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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Lamentations 3:40 - 3:54
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Confession of Sin and Complaint over the Cruelty of the Enemies
v. 40. Let us search and try our ways, in true contrition, to find the reason for God's displeasure, and turn again to the Lord, returning all the way, in sincere repentance.
v. 41. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens, with the last shred of hypocrisy banished.
v. 42. We have transgressed and have rebelled, the emphasis being on the pronoun, as in every sincere confession of sin; Thou hast not pardoned, that Isaiah He had not, like a weak earthly father, overlooked and condoned the transgression, but had meted out the punishment which it deserved.
v. 43. Thou hast covered with anger, shutting Himself off so as not to see them, and persecuted us. The veil of His wrath kept Him, as it were, from feeling a weak sympathy. Thou hast slain. Thou hast not pitied. Cf Jer_29:18.
v. 44. Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, an impenetrable covering, that our prayer should not pass through, and help, therefore, was not forthcoming.
v. 45. Thou hast made us, by refusing His assistance, as the off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the people. Israel, ground down to the dust, had become an object of contempt among the heathen nations.
v. 46. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us, gaping at them in a gesture of scorn and derision.
v. 47. Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction. The picture is taken from the hunting of wild beasts, which, filled with terror by the cries of the hunters, fall into the pits that have been prepared for their capture. This situation fills the heart of the inspired poet with deep anguish.
v. 48. Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water in an excess of sorrow, for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Cf Psa_119:136.
v. 49. Mine eye trickleth down, in a steady flow of tears, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, there being no abatement of the feeling of grief and therefore also no cessation of tears,
v. 50. till the Lord look down and behold from heaven, namely, to make an end of His people's misery, to have mercy upon them.
v. 51. Mine eye affecteth mine heart, literally, "my eye puts an ache upon my soul," the pain of the eye from its ceaseless weeping affecting the soul as well, because of all the daughters of my city, whose fate was most deeply to be deplored.
v. 52. Mine enemies chased me sore, hunting him down like fowlers, like a bird, without cause. Cf Pro_1:17.
v. 53. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, desiring to destroy it by taking such extreme measures, and cast a stone upon me, heaping this further indignity upon him as he was helpless in their power.
v. 54. Waters flowed over mine head, the picture of a flood of waters being used to give some idea of the greatness and intensity of his suffering; then I said, I am cut off, abandoned by God, removed from the comfort of His fatherly eye and hand. To such heights does the feeling of being forsaken by the Lord sometimes rise that the believers consider themselves shut out entirely from His mercy.