View Lamentations 3 in the note window.
The faithful bewail their misery, ver. 1 - 21.
They nourish their hope by considering the justice, providence, and
mercies of God, ver. 22 - 36.
They stir up themselves to repentance, patience, prayers and confidence
of deliverance for themselves, and divine vengeance on their enemies,
ver. 37 - 66.
1: I am the man - It seems, this is spoken in the name of the people,
who were before set out under the notion of a woman.
4: Made old - All my beauty is gone, and all my strength.
5: Builded - He hath built forts and batteries against my walls
and houses.
9: Enclosed - He has defeated all my methods and counsels for
security, by insuperable difficulties like walls of hewn stone.
Crooked - Nay, God not only defeated their counsels, but made them
fatal and pernicious to them.
15: Wormwood - With severe and bitter dispensations.
16: Ashes - Mourners were wont to throw ashes on their heads.
19: Wormwood - Wormwood and gall, are often made use of to
signify great affliction.
21: This - Which follows, concerning the nature of God, and his good
providences.
23: Faithfulness - In fulfilling thy promises to thy people.
27: Bear - Quietly and patiently to bear what afflictions God will
please to lay upon us. And if God tame us when young, by his word or
by his rod, it is an unspeakable advantage.
28: Borne it - That he keep his soul in subjection to God, because
God hath humbled him by his rod.
29: In the dust - Both this and the former verses let us know the
duty of persons under afflictions.
33: Willingly - Not from his own mere motion without a cause
given him from the persons afflicted. Hence judgment is called
God's strange work.
36: To subvert - Here are three things mentioned, which God
approveth not.
37: Who - Nothing comes to pass in the world, but by the disposal of
divine providence. This seems to be spoken in the name of the people of
God, arguing themselves into a quiet submission, to their afflictions,
from the consideration of the hand of God in them.
38: Evil - Doth not evil or trouble come out of God's mouth from his
direction, and providence, as well as good?
39: Wherefore - The Jews, check themselves in their complaints
from the consideration, that nothing had befallen them, but what
was the just reward of their sins.
42: Thou - Thou hast plagued us according to the just desert of
our sins.
49: Mine eye - The prophet speaks this of himself.
53: Dungeon - Dungeon seems here to be taken for the lowest
condition of misery.
54: Cut off - I am undone, there is no hope for me.
56: Heard - In former afflictions. Hide not - Shew me now the same
favour.
58: O Lord - Thou hast been wont to take my part against my enemies.
60: Seen - Thou hast been a witness to all their fury.
63: I am - At feasts, and at their merry meetings, I am all the
subject of their discourse.
66: Persecute - Many passages of this nature which we meet with are
prophecies, some of them may be both prophecies and prayers.
