusal to repent makes
them the objects of God’s wrath; their being crushed under is feet being the
metaphoric description of their being cast first into hell, and then eternally
into the lake of fire.
3:35. “To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most
High,”
3:36. “To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.”
The subversion of justice is something God will not tolerate. He who is
guilty of this sin will surely be punished, unless, of course, he repents.
3:37. “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord
commandeth it not?”
This declares the impotence of man and the omnipotence of God. Nothing can
occur apart from God’s permission or direction, and even what He merely
permits is ultimately for His glory.
3:38. “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and
good?”
“... the mouth of the most High” is an interrogative poetic reference to God
as the Supreme Ruler, the One from Whom proceeds what man considers adversity,
or what man considers prosperity or blessing. The verse might be paraphrased,
“Is not God the source of both adversity and prosperity?”
3:39. “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment
of his sins?”
Since God is omnipotent and holy, what right then has mere man to complain
when that same God punishes him for his sins?
3:40. “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.”
Instead of daring to question the ways of Him Who is omnipotent and holy, we
ought to be constantly examining our own ways thoroughly, and when sin is
discovered, to turn to God in repentant confession, so as to be restored to
communion and blessing.
3:41. “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the
heavens.”
Since the heart is considered metaphorically to be the source of our thoughts
and motives; and our hands as the synonym for our words and deeds, this verse
translates into the truth that all our words and deeds are to be impelled by a
pure motive.
3:42. “We have transgressed and rebelled; thou hast not pardoned.”
The fact that though they confessed to having committed many sins in their
rebellion against God, but had not been pardoned, makes it clear that either
they had not abandoned their sin, or had yielded their confession too late,
for, as noted already, confession without abandonment of sin is worthless; and
furthermore, God has placed a time limit within which He will accept
confession and grant pardon, but once a sinner crosses that invisible line,
pardon is unavailable. The generation of Judah about which Jeremiah spoke,
had crossed that fatal line. Failure to repent within God’s time had sealed
their doom.
3:43. “Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou has
slain, thou hast not pitied.”
Scholars disagree as to whether God had covered Himself from Judah’s sight
with a vail of anger, or whether He had covered her with His fierce anger.
Settlement of that question is unimportant, for in a sense both are true. It
is a fearful thing when one makes himself the object of God’s wrath, for then
blessing is exchanged irrevocably for Divine persecution; His pardon and gift
of eternal life are replaced with death and eternal pitiless punishment in the
lake of fire.
3:44. “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should
not pass through.”
There is a deadly finality about God’s hiding Himself from men and refusing to
listen to their prayer; but sin unconfessed and unrepented of in His time,
inevitably brings that deadly impenetrable cloud which prayer cannot pierce,
thus leaving the tardy penitent to perish. The Judah addressed by Jeremiah
stood confronted with that same terrible cloud, as will every sinner who
refuses to repent in God’s time.
3:45. “Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of
the people.”
She whom God had desired to promote above all nations, had, by her sin and
refusal to repent, made herself instead as the scum of the earth.
3:46. “All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.”
The nations whom God had meant Judah to rule over, mocked and jeered at her
fallen state.
3:47. “Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.”
How great the difference between what Judah could have been, and what her
rebellion had made her! Like a bird or animal caught in a trap from which
escape was impossible, that generation of the nation also faced certain death,
the glory and blessing she might have enjoyed being reserved for the repentant
believing remnant that will yet emerge from the Great Tribulation to rule over
the millennial nations.
3:48. “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction
of the daughter of my people.”
3:49. “Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any
intermission,”
Jeremiah could only weep as he beheld the ruin Judah’s rebellion had brought
upon her, his sorrow deepened by the knowledge of what she had forfeited by
her sin and refusal to repent in God’s time.
3:50. “Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.”
It was the prophet’s wish that God might look down in pity, but he knew it was
futile, for God had already made it clear to him that the doom of that
generation was sealed.
3:51. “Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of
my city.”
The ruin which Jeremiah beheld broke his heart, for the few who had been left
in the ravaged city and desolate land were existing in utter wretchedness.
“... the daughters of my city” were the surrounding dependent towns and
villages.
3:52. “Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without a cause.”
This lament relates to the prophet’s personal experience rather than to that
of Judah. His enemies, without cause, had sought with implacable hatred to
take his life, simply because he had faithfully declared the truth to them,
announcing the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the people,
while the false prophets had proclaimed the very opposite.
3:53. “They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon
me.”
3:54. “Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.”
The reference here is to his imprisonment as recorded in Jer 38.
3:55. “I called upon they name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.”
3:56. “Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing,
at my cry.”
3:57. “Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou
saidst, Fear not.”
This is an abbreviated account of his deliverance from the dungeon as recorded
in Jer 38.
3:58. “O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast
redeemed my life.”
Here the prophet gratefully acknowledges his deliverance as the work of God on
behalf of His sorely tried servant.
3:59. “O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.”
He continues to importune God for vindication.
3:60. “Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations
against me.”
3:61. “Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their
imaginations against me;”
3:62. “The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device
against me all the day.”
3:63. “Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their
music.”
This is the expression of his confidence that God was fully aware of the
vindictive scheming of his enemies, and of the fact that from morning to night
he, Jeremiah, was the butt of their taunts and murderous scheming.
3:64. “Render unto them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of
their hands.”
3:65. “Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.”
3:66. “Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of
the Lord.”
This call for vengeance was perfectly appropriate for the age of law, but not
for this present age of grace. The Divine principle governing the life of
today’s believer is as recorded in Mt 5:38-48.
[Lamentations 4]