I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. Lamentations 3:1-21 The Man that hath seen affliction W. F. Adeney, M. A. Whether we regard it from a literary, a speculative, or a religious point of view, the third and central elegy cannot fall to strike us as by far the best of the five. Like Tennyson, who is most poetic when he is most artistic, as in his lyrics, and like all the great sonneteers, the author of this exquisite Hebrew melody has not found his ideas to be cramped by the rigorous rules of composition. Possibly the artistic refinement of form stimulates thought and rouses the poet to exert his best powers; or perhaps — and this is more probable he selects the richer robe for the purpose of clothing his choicer conceptions. This elegy differs from its sister poems in another respect. It is composed, for the most part, in the first person singular, the writer either speaking of his own experience or dramatically personating another sufferer. Who is this "Man that hath seen affliction"? There is just the possibility that the poet is not describing himself at all; he may be representing somebody well known to his contemporaries — perhaps even Jeremiah, or just a typical character, in the manner of Browning's Dramatis Personae. While some mystery hangs over the personality of this man of sorrows, the power and pathos of the poem are certainly heightened by the concentration of our attention upon one individual. Few persons are moved by general statements. The study of abstract reports is most important to these who are already interested in the subjects of these dreary documents; but it is useless as a means of exciting interest. Philanthropy must visit the office of the statistician if it would act with enlightened judgment, and not permit itself to become the victim of blind enthusiasm; but it was not born there, and the sympathy which is its parent can only be found among individual instances of distress. In the present case the speaker who recounts his own misfortunes is more than a casual witness, more than a mere specimen picked out at random from the heap of misery accumulated in this age of national ruin. He is not simply a man who has seen affliction, one among many similar sufferers; he is the man, the well-known victim, one preeminent in distress even in the midst of a nation full of misery. Yet he is not isolated on a solitary peak of agony. As the supreme sufferer, he is also the representative sufferer. He is not selfishly absorbed in the morbid occupation of brooding over his private grievances. He has gathered into himself the vast and terrible woes of his people. Thus he foreshadows our Lord in His passion. The idea of representative suffering which here emerges, and which becomes more definite in the picture of the servant of Jehovah in Isaiah 53 , only finds its full realisation and perfection in Jesus Christ. It is repeated, however, with more or less distinctness wherever the Christ Spirit is revealed. The portrait of himself drawn by the author of this elegy is the more graphic by reason of the fact that the present is linked to the past. The striking commencement, "I am the man," etc., sets the speaker in imagination before our eyes. The addition "who has seen" (or rather, experienced) "affliction" connects him with his present sufferings. His own personality has slowly acquired a depth, a fulness, a ripeness that remove him far from the raw and superficial character he once was. We are silenced into awe before Job, Jeremiah, and Dante, because these men grew great by suffering. Is it not told even of our Lord Jesus Christ that He was made perfect by the things that He suffered? It is to be observed that here in his self-portraiture — just as elsewhere when describing the calamities that have befallen his people — the elegist attributes the whole series of disastrous events to God. So close is the thought of God to the mind of the writer, he does not even think it necessary to mention the Divine name. Like Brother Lawrence, this man has learnt to "practise the presence of God." In amplifying the accounts of his sufferings, after giving a general description of himself as the man who has experienced affliction, and adding a line in which this experience is connected with its cause — the rod of the wrath of Him who is unnamed, though ever in mind — the stricken patriot proceeds to illustrate and enforce his appeal to sympathy by means of a series of vivid metaphors. Let us first glance at the successive pictures in this rapidly moving panorama of similes, and then at the general import and drift o! the whole. The afflicted man was under the Divine guidance; he was not the victim of blind self-will; it was not when straying from the path of right that he fell into this pit of misery. The strange thing is that God led him straight into it — led him into darkness, not into light, as might have been expected with such a Guide. The first image, then, is that of a traveller misled. God, whom he has trusted implicitly, whom he has followed in the simplicity of ignorance, God proves to be his Opponent! He feels like one duped m the past, and at length undeceived as he makes the amazing discovery that his trusted Guide has been turning His hand against him repeatedly all the day of his woeful wanderings. For the moment he drops his metaphors, and reflects on the dreadful consequences of this fatal antagonism. His flesh and skin, his very body is wasted away; he is so crushed and shattered, it is as though God had broken his bones. Then the scene changes. The victim of Divine wrath is a captive languishing in a dungeon, which is as dark as the abodes of the dead, as the dwellings of those who have been long dead. The horror of this metaphor is intensified by the idea of the antiquity of Hades. There the prisoner is bound by a heavy chain (ver. 7). He cries for help; but he is shut down so low that his prayer cannot reach his captor (ver. 8). Again, we see him still hampered, though in altered circumstances. He appears as a traveller whose way is blocked, and that not by some accidental fall of rock, but of set purpose, for he finds the obstruction to be of carefully prepared masonry, "hewn stones" (ver. 9). Therefore he has to turn aside, so that his paths become crooked. Yet more terrible does the Divine enmity grow. When the pilgrim is thus forced to leave the highroad and make his way through the adjoining thickets, his Adversary avails Himself of the cover to assume a new form, that of a lion or a bear lying in ambush (ver. 10). The consequence is that the hapless man is torn as by the claws and fangs of beasts of prey (ver. 11). But now these wild regions, in which the wretched traveller is wandering at the peril of his life, suggest the idea of the chase. The image of the savage animals is defective in this respect, that man is their superior in intelligence, though not in strength. But in the present ease the victim is in every way inferior to his Pursuer. So God appears as the Huntsman, and the unhappy sufferer as the poor hunted game. The bow is bent, and the arrow directed straight for its mark (ver. 12). Nay, arrow after arrow has already been let fly, and the dreadful Huntsman, too skilful ever to miss His mark, has been shooting "the sons of His quiver" into the very vitals of the object of HIS pursuit (ver. 13). Here the poet breaks away from his imagery for a second time, to tell us that he has become an object of derision to all his people, and the theme of their mocking songs. This is a striking statement. It shows that the afflicted man is not simply one member of the smitten nation of Israel, sharing the common hardships of the race whose "badge is servitude." Returning to imagery, the poet pictures himself as a hardily used guest at a feast. He is fed, crammed, sated; but his food is bitterness, the cup has been forced to his lips, and he has been made drunk — not with pleasant wine, however, but with wormwood (ver. 15). Gravel has been mixed with his bread, or perhaps the thought is that when he has asked for bread stones have been given him. He has been compelled to masticate this unnatural diet, so that his teeth have been broken by it. Even that result he ascribes to God, saying, "He hath broken my teeth." It is difficult to think of the interference with personal liberty being carried farther than this. Here we reach the extremity of crushed misery. Reviewing the whole course of his wretched sufferings from the climax of misery, the man who has seen all this affliction declares that God has cast him off from peace (ver. 17). This most precious gift of heaven to suffering souls is denied to the man who here bewails his dismal fate. So, too, it was denied to Jesus in the garden, and again on the Cross. It is possible that the dark day will come when it will be denied to one or another of His people. In the elegy we are now studying, a burst of praise and glad confidence breaks out almost immediately after the lowest depths of misery have been sounded, showing that, as Keats declares in an exquisite line —There is a budding morrow in midnight.When we come to look at the series of pictures or affliction as a whole, we shall notice that one general idea runs through them. This is that the victim is hindered, hampered, restrained. He is led into darkness, besieged, imprisoned, chained, driven out of his way, seized in ambuscade, hunted, even forced to eat unwelcome food. This must all point to a specific character of personal experience. The troubles of the sufferer have mainly assumed the form of a thwarting of his efforts. If the opposition comes from God, may it not be that the severity of the trouble is just caused by the obstinacy of self-will? Certainly it does not appear to be so here; but then we must remember the writer is stating his own case. Two other characteristics of the whole passage may be mentioned. One is the persistence of the Divine antagonism. This is what makes the case look so hard. The pursuer seems to be ruthless; He will not let his victim alone for a moment. One device follows sharply on another. There is no escape. The second of these characteristics of the passage is a gradual aggravation in the severity of the trials. At first God is only represented as a guide who misleads then He appears as a besieging enemy; later like a destroyer. And correspondingly the troubles of the sufferer grow in severity, till at last he is flung into the ashes, crushed and helpless. All this is peculiarly painful reading to us with our Christian thoughts of God. It seems so utterly contrary to the character of our Father revealed in Jesus Christ. But then it was not a part of the Christian revelation, nor was it uttered by a man who had received the benefits of that highest teaching. That, however, is not a complete explanation. The narrator may be perfectly honest and truthful, but it is not in human nature to be impartial under such circumstances. Even when, as in the present instance, we have reason to believe that the speaker is under the influence of a Divine inspiration, we have no right to conclude that this gift would enable him to take an all-round vision of truth. Finally, it would be quite unfair to the elegist, and it would give us a totally false impression of his ideas, if we were to go no further than this. To understand him at all we must hear him out. The triplet of verses 19 to 21 serves as a transition to the picture of the other side of the Divine action. It begins with prayer. Thus a new note is struck. The sufferer knows that God is not at heart his enemy. So he ventures to beseech the very Being concerning whose treatment of him he has been complaining so bitterly, to remember his affliction and the misery it has brought on him, the wormwood, the gall of his hard lot. Hope now dawns on him out of his own recollections. God, too, has a memory, and will remember His suffering servant. ( W. F. Adeney, M. A. ) Ecce homo J. Donne, D. D. ! — I. CONSIDER THE GENERALITY OF AFFLICTION IN THE NATURE THEREOF. We met all generally in the first treason against ourselves in Adam's rebellion; and we met all, too, in the second treason — the treason against Jesus Christ. All our sins were upon His shoulders. All the evils and mischiefs of life come for the most part from this — that we think to enjoy those things which God has given us only to use. II. CONSIDER AFFLICTION AS BEARING ON MAN. "I am the man that hath seen affliction." Man carries the spawn and seed and eggs of affliction in his own flesh, and his own thoughts make haste to hatch them and bring them up. We make all our worms snakes, all our snakes vipers, all our vipers dragons, by our murmuring. III. CONSIDER AFFLICTION IN ITS SPECIAL APPLICATION TO ONLY MAN. That man the prophet Jeremiah, one of the best of men. As he was submitted to these extraordinary afflictions, we see that no man is so necessary to God as that God cannot come to His ends without that man. God can lack and leave out any man in His service. The best of our wages is adversity, because that gives us a true fast, and a right value of our prosperity. IV. CONSIDER THIS WEIGHT AND VEHEMENCE OF AFFLICTIONS. 1. They are aggravated in that they are the Lord's. They are inevitable; they cannot be avoided; they are just, and cannot be pleaded against; nor can we ease ourselves with any imagination of our innocency, as though they were undeserved. 2. They are in HIS rod. Our murmuring makes a rod a staff, and a staff a sword, and that which God presented for physic, poison. 3. They are inflicted by the rod of His wrath. It is the highest extent of affliction that we take God to be angrier than He is. V. CONSIDER THE COMFORTS WE HAVE IN AFFLICTIONS. 1. That we see our afflictions, we understand, consider them. We see that affliction comes from God, and that it is sent that we may see and taste the goodness of God. 2. That, though afflicted, we still retain our manhood. God may mend thee in marring thee; He may build thee up in dejecting thee; He may infuse another manhood into thee, so that thou canst say, "I am that Christian man; I am the man that cannot despair since Christ is the remedy." 3. That the rod of God's wrath is also the rod of His comfort and strength ( Micah 7:14 ; Psalm 45:6 ; Psalm 23:4 ). ( J. Donne, D. D. ) The personality of sorrow J. Parker, D. D. This chapter would seem to be the property of all sorrowful men. Job's lamentation over the day of his birth, and Jeremiah's lamentation over his personal sufferings, are the heritage of sorrow throughout all time. We never know what sorrow is until we feel its personality. Every man must have his own sorrow, must receive sorrow into his nature, so that the whole plan of life may, so to say, be saturated with tears, and be made to know how much weight God can lay upon human life, as if He were heaping it up in cruelty. What would be sorrow to one man would be no sorrow to another; hence the infinite variety of the Divine visitation of our life. God knows where the stroke would hurt us most, and there He delivers the blow, so that we may know ourselves to be but men. Every man having a sorrow of his own is thereby tempted to make a species of idol of it. Are there not persons., who make a luxury of sorrow? Are they not pleased to be the objects of social interest and sympathy, instead of being humbled by their losses, and taught to seek the true riches which are in heaven? Silent sorrow is the most poignant. If sorrow could sometimes shed tears, it would be relieved of its keenest agony. In many cases it is impossible for the sufferer to give expression to his distress, and therefore he is deprived of all the compensation and holy excitement to be derived from earnest and intelligent human sympathy. If a man has not seen affliction, what has he seen? The deepest students of human life assure us that unless joy has in it somewhat of a tinge of melancholy it is not pure gladness. We must look at both sides of the picture; we must allow the light and the shadow to interplay, and judge not by the one nor by the other, but by the result. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) My flesh and my skin hath He made old Punishment seen in the body J. Udall. 1. God's punishments for sin often appear even in the body of man.(1) Because sin is committed in the body.(2) The body being the more sensitive part, it may affect us the more when we feel God's punishments in it.(3) That others may have the more clear example in beholding our bodies punished. 2. The wasting and withering of the body is to he acknowledged a punishment from God; and the flourishing of the same to be a special blessing. 3. There is no torment so grievous but the godly feel it when God's hand is upon them for their sins. (1) His anger is most grievous and intolerable. (2) He would have us thoroughly affected and humbled. ( J. Udall. ) He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out The sinner's hedges Homilist. I. The "hedge" of MORAL SENSE. Conscience shuts the sinner in and prevents him from a full development of all the wicked passions and impulses of his nature. II. The "hedge" OF SOCIAL LIFE. 1. Social relationship. How many sinners are held in by the influence of father, mother, brother, sister! 2. Social sentiment. In a morally enlightened age like ours, public sentiment is strong against wrong, and most men stand in awe of public sympathy. III. The hedge of PERSONAL INCAPACITY. 1. The want of physical health. Many men would do far more mischief were they not so physically frail. 2. The want of intellectual ability. Many men would swindle on a large scale, propagate infidelity by their writings and their oratory, had they the ability. 3. The want of secular means. Were there not so much incapacity and poverty, the world would abound with Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons. Thank God for these hedges! ( Homilist. ) Also when I cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer. Lamentations 3:8 Unregarded prayer J. Sievewright, M. A. I. Although our prayers were never, in a single instance, directly answered in this world, YET IS PRAYER NOT IN VAIN, FOE TO PRAY IS A COMMANDED DUTY; and to the dependent creature it can never be unprofitable to obey a Divine command. Prayer, in its very nature, tends to mortify sin, to compose our minds into a frame of devout dependence on Almighty power, and to maintain in us sentiments of habitual trust, and rejoicing confidence in God. II. Though prayer be not immediately answered, IT MAY NEVERTHELESS BE ANSWERED AT SOME AFTER PERIOD, even in the present world. The glory of God, the arrangements of Providence, and our own good, may render delay expedient; but delay is not denial III. The thing we ask MAY BE INCONSISTENT WITH THE RECTITUDE OF THE DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY, and on that account must necessarily be denied. IV. IT IS NOT ALWAYS IN WRATH, HOWEVER, THAT OUR PRAYERS FOR OTHERS ARE NOT HEARD, BUT OFTEN IN MERCY TO THEM. In our fond attachment to children or to friends, we would detain them from God and glory, to suffer amid the evils of time. In our ignorance we ask things detrimental for ourselves as well as for others. In labour, poverty, and trouble, we seek ease, and peace, and competency, and freedom from affliction; but it may enter into God's plan for preserving and perfecting us, to withhold from us health and a prosperous state. And, besides, the thing we desired may be refused, in order to give us something better than we sought. Oh, what need there is of the Spirit to help our infirmities! for we know neither what we should pray for, nor as we ought. V. When we pray to God, it becomes us to REMEMBER THE INFINITE DISTANCE BETWIXT THE CREATURE AND THE GLORIOUS CREATOR; AND THOUGH EARNEST, LET US BEWARE OF BEING WILFUL AND PEREMPTORY. ( J. Sievewright, M. A. ) Unheeded prayers J. Parker, D. D. God wants more than prayer from His creatures, when that prayer is limited to mere asking, or to the expression of a beggar's desires. Prayer may be but a religious form of selfishness. Asking must, of course, enter into prayer: every day brings its need; but what is prayer in its widest and most enduring acceptation? It is communion with God. When we omit this element, we degrade ourselves and our prayers to the level of selfishness, and when our prayer is so degraded it is shut out from heaven. There is no mystery in this. Let us always understand that we are accepted, not because of our formality, but because of our sincerity and earnestness and importunity. Good men in all ages have had experience of this exclusion of prayer from heaven, and sometimes they have misjudged it ( Job 30:20 ; Psalm 22:2 ). It is well to have such experiences, terrible as they are at the moment of their realisation; they chasten the spirit, they are full of theological teaching, they drive us back to first principles, they constrain us to ask the most serious and penetrating questions. God will not allow such experiences to be unduly prolonged, for he knows that the extension of such trial would end in despair or madness. The Lord can take us very near to the brink, but He will not let us fall over. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Prayer not immediately answered J. Udall. 1. Afflictions do make the dullest and most forward of God's children cry for help ( Leviticus 26:41 ; Psalm evil 6, 19, 28). 2. The heaviest plague that man can endure in this life is to have God refuse to hear his prayer when he calleth upon Him in distress ( Proverbs 1:28 ; Jeremiah 14:11, 12 ). 3. God often deferreth to hear the prayer of His children, when He yet purposeth in due time to grant their requests ( Psalm 22:1 ; Psalm 77:8 ). (1) To try their patience, and exercise their faith. (2) To move them to continue and to grow in fervency. ( J. Udall. ) Prayers shut out J. Trapp. Or shutteth His ear to my prayer. This was very grievous to any good heart; more than it could be to fully, a stranger to the true God, who yet bewaileth the matter to his brother in these words: "I would pray to the gods for those things; but that, alas! they have given over to hear my prayers." ( J. Trapp. ) I was a derision to all my people. Lamentations 3:14-21 Deriding the godly J. Udall. 1. The godly are usually more subject to reproaches than any other people. (1) Because godliness seemeth mere foolishness to them that are naturally minded. (2) They show, as they think, their own wisdom in disdainfully contemning the godly. 2. Then are the godly most derided by the wicked, when the hand of God is heaviest upon them to afflict them. 3. All sorts of people (though divers one from another) do deride the godly in their adversity. 4. Those that are nearest unto the godly, and not fearing God, will be crosses unto them in the time of trouble. 5. The wicked do greatly delight themselves in mocking the godly. (1) Thereby they think to suppress and disgrace the truth forever. (2) They think their own folly by that means will justify and advance. 6. The wicked are never satisfied, but still continue their hatred against the godly. (1) Because they do greatly delight therein. (2) They are afraid that they have never done enough to defame them. ( J. Udall. ) He hath filled me with bitterness. Filled with sorrow J. Udall. 1. This sorrow did arise especially from the derision they were in by their adversaries, and yet it being ascribed unto the Lord, teaches us that there is no outward trouble more grievous to the godly than to be reproached by their adversaries in the time of their affliction. 2. There is no outward trouble more grievous to the godly than to be reproached by their adversaries in the time of their affliction.(1) Because we are much comforted in the hope that our sufferings shall advance the truth, which professed derision hindereth.(2) Such reproaches are accompanied with much blasphemy and wickedness.(3) Such dealing carrieth many weak professors from the affecting of our cause and sufferings. 3. The godly have often upon them all the greatest griefs that can be desired. 4. It is the Lord above that frameth our hearts to be affected with our afflictions, else they remain stony and astonished. 5. The godly may not be as Stoics, but must be most passionate in their afflictions.(1) Because their sins procure them their troubles, which ought to grieve them most of all, that God is offended with them.(2) God afflicteth us that we should repent, which we cannot do without great remorse. 6. The godly are often so laden with miseries, that they are exceedingly distracted therewith, both in body and mind. ( J. Udall. ) My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Hopeless sorrow J. Udall. 1. The godly are often brought to such extremity as they find no way out of it. 2. According to our strength, generally of knowledge, and particularly of feeling, so do we hope. Because hope is grounded upon faith, and faith upon knowledge ( Hebrews 11:1 ). 3. The godly in their afflictions do recount what blessings they have lost.(1) Because of the love and delight that they had therein, which is most remembered when it is lost.(2) That their hearts may be made the more affected with grief for the loss thereof, and with desire to be restored thereunto again. 4. The godly do not always feel the comfort of God's favour in the like measure.(1) Because God will make it the more delightful unto them by intermission.(2) That they may see what they are, if God should leave them unto themselves.(3) That they may be the more careful to use all good means to keep it while they have it. 5. The godly are often so grievously afflicted that they grow to a great measure of desperation. (1) Because of their great weakness when God, who is strong, trieth them. (2) They judge according to their present feeling. (3) Because of the consciousness of their deserts for sin. (4) The abundance of natural infidelity which, always being in us, doth then appear to have the greatest power. ( J. Udall. ) Remembering mine affliction and my misery Weighing God's punishments J. Udall. 1. The deep weighing of God's punishments for sin felt in times past doth often most effectually move the heart unto great lamentation. 2. Though grief and sorrow be naturally the effects of affliction, yet in the godly it must be, because of the sin committed, and not for the penalty sustained. 3. In recounting any former thing, we must take only so much thereof as may serve our turn. (1) That it may affect us the more. (2) That our minds be not employed about any other matter. ( J. Udall. ) My soul hath them still in remembrance Memory in affliction J. Udall. 1. There is no meditation that is available to further in godliness, but that which is earnest and effectual. (1) Else it moveth not the heart. (2) Nothing else prevaileth with the affections. 2. The heart must be thoroughly touched before we can profit by any action of religion that we take in hand. (1) Every point of religion concerneth principally the heart. (2) God accepteth nothing but that which proceedeth from the heart. 3. When we are thoroughly affected with any part of God's Word, or His works, then do we much consider of it, and cannot easily forget it. (1) Because it hath taken root in the heart, which is the fountain of all serious meditations. (2) It setteth the affections on work, to digest it, unto the end whereunto the heart desireth to bring it. ( J. Udall. ) This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope A stay to the troubled heart J. Udall. 1. It is a special stay to the troubled heart, to consider how it hath striven to be at peace. (1) It calleth to mind the strife betwixt the flesh and the spirit, which argueth that God hath a portion there. (2) It showeth our desire of well-doing which must needs be the work of grace. (3) It daunteth Satan our adversary, depriving him of hope to prevail. (4) It administereth us hope, that we shall stand even in the strongest temptations. 2. The right and thorough meditation of God's punishments upon us for sin, and our striving to profit thereby, hath always hope of the issue. (1) Because it taketh away all those refuges which naturally we flee unto, as friends, wit, riches, strength, etc., and forceth us to fly unto God. (2) The Lord respecteth, and is ready to help the broken and contrite hearted ( Isaiah 66:2 ). 3. All our care in peace and in affliction must be how to gather to ourselves a certain hope that God will be merciful unto us. (1) Because we have more need of it then of all things else. (2) Satan will labour more to deprive us of it than of anything else. 4. It is our duty to hope for God's favourable hand to rid us out of any trouble that we are in, though it continue and increase upon us, and no means of redress appear. (1) Because God afflicteth us not to east us off, but to amend us and try us. (2) He useth so to deliver His servants. 5. The consideration of God's heavy rod upon us in this life giveth us hope to find favour for the life to come. (1) God chastiseth those whom He receiveth. (2) It is a token of bastardy to be without correction. (3) The whole life of the godly hath been continual affliction ( J. Udall. ) Fruitful memories J. Parker, D. D. The prophet begins to realise the results of discipline wisely and gratefully accepted. At first probably, like all other men, he was obstinate, resentful, and wholly indisposed to look for moral teaching in the midst of physical suffering. Better thoughts came to his aid. After a while he began to survey the situation, and, as he looked upon the plan of God, light came to him, and he saw that God's meaning even in man's humiliation was the elevation and perfecting of the man himself. Let us be rich in remembrance. Who cannot recount the sorrows which have been turned to his advantage! There was a day that was all cloud, a cloud that was all thunder, and we said we should die when that cloud discharged its tempest upon us. The cloud broke, the thunder rolled, and our life was refreshed by the very torrent that we looked forward to with dread. Do not let us forget those days of rain and storm and high wind, but call them to remembrance, and count them as amongst our jewels, for we then saw somewhat of the treasures of the Most High, and saw how even in what appeared to be extremity God could provide a way of deliverance. The prophet derives hope from a sanctified review of providence — "therefore have I hope." The sorrow had not been in vain; it had become a sweet gospel to the soul which it overshadowed, and this it will become to us if we remember that the Lord reigneth, and that discipline as well as benediction is in the hand of the living God. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Memory -- the handmaid of hope Memory is very often the servant of despondency. Despairing minds call to remembrance every dark foreboding in the pact, and every gloomy feature in the present. Memory stands like a handmaiden, clothed in sackcloth, presenting to her master a cup of mingled gall and wormwood. Like Mercury, she hastes, with winged heel, to gather fresh thorns with which to fill the uneasy pillow, and to bind fresh rods with which to scourge the already bleeding heart. There is, however, no necessity for this. Wisdom will transform memory into an angel of comfort. That same recollection which may in its left hand bring so many dark and gloomy omens, may be trained to bear in its right hand a wealth of hopeful signs. She need not wear a crown of iron, she may encircle her brow with a fillet of gold, all spangled with stars. When Christian, according to Bunyan, was locked up in Doubting Castle, memory formed the crab tree cudgel with which the famous giant beat his captives so terribly. They remembered how they had left the right road, how they had been warned not to do so, and how in rebellion against their better selves, they wandered into By-path Meadow. They remembered all their past misdeeds, their sins, their evil thoughts and evil words, and all these were so many knots in the cudgel, causing sad bruises and wounds in their poor suffering persons. But one night, according to Bunyan, this same memory which had scourged them, helped to set them free; for she whispered something in Christian's ear, and he cried out as one half-amazed, "What a fool am I to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise; that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle." So he put his hand into his bosom, and with much joy he plucked out the key, and thrust it into the lock; and though the lock of the great iron gate, as Bunyan says, "went damnable hard," yet the key did open it, and all the others too; and so, by this blessed act of mem

Benson Commentary Lamentations 3:1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. Lamentations 3:1-2 . I am the man that hath seen affliction — I myself have suffered affliction in this time of public calamity. He speaks, probably, with a particular regard to the ill treatment he had met with in the discharge of his prophetical office. Some indeed suppose that he speaks in this and the subsequent verses, to Lamentations 3:21 , in the character of the people, but so many passages manifestly refer to his own personal troubles, that such an interpretation seems very improbable. He hath brought me into darkness, but not into light — Light is often used in Scripture for happiness or comfort, and darkness for affliction and misery. The prophet’s meaning is, that God had been pleased to exercise him with calamity. Perhaps he refers especially to his being put into the dungeon and the stocks, and to the state of darkness and distress which his mind was in during these trials. Lamentations 3:2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Lamentations 3:3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. Lamentations 3:3-7 . Surely against me is he turned — The course of his providence toward me is quite altered. He was formerly kind and gracious, but now exercises an afflicting hand against me, and that not occasionally, or for a short time, but continually, all the day. The phrase, He turneth his hand against me, is equivalent to that which occurs Isaiah 1:25 , I will turn thy hand upon thee, where see the note. My flesh, &c., hath he made old — Hebrew, ??? , hath wasted, caused to decay. See notes on Job 16:8 ; Psalm 31:10 ; Psalm 32:3 . He hath broken my bones — The anguish I feel in my mind is as painful to me as if all my bones were broken. He hath builded against me — He hath blocked me up in a strait place; he has so enclosed me with calamities that there is no escaping them; and compassed me with gall, &c. — Hath filled me with grief and anguish of mind, which is no less bitter than gall to the mouth. He hath set me in dark places, &c. — He hath confined me to a dungeon where no light enters; and I am secluded from human society, as if I were out of the world. He probably refers to the pit of the prison into which he was cast by the command of Zedekiah. He hath hedged me about — See Lamentations 3:5 , and the margin. He hath made my chain heavy — He hath made my bondage, or my imprisonment, grievous. Lamentations 3:4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. Lamentations 3:5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail. Lamentations 3:6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. Lamentations 3:7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. Lamentations 3:8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. Lamentations 3:8 . Also when I cry and shout — When, under a conviction that, in my present distressed condition, I cannot deliver myself, and that no creature can deliver me, I make application to God in prayer for deliverance, and am serious, fervent, and importunate in my addresses to him; he shutteth out my prayer — Refuses to hearken to it, or give me any ease or relief; Hebrew, ???? , the same as ??? , he hath obstructed my prayer; “hath barred my prayer from approaching him.” — Blaney. Thus sometimes God seems to be angry even against the prayers of his people, Psalm 80:5 . And their case is deplorable indeed when they are denied, not only the benefit of an answer, but the comfort of acceptance. Lamentations 3:9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked. Lamentations 3:9-13 . He hath enclosed my way with hewn stone — He hath not only hedged it up with thorns, Hosea 2:6 , but stopped it up with a stone wall which cannot be broken through; so that my paths are made crooked — That is, I traverse to and fro, to the right hand and to the left, to try to get forward, but I am still turned back. Observe, reader, if we walk in the crooked ways of sin, crossing or swerving from God’s laws, it is just with God to make us walk in the crooked paths of affliction, crossing our designs and breaking our measures. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait — Surprising me with his judgments; and as a lion in secret places — So that which way soever I went, I was in continual fear of being attacked, and could never think myself safe. He hath turned aside my ways — Hath blasted all my counsels and ruined my projects; (see above on Lamentations 3:9 ;) and pulled me in pieces — Hath torn and gone away, Hosea 5:14 . He hath made me desolate — Deprived me of all society, and of all comfort in my soul. He hath bent his bow — That bow, which was ordained against the church’s persecutors, is bent against her sons. He hath set me as a mark for his arrows — Which he aims at, and is sure to hit: so that the arrows of his quiver enter into my reins — And give me an inward and mortal wound. Lamentations 3:10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. Lamentations 3:11 He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. Lamentations 3:12 He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. Lamentations 3:13 He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. Lamentations 3:14 I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day. Lamentations 3:14-19 . I was a derision to all my people — To all the wicked among them, who made themselves merry with the prophet’s griefs and the public judgments; and their song all the day — Hebrew, ?????? , their instrument of music. The word, says Blaney, “is commonly rendered their song; but I rather think it means a subject upon which they played, as upon a musical instrument, for their diversion.” He hath filled me with bitterness — A bitter sense of these calamities. God has access to the spirit, and can so imbitter it, as thereby to imbitter all enjoyments; as when the stomach is foul, whatever is eaten becomes acid in it. He hath made me drunken with wormwood — That is, so intoxicated me with the sense of my afflictions, that I know not what to say or do. He hath broken my teeth with gravel- stones — Hath mingled gravel with my bread, so that my teeth are broken with it, and what I eat is neither pleasant nor nourishing. He hath covered me with ashes — As mourners were wont to be; or, as some render ???????? ??? , he hath laid me low, or made me wallow, in ashes, namely, because of great sorrow and grief. These expressions imply the height of misery; that he received no comfort or refreshment from any thing. I said, My strength, my hope is gone — I even began to despair of God’s mercy; remembering my affliction — Reflecting on all the miseries and hardships I had suffered. Without doubt it was his infirmity to think and speak thus, ( Psalm 77:10 ,) for with God there is everlasting strength, and he is his people’s never-failing hope, whatever they may suspect to the contrary. Lamentations 3:15 He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. Lamentations 3:16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. Lamentations 3:17 And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. Lamentations 3:18 And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD: Lamentations 3:19 Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. Lamentations 3:20 My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. Lamentations 3:21 This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. Lamentations 3:21-23 . This I recall to my mind, &c. — Here the prophet begins to suggest motives of patience and consolation: as if he had said, I call to mind the following considerations, and thereupon I conceive hope and comfort. And surely they are such as afford a sufficient ground for trusting in God under the severest trials. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed — It is not clear that this is the exact sense of the Hebrew, in which there is nothing for it is of. The LXX. translate the verse, ?? ???? ?????? , ??? ??? ??????? ?? . The mercies of the Lord, because they have not left, or do not leave, me: that is, I rely on, and derive hope and consolation from, the mercies of the Lord, which still continue to prevent and follow me. Because his compassions fail not — ?? ????????????? , are not finished, exhausted, or brought to an end. They are new every morning: great, &c. — Thy mercies are renewed to us every day, one following another; and thy faithfulness in performing them is as great as thy goodness in promising them. God’s mercy and truth, or fidelity, are usually joined together. Blaney connects these three verses thus: “This I revolve in my heart, therefore will I have hope; the mercies of Jehovah, that they are not exhausted, that they fail not; new are his compassions every morning; great is thy faithfulness.” According to our translation the prophet represents himself as calling to mind that, as a sinner, he deserved to be cut off, and delivered up to future punishment, and should certainly have been thus destroyed but for the mercies of God; while his people, for their sins, would have been so totally consumed that no remnant of them would have been left. “As, however, the Lord had mercifully spared him, and had not utterly destroyed them; as his compassions were plenteous and unfailing, and every morning renewed to him, in the continuance of his life, and many unmerited benefits; and as God had given many precious promises to Israel, and to every believer, and, in his great faithfulness, had always performed them to those who trusted in them; so he found there was yet encouragement to hope, and to exercise patience and repentance in expectation of returning comfort.” — Scott. Lamentations 3:22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. Lamentations 3:23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Lamentations 3:24-26 . The Lord is my portion, saith my soul — An interest in the favour and love of God, and his presence with me, my heart tells me, is the best inheritance. And, possessing these, I have that which is sufficient to balance all my troubles, and make up all my losses. For, while portions on earth are empty and perishing things, God is an all-sufficient and durable portion, a portion for ever. Therefore will I hope in him — I will stay myself upon him, and encourage myself in him, when all other supports and encouragements fail me. Observe, reader, it is our duty and interest to make God the portion of our souls, and then to enjoy and take comfort in him as such, in the midst of afflictions and lamentations. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him — To them that patiently wait his time; when he shall judge it a proper season to afford them comfort and deliverance; and who, in the mean while, apply themselves to him by prayer and humiliation. It is good — It is our duty, and will be our unspeakable comfort and satisfaction; that a man should hope and quietly wait, &c. — To hope that it will come, though the difficulties that lie in the way of it seem insuperable; to wait till it does come, though it be long delayed; and while we wait to be quiet and silent, not quarrelling with God, or making ourselves uneasy, but acquiescing in the divine disposal. Lamentations 3:25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. Lamentations 3:27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Lamentations 3:27-30 . It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth — That he be inured betimes to bear those useful restraints which may give him a right sense of the duty which he owes to God, and the obedience he ought to pay to his laws. For the prophet’s expression is very applicable to the yoke of God’s commands; it is good for us to take that yoke upon us in our youth; we cannot begin too soon to be religious; it will make our duty the more acceptable to God, and easy to ourselves, if we engage in it when we are young. Here, however, the prophet seems to speak chiefly of the yoke of affliction; many have found it good to bear this yoke in their youth; it has made those humble, and serious, and spiritually minded, who otherwise would have been proud, unruly, and as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. If it be asked, when we bear this yoke so that it is really good for us to bear it? we have the answer in the following verses: 1st, When we are sedate and quiet under our afflictions; when we sit alone and keep silence; retire into privacy that we may converse with God, and commune with our own hearts, silencing all discontented, distrustful thoughts, and laying our hand upon our mouth, as Aaron, who, under a severe trial, held his peace. When those that are afflicted in their youth accommodate themselves to their afflictions, and study to answer God’s end in afflicting them, then they will find it good for them to bear it; for it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. 2d, When we are humble and patient under affliction; he gets good by the yoke, that not only lays his hand upon his mouth in token of submission to the will of God in the affliction, but puts his mouth in the dust in token of sorrow, shame, and self-loathing at the remembrance of sin, and as one perfectly reduced and reclaimed, and brought, as it were, to lick the dust, Psalm 72:9 . And we must thus humble ourselves, if so be there may be hope. If there be any way to acquire and secure a good hope under our afflictions, as, blessed be God, there is, it is this way, and while we look for it we must own ourselves utterly unworthy of Lamentations 2:3 d, When we are meek and gentle toward those that are the instruments of our trouble, and manifest a forgiving spirit. He gets good by the yoke that gives his cheek to him that smiteth him, and rather turns the other cheek, than returns the second blow. He that can bear contempt and reproach, and not render railing for railing, and bitterness for bitterness; that when he is filled with reproach, keeps it to himself, and does not retort it upon them that filled him with it, but pours it out before the Lord, Psalm 123:4 ; he shall find it good to bear the yoke, and it shall turn to his spiritual advantage. The sum is, if tribulation work patience, that patience will work experience, and that experience a hope that maketh not ashamed. Lamentations 3:28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. Lamentations 3:29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. Lamentations 3:30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach. Lamentations 3:31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever: Lamentations 3:31-33 . The Lord will not cast off for ever — The truly penitent that put their trust in him, and sincerely desire and seek reconciliation with him: though he may for a time appear to estrange himself from them, yet he will certainly return to them. Though he cause grief — Though, as a prudent parent, he may see reason to chastise his people by affliction, yet as a kind and tender Father, who pitieth his children in misery, according to the multitude, the unspeakable greatness and abundance of his mercies, he will have compassion upon them. For he doth not afflict willingly — Hebrew, ???? , from his heart, that is, of his own mere motion, without cause given him by the persons afflicted; or freely and with pleasure; nor grieve the children of men — Much less his own children. Hence judgment is called his strange work, and exercising mercy and loving-kindness his delight. Lamentations 3:32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. Lamentations 3:33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, Lamentations 3:34-36 . To crush under his feet, &c. — In these verses certain acts of tyranny, malice, and injustice are specified, in the practice of which men are prone to indulge themselves one toward another, but which the divine goodness is far from countenancing or approving by any similar conduct. By the prisoners of the earth, or of the land, as the words may be properly rendered, Blaney thinks are meant the poor insolvent debtors, whom their creditors among the Jews, as well as in other nations, were empowered to cast into prison, and to oblige to work out their debts; a power too often exerted with great rigour and inhumanity: see Isaiah 58:3 ; Matthew 18:30 ; Matthew 18:34 . To turn aside the right of a man — To prevent his obtaining, or to deprive him of, his just rights; before the face of the Most High — In the presence of the just and holy God, and under his all-seeing eye, who takes particular notice of all acts of injustice, and will severely punish them. The word ????? , here used, undoubtedly often means the most high God, and is so understood here, both by the LXX. and the Vulgate. Many commentators, however, prefer the marginal reading, a superior, understanding thereby a magistrate. And Blaney thinks it cannot here mean God, because, “though a person may be made to suffer greatly by having his judgment turned aside, that is, by being calumniated and misrepresented before an earthly superior, yet all such malicious attempts must fail and come to nothing where God is the judge, who cannot be deceived or imposed upon.” This is certainly true: but it does not appear that the prophet referred to this circumstance, but rather to the effrontery and daring wickedness of those who could be guilty of such injustice, when they knew they were before the omnipresent God, and that his eye was upon them, thus, as it were, bidding him defiance. To subvert a man in his cause — That is, to prevent his having justice done him, in a law-suit or controversy, by any undue interference; as by bearing or suborning false witness, or exerting any kind of influence in opposition to truth and right: the Lord approveth not — Hebrew, ?? ??? , seeth not: that is, hates such conduct, and turns away his face from it with abhorrence and disgust. Thus we read, Habakkuk 1:13 , Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil; and canst not look on iniquity. The general sense of the passage is, as God takes no pleasure in oppressing the poor and helpless, so neither will he suffer any men to escape unpunished that are guilty of such acts of injustice and cruelty, who never consider that all the wrongs they do are committed in the sight of the Supreme Judge of the world; and although for a time he thinks fit to prosper such oppressors, yet, in due time, he will call them to a severe account for their wickedness. Lamentations 3:35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, Lamentations 3:36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. Lamentations 3:37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? Lamentations 3:37-38 . Who is he that saith — That commands an event to take place, or predicts that it shall take place, and it cometh to pass accordingly, when the Lord commandeth not? — Or who designs a thing, and brings his designs to effect, when the Lord is against him? “Haughty tyrants may boast of their power as if they were equal to Omnipotence itself; but still it is God’s prerogative to bring to pass whatever he pleases, without any let or impediment, only by speaking, or declaring his purpose, that the thing should be done, as he did at the beginning of the creation: see Psalm 33:7 . And as he makes men the instruments of his vengeance when he sees fit, so he can restrain their cruelty whenever he pleases.” — Lowth. Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good? — Do not calamities, as well as prosperous events, happen by God’s will and pleasure? The sum is: Nothing comes to pass in the world but by the disposal of the divine providence, which is directed by infinite wisdom, justice, and goodness. The inspired writer seems to be arguing himself and the people of God into a quiet submission to the divine will in their afflictions, from the consideration of the hand of God in them. Lamentations 3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Lamentations 3:39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Lamentations 3:39 . Wherefore, &c. — The prophet here seems to check and blame himself for the complaints he had made in the former part of the chapter, wherein he appeared to reflect upon God as unkind and severe. And from the doctrine of God’s sovereign and universal providence, which he had asserted in the last two verses, he draws this inference, Wherefore doth a living man complain? a man for the punishment of his sins? — No calamity or trouble befalls us, but what is the due reward of our sins; and is designed as a chastisement for them, in order to our purification and amendment, or for the trial of our grace, and in order to the exercise and increase of it. If we view our afflictions in this light, it will prevent all murmuring and repining against the providence of God. We shall learn to be patient and resigned under his chastising hand, and even thankful that he condescends to correct and try us for our profit, and by preserving us alive in the body still gives us space for repentance. “There seems,” says Blaney, “to be a peculiar emphasis laid on the words ?? , [ living, ] and ??? , [ man, ] in this passage. ??? is said to denote a man, because of his excellence and superiority over all other earthly beings. While a man therefore lives, and is possessed of those privileges of his nature, whatever he undergoes must be less than his sins have deserved, because death, which implies the loss of all those privileges, is the allotted wages of sin.” Mark well, reader, though we may pour out our complaints before God, we must never complain against or of God. How cogent are the reasons here suggested against such a conduct! We are men, let us herein show ourselves men. Shall a man complain? Shall a reasonable creature act contrary to all reason, and an immortal being forget or disregard his immortality? Shall he be so insensible of the value of the privileges of his nature, and of his obligations to God for them, as to abuse them to God’s dishonour, instead of using them to his glory? Shall he take upon him to censure or call in question the dispensations of infinite wisdom, justice, and goodness toward him, and act as if he thought he knew better than his Maker what is good for him? Shall a living man complain — a man who has a thousand times forfeited his life, with all the blessings of it, but to whom it is still continued, and with it many of its comforts, and particularly the means of attaining life everlasting — a hope, or a foundation whereon to build a hope, of felicity and glory for ever? A man for the punishment of his sins? A punishment infinitely less than his sins have deserved? and a punishment, or chastisement, rather, which the omniscient God knows to be absolutely necessary to bring him to repentance and reformation, if he will by any means whatever be brought thereto? Surely, reader, if we be suffering for our sins, instead of spending our time in complaining and repining, we ought to be employed in repenting and reforming, and, that we may have at least one evidence that God is reconciled to us, we should endeavour to reconcile ourselves to his holy and gracious will. Or, to consider the matter in another point of view: Are we punished for our sins? It is then our wisdom to submit, and kiss the rod; for if we still walk contrary to God, he will punish us still seven times more, for when he judgeth he will overcome; but if we accommodate ourselves to him, though we be chastened of the Lord, we shall not be condemned with the world. Lamentations 3:40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. Lamentations 3:40-41 . Let us search and try our ways — This will be a more reasonable and profitable employment than that of complaining and murmuring against the providence of God. Let us search what our ways have been, and try whether they have been right and good or not. Let us examine our tempers, words, and works, and consider what they have been, whether agreeable or contrary to the holy will of God. Let us try our ways, that by them we may try ourselves: for we are to judge of our state and character, not by our faint wishes, good intentions, transient resolutions, or even warm affections, but by our steps; and not by one particular step, but by our ways, our whole conduct; the ends we aim at, the rules we go by, and the agreeableness or contrariety of the temper of our minds, and the tenor of our lives to those ends and those rules. When we are in affliction it is peculiarly seasonable to consider our ways, ( Haggai 1:5 ,) that what is amiss may be repented of, and amended for the future, and so we may answer the intention of the affliction. We are apt, in times of public calamity, to reflect upon other people’s ways, and lay blame upon them, whereas our business is to search and try our own ways: we have work enough to do at home; we must each of us say, What have I done? what have I contributed to the public distress? That we may each of us mend one, then we shall all be mended. And let us turn again to the Lord — Namely, by a sincere conversion, even to him who is turned against us, and from whom we have turned; to him let us turn by repentance, reformation, and faith, as to our owner and ruler. This particular must accompany the former, and be the fruit of it; therefore we must search and try our ways, that we may turn from the evil of them to God; this was the method David took, who says, Psalm 119:59 , I thought on my ways, and turned my feet into thy testimonies. Let us lift up our heart, &c. — Let us apply ourselves unto God by prayer, without which we shall attempt in vain to take the preceding advice. Without supernatural light from him we shall search and try our ways to little purpose: we shall still remain unacquainted with ourselves, and shall pass a false judgment on our character and conduct; and without his renewing grace we shall not be turned to him effectually. Now for these blessings we must make application to him in fervent prayer, lifting up our hearts with our hands, and pouring out our souls with our words, in confident expectation of receiving what we ask. Lamentations 3:41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. Lamentations 3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. Lamentations 3:42-47 . We have transgressed, &c. — Here the prophet shows what will be the effect of a proper searching and trying of our ways; we shall be convinced of our sinfulness and guilt: and he here teaches us that confession of sin must accompany petition for the pardon of it. For he that would find mercy must confess as well as forsake his sins, Proverbs 28:13 ; 1 John 1:9 . Thou hast not pardoned — That is, as the expression seems here to mean, thou hast not removed the judgments brought upon us for our sins. Thou continuest to punish us according to the just desert of our transgressions. Thou hast covered with anger — Either, thou hast covered thyself with anger, hast covered thy face, so as not to look upon us to move thy pity; or, which is more probably the sense, thou hast covered, that is, overwhelmed, us with thy wrath. Thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied — Thou hast pursued us to a fatal ruin, without showing us any pity. Thou hast covered thyself, &c., that our prayer should not pass through — Whereas in our distress we had no other resource but to apply to thee for help, thou didst so hide thy face and withdraw thyself from us, that we could have no access to thee or intercourse with thee. The expression is metaphorical, and signifies no more than that God would not hear their prayers in their distress. Thou hast made us the offscouring, &c. — That is, thou hast made us extremely contemptible in the eyes of all nations, so that they value us no more than the sweepings of their houses, or the most vile refuse, or contemptible things imaginable. All our enemies have opened their mouths — That is, to mock, scoff, and reproach us. Fear and a snare is come upon us — That is, all manner of misery: see the margin. Lamentations 3:43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. Lamentations 3:44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. Lamentations 3:45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. Lamentations 3:46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. Lamentations 3:47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction. Lamentations 3:48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Lamentations 3:48-51 . Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water — In this and the three following verses the prophet shows that the misfortunes of his country constituted no small part of his personal affliction. Mine eye affecteth my heart — Hebrew, ????? ?????? , preys upon my soul, as the Vulgate renders the expression, that is, my grief wears out my health and strength; because of all the daughters of my city — On account of the sufferings of the inhabitants of my city. Lamentations 3:49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, Lamentations 3:50 Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven. Lamentations 3:51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. Lamentations 3:52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause. Lamentations 3:52-58 . Mine enemies chased me sore — “The prophet in this, and the following verses, describes his own sufferings, when his enemies seized him and put him into the dungeon, Jeremiah 37:16 ; Jeremiah 38:6 . He compares them to a fowler in pursuit of a bird; so, saith he, they sought all opportunities to take an advantage against me, and to deprive me of my life and liberty: and this they did without any provocation given on my part. So the word ??? , without cause, signifies.” — Lowth. They have cut off my life — I was not only sequestered from all human society, like a dead man, but in apparent danger of losing my life in the dungeon. And their laying a stone upon the entrance of that dark pit resembled the burying me alive. Waters flowed over my head; then I said, &c. — When I sunk down into the mire in this dungeon, I despaired of my life, just as if I had been sinking over head in a river. I called upon thy name, O Lord — I had recourse to thee, O Jehovah, in my distress; out of the low dungeon — As Jonah out of the whale’s belly. Observe, reader, though we be cast into ever so low a dungeon of calamity and trouble, we may from thence find a way of access to God in the highest heavens. Thus the psalmist, Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, Psalm 130:1 . Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry — So he terms his prayer. It was his breathing toward God, and after God. Prayer is the breath of the new man, drawing in the air of grace in petitions, and returning it in praises; it is both the evidence and maintenance of the spiritual life. Some read it, at my gasping; when I lay gasping for life, and ready to expire, and thought I was breathing my last, then thou tookest cognizance of my distressed case. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee — That is, thou didst graciously assure me of thy presence with me, and didst give me to see thee nigh unto me, whereas I had thought thee to be at a distance from me. Thou saidst, Fear not — This was the language, 1st, of God’s prophets, preaching to them not to fear, Isaiah 41:10 ; Isaiah 41:13 ; Isaiah 2 d, of his providence, preventing those things which they were afraid of; and, 3d, of his grace, quieting their minds, and making them easy, by the witness of his Spirit with their spirits, that they were his people still, though in distress, and therefore ought not to fear. Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul — That is, as it follows, Thou hast redeemed my life, hast rescued it out of the hands of those that would

Expositor's Bible Commentary Lamentations 3:1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. THE MAN THAT HATH SEEN AFFLICTION Lamentations 3:1-21 WHETHER we regard it from a literary, a speculative, or a religious point of view, the third and central elegy cannot fail to strike us as by far the best of the five. The workmanship of this poem is most elaborate in conception and most finished in execution, the thought is most fresh and striking, and the spiritual tone most elevated, and, in the best sense of the word, evangelical. Like Tennyson, who is most poetic when he is most artistic, as in his lyrics, and like all the great sonneteers, the author of this exquisite Hebrew melody has not found his ideas to be cramped by the rigorous rules of composition. It would seem that to a master the elaborate regulations that fetter an inferior mind. are no hindrances, but rather instruments fitted to his hand, and all the more serviceable for their exactness. Possibly the artistic refinement of form stimulates thought and rouses the poet to exert his best powers: or perhaps-and this is more probable-he selects the richer robe for the purpose of clothing his choicer conceptions. Here we have the acrostics worked up into triplets, so that they now appear at the beginning of every line, each letter occurring three times successively as an initial, and the whole poem falling into sixty-six verses or twenty-two triplets. Yet none of the other four poems have any approach to the wealth of thought or the uplifting inspiration that we meet with in this highly finished product of literary art. This elegy differs from its sister poems in another respect. It is composed, for the most part, in the first person singular, the writer either speaking of his own experience or dramatically personating another sufferer. Who is this "man that hath seen affliction"? On the understanding that Jeremiah is the author of the whole book, it is commonly assumed that the prophet is here revealing his own feelings under the multitude of troubles with which he has been overwhelmed. But if, as we have seen, this hypothesis is, to say the least, extremely dubious, of course the assumption that has been based upon it loses its warranty. No doubt there is much in the touching picture of the afflicted person that agrees with what we know of the experience of the great prophet. And yet, when we look into it, we do not find anything of so specific a character as to settle us in the conclusion that the words could have been spoken by no one else. There is just the possibility that the poet is not describing himself at all; he may be representing somebody well known to his contemporaries-perhaps even Jeremiah, or just a typical character, in the manner in Browning’s " Dramatis Personae ." While some mystery hangs over the personality of this man of sorrows the power and pathos of the poem are certainly heightened by the concentration of our attention upon one individual. Few persons are moved by general statements. Necessarily the comprehensive is all outline. It is by the supply of the particular that we fill up the details; and it is only when these details are present that we have a full-bodied picture. If an incident is typical it is illustrative of its kind. To know one such fact is to know all. Thus the science lecturer produces his specimen, and is satisfied to teach from it without adding a number of duplicates. The study of abstract reports is most important to those who are already interested in the subjects of these dreary documents; but it is useless as a means of exciting interest. Philanthropy must visit the office of the statistician if it would act with enlightened judgment, and not permit itself to become the victim of blind enthusiasm; but it was not born there, and the sympathy which is its parent can only be found among individual instances of distress. In the present case the speaker who recounts his own misfortunes is more than a casual witness, more than a mere specimen picked out at random from the heap of misery accumulated in this age of national ruin. He is not simply a man who has seen affliction, one among many similar sufferers; he is the man, the well-known victim, one pre-eminent in distress even in the midst of a nation full of misery. Yet he is not isolated on a solitary peak of agony. As the supreme sufferer, he is also the representative sufferer. He is not selfishly absorbed in the morbid occupation of brooding over his private grievances. He has gathered into himself the vast and terrible woes of his people. Thus he foreshadows our Lord in His passion. We cannot but be struck by the aptness of much in this third elegy when it is read in the light of the last scenes of the gospel history. It would be a mistake to say that these outpourings from the heart of the Hebrew patriot were intended to convey a prophetic meaning with reference to another Sufferer in a far-distant future. Nevertheless the application of the poem to the Man of Sorrows is more than a case of literary illustration; for the idea of representative suffering which here emerges, and which becomes more definite in the picture of the servant of Jehovah in Isaiah 53:1-12 , only finds its full realisation and perfection in Jesus Christ. It is repeated, however, with more or less distinctness wherever the Christ spirit is revealed. Thus in a noble interpretation of St. Paul, the Apostle is represented as experiencing- "Desperate tides of the whole world’s anguish Forced through the channel of a single heart." The portrait of himself drawn by the author of this elegy is the more graphic by reason of the fact that the present is linked to the past. The striking commencement, "I am the man," etc ., sets the speaker in imagination before our eyes. The addition "who has seen" (or rather, experienced) "affliction" connects him with his present sufferings. The unfathomable mystery of personal identity here confronts us. This is more than memory, more than the lingering scar of a previous experience; it is, in a sense, the continuance of that experience, its ghostly presence still haunting the soul that once knew it in the glow of life. Thus we are what we have thought and felt and done, and our present is the perpetuation of our past. The man who has seen affliction does not only keep the history of his distresses in the quiet chamber of memory. His own personality has slowly acquired a depth, a fulness, a ripeness that remove him far from the raw and superficial character he once was. We are silenced into awe before Job, Jeremiah, and Dante, because these men grew great by suffering. Is it not told even of our Lord Jesus Christ that He was made perfect by the things that He suffered? { Hebrews 5:8-9 } Unhappily it cannot be said that every hero of tragedy climbs to perfection on the rugged steps of his terrible life-drama; some men are shattered by discipline which proves to be too severe for their strength. Christ rose to His highest glory by means of the cruelty of His enemies and the treason of one of His trusted disciples; but cruel wrongs drove Lear to madness, and a confidant’s treachery made a murderer of Othello. Still all who pass through the ordeal come out other than they enter, and the change is always a growth in some direction, even though in many cases we must admit with sorrow that this is a downward direction. It is to be observed that here in his self-portraiture-just as elsewhere when describing the calamities that have befallen his people-the elegist attributes the whole series of disastrous events to God. This characteristic of the Book of Lamentations throughout is nowhere more apparent than in the third chapter. So close is the thought of God to the mind of the writer, he does not even think it necessary to mention the Divine name. He introduces his pronouns without any explanation of their objects, saying "His wrath" and "He hath led me," and so on through the succeeding verses. This quiet assumption of a recognised reference of all that happens to one source, a source that is taken to be so well known that there is no occasion to name it, speaks volumes for the deep-seated faith of the writer. He is at the antipodes of the too common position of those people who habitually forget to mention the name of God because He is never in their thoughts. God is always in the thoughts of the elegist, and that is why He is not named. Like Brother Lawrence, this man has learnt to "practise the presence of God." In amplifying the account of his sufferings, after giving a general description of himself as the man who has experienced affliction, and adding a line in which this experience is connected with its cause-the rod of the wrath of Him who is unnamed, though ever in mind-the stricken patriot proceeds to illustrate and enforce his appeal to sympathy by means of a series of vivid metaphors. This is the most crisp and pointed writing in the book. It hurries us on with a breathless rush of imagery, scene after scene flashing out in bewildering speed like the whirl of objects we look at from the windows of an express train. Let us first glance at the successive pictures in this rapidly moving panorama of similes, and then at the general import and drift of the whole. The afflicted man was under the Divine guidance; he was not the victim of blind self-will; it was not when straying from the path of right that he fell into this pit of misery. The strange thing is that God led him straight into it - led him into darkness, not into light as might have been expected with such a Guide. { Lamentations 3:2 } The first image, then, is that of a traveller misled. The perception of the first terrible truth that is here suggested prompts the writer at once to draw an inference as to the relation in which God stands to him, and the nature and character of the Divine treatment of him throughout. God, whom he has trusted implicitly, whom he has followed in the simplicity of ignorance, God proves to be his Opponent! He feels like one duped in the past, and at length undeceived as he makes the amazing discovery that his trusted Guide has been turning His hand against him repeatedly all the day of his woful wanderings. { Lamentations 3:3 } For the moment he drops his metaphors, and reflects on the dreadful consequences of this fatal antagonism. His flesh and skin, his very body is wasted away; he is so crushed and shattered, it is as though God had broken his bones. { Lamentations 3:4 } Now he can see that God has not only acted as an enemy in guiding him into the darkness; God’s dealings have shewn more overt antagonism. The helpless sufferer is like a besieged city, and God, who is conducting the assault, has thrown up a wall round him. With that daring mixture of metaphors, or, to be more precise, with that freedom of sudden transition from the symbol to the subject symbolised which we often meet with in this Book, the poet calls the rampart with which he has been girdled "gall and travail," for he has felt himself beset with bitter grief and weary toil. { Lamentations 3:4 } Then the scene changes. The victim of Divine wrath is a captive languishing in a dungeon, which is as dark as the abodes of the dead, as the dwellings of those who have been long dead. { Lamentations 3:6 } The horror of this metaphor is intensified by the idea of the antiquity of Hades. How dismal is the thought of being plunged into a darkness that is already aged-a stagnant darkness, the atmosphere of those who long since lost the last rays of the light of life! There the prisoner is bound by a heavy chain. { Lamentations 3:7 } He cries for help; but he is shut down so low that his prayer cannot reach his Captor. { Lamentations 3:8 } Again we see him still hampered, though in altered circumstances. He appears as a traveller whose way is blocked, and that not by some accidental fall of rock, but of set purpose, for he finds the obstruction to be of carefully prepared masonry, "hewn stones." { Lamentations 3:9 } Therefore he has to turn aside, so that his paths become crooked. Yet more terrible does the Divine enmity grow. When the pilgrim is thus forced to leave the highroad and make his way through the adjoining thickets his Adversary avails Himself of the cover to assume a new form, that of a lion or a bear lying in ambush. { Lamentations 3:10 } The consequence is that the hapless man is torn as by the claws and fangs of beasts of prey. { Lamentations 3:11 } But now these wild regions in which the wretched traveller is wandering at the peril of his life suggests the idea of the chase. The image of the savage animals is defective in this respect, that man is their superior in intelligence, though not in strength. But in the present case the victim is in every way inferior to his Pursuer. So God appears as the Huntsman, and the unhappy sufferer as the poor hunted game. The bow is bent, and the arrow directed straight for its mark. { Lamentations 3:12 } Nay, arrow after arrow has already been let fly, and the dreadful Huntsman, too skilful ever to miss His mark, has been shooting "the sons of His quiver into the very vitals of the object of His pursuit." { Lamentations 3:13 } Here the poet breaks away from his imagery for a second time to tell us that he has become an object of derision to all his people, and the theme of their mocking songs. { Lamentations 3:14 } This is a striking statement. It shews that the afflicted man is not simply one member of the smitten nation of Israel, sharing the common hardships of the race whose "badge is servitude." He not merely experiences exceptional sufferings. He meets with no sympathy from his fellow-countrymen. On the contrary, these people so far dissociate themselves from his case that they can find amusement in his misery. Thus, while even a misguided Don Quixote is a noble character in the rare chivalry of his soul, and while his very delusions are profoundly pathetic, many people can only find material for laughter in them, and pride themselves in their superior sanity for so doing, although the truth is, their conduct proves them to be incapable of understanding the lofty ideals that inspire the object of their empty derision; thus Jeremiah was mocked by his unthinking contemporaries, when, whether in error, as they supposed, or wisely, as the event shewed, he preached an apparently absurd policy; and thus a greater than Jeremiah, One as supreme in reasonableness as in goodness, was jeered at by men who thought Him at best a Utopian dreamer, because they were grovelling in earthly thoughts far out of reach of the spiritual world in which He moved. Returning to imagery, the poet pictures himself as a hardly used guest at a feast. He is fed, crammed, sated; but his food is bitterness, the cup has been forced to his lips, and he has been made drunk-not with pleasant wine, however, but with wormwood. { Lamentations 3:15 } Gravel has been mixed with his bread, or perhaps the thought is that when he has asked for bread stones had been given him. He has been compelled to masticate this unnatural diet, so that his teeth have been broken by it. Even that result he ascribes to God, saying, "He hath broken my teeth." { Lamentations 3:16 } It is difficult to think of the interference with personal liberty being carried farther than this. Here we reach the extremity of crushed misery. Reviewing the whole course of his wretched sufferings from the climax of misery, the man Who has seen all this affliction declares that God has cast him off from peace. { Lamentations 3:17 } The Christian sufferer knows what a profound consolation there is in the possession of the peace of God, even when he is passing through the most acute agonies-a peace which can be maintained both amid the wildest tempests of external adversity and in the presence of the fiercest paroxysms of personal anguish. Is it not the acknowledged secret of the martyrs’ serenity? Happily many an obscure sufferer has discovered it for himself, and found it better than any balm of Gilead. This most precious gift of heaven to suffering souls is denied to the man who here bewails his dismal fate. So too it was denied to Jesus in the garden, and again on the cross. It is possible that the dark day will come when it will be denied to one or another of His people. Then the experience of the moment will be terrible indeed. But it will be brief. An angel ministered to the Sufferer in Gethsemane. The joy of the resurrection followed swiftly on the agonies of Calvary. In the elegy we are now studying a burst of praise and glad confidence breaks out almost immediately after the lowest depths of misery have been sounded, shewing that, as Keats declares in an exquisite line- "There is a budding morrow in midnight." It is not surprising, however, that, for the time being, the exceeding blackness of the night keeps the hope of a new day quite out of sight. The elegist exclaims that he has lost the very idea of prosperity. Not only has his strength perished, his hope in God has perished also. { Lamentations 3:18 } Happily God is far too good a Father to deal with His children according to the measure of their despair. He is found by those who are too despondent to seek Him, because He is always seeking His lost children; and not waiting for them to make the first move towards Him. When we come to look at the series of pictures of affliction as a whole we shall notice that one general idea runs through them. This is that the victim is hindered, hampered, restrained. He is led into darkness, besieged, imprisoned, chained, driven out of his way, seized in ambuscade, hunted, even forced to eat unwelcome food. This must all point to a specific character of personal experience. The troubles of the sufferer have mainly assumed the form of a thwarting of his efforts. He has not been an indolent, weak, cowardly creature, succumbing at the first sign of opposition. To an active man with a strong will resistance is one of the greatest of troubles, although it will be accepted meekly, as a matter of course, by a person of servile habits. If the opposition comes from God, may it not be that the severity of the trouble is just caused by the obstinacy of self-will? Certainly it does not appear to be so here; but then we must remember the writer is stating his own case. Two other characteristics of the whole passage may be mentioned. One is the persistence of the Divine antagonism. This is what makes the Case look so hard. The pursuer seems to be ruthless; He will not let His victim alone for a moment. One device follows sharply on another. There is no escape. The second of these characteristics of the passage is a gradual aggravation in the severity of the trials. At first God is only represented as a guide who misleads; then He appears as a besieging enemy; later like a destroyer. And correspondingly the troubles of the sufferer grow in severity, till at last he is flung into the ashes, crushed and helpless. All this is peculiarly painful reading to us with our Christian thoughts of God. It seems so utterly contrary to the character of our Father revealed in Jesus Christ. But then it is not a part of the Christian revelation, nor was it uttered by a man who had received the benefits of that highest teaching. That, however, is not a complete explanation. The dreadful thoughts about God that are here recorded are almost without parallel even in the Old Testament. How contrary they are to such an idea as that of the pitiful Father in Psalm 103:1-22 ! On the other hand, it should be remembered that if ever we have to make allowance for the personal equation we must be ready to do so most liberally when we are listening to the tale of his wrongs as this is recounted by the sufferer himself. The narrator may be perfectly honest and truthful, but it is not in human nature to be impartial under such circumstances. Even when, as in the present instance, we have reason to believe that the speaker is under the influence of a Divine inspiration, we have no right to conclude that this gift would enable him to take an all-round vision of truth. Still, can we deny that the elegist has presented to our minds but one facet of truth? If we do not accept it as intended for a complete picture of God, and if we confine it to an account of the Divine action under certain circumstances as this appears to one who is most painfully affected by it, without any assertion concerning the ultimate motives of God-and this is all we have any justification for doing-it may teach us important lessons which we are too ready to ignore in favour of less unpleasant notions. Finally it would be quite unfair to the elegist, and it would give us a totally false impression of his ideas, if we were to go no further than this. To understand him at all we must hear him out. The contrast between the first part of this poem and the second is startling in the extreme, and we must not forget that the two are set in the closest juxtaposition, for it is plain that the one is intended to balance the other. The harshness of the opening words could be permitted with the more daring, because a perfect corrective to any unsatisfactory inferences that might be drawn from it was about to be immediately supplied. The triplet of Lamentations 3:19-21 serves as a transition to the picture of the other side of the Divine action. It begins with prayer. Thus a new note is struck. The sufferer knows that God is not at heart his enemy. So he ventures to beseech the very Being concerning whose treatment of him he has been complaining so bitterly, to remember his affliction and the misery it has brought on him, the wormwood, the gall of his hard lot. Hope now dawns on him out of his own recollections. What are these? The Authorised Version would lead us to think that when he uses the expression, "This I recall to my mind," { Lamentations 3:21 } the poet is referring to the encouraging ideas of the verses that immediately follow in the next section. But it is not probable that the last line of a triplet would thus point forward to another part of the poem. It is more consonant with the method of the composition to take this phrase in connection with what precedes it in the same triplet, and a perfectly permissible change in the translation of Lamentations 3:20 gives good sense in that connection. We may read this: "Thou (O God) wilt surely remember, for my soul is bowed down within me." Thus the recollection that God too has a memory and that He will remember His suffering servant becomes the spring of a new hope. Lamentations 3:22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. THE UNFAILING GOODNESS OF GOD Lamentations 3:22-24 ALTHOUGH the elegist has prepared us for brighter scenes by the more hopeful tone of an intermediate triplet, the transition from the gloom and bitterness of the first part of the poem to the glowing rapture of the second is among the most startling effects in literature. It is scarcely possible to conceive of darker views of Providence, short of a Manichaean repudiation of the God of the physical universe as an evil being, than those which are boldly set forth in the opening verses of the elegy; we shudder at the awful words, and shrink from repeating them, so near to the verge of blasphemy do they seem to come. And now those appalling utterances are followed by the very choicest expression of confidence in the boundless goodness of God! The writer seems to leap in a moment out of the deepest, darkest pit of misery into the radiance of more than summer sunlight. How can we account for this extraordinary change of thought and temper? It is not enough to ascribe the sharpness of the contrast either to the clumsiness of the author in giving utterance to his teeming fancies just as they occur to him, without any consideration for their bearings one upon another; or to his art in designedly preparing an awakening shock. We have still to answer the question, How could a man entertain two such conflicting currents of thought in closest juxtaposition? In their very form and structure these touching elegies reflect the mental calibre of their author. A wooden soul could never have invented their movements. They reveal a most sensitive spirit, a spirit that resembles a finely strung instrument of music, quivering in response to impulses from all directions. People of a mercurial temperament live in a state of perpetual oscillation between the most contrary moods, and the violence of their despair is always ready to give place to the enthusiasm of a new hope. We call them inconsistent; but their inconsistency may spring from a quick-witted capacity to see two sides of a question in the time occupied by slower minds with the contemplation of one. As a matter of fact, however, the revulsion in the mind of the poet may not have been so sudden as it appears in his work. We can scarcely suppose that so elaborate a composition as this elegy was written from beginning to end at a single sitting. Indeed, here we seem to have the mark of a break. The author composes the first part in an exceptionally gloomy mood, and leaves the poem unfinished, perhaps for some time. When he returns to it on a subsequent occasion he is in a totally different frame of mind, and this is reflected in the next stage of his work. Still the point of importance is the possibility of the very diverse views here recorded. Nor is this wholly a matter of temperament. Is it not more or less the case with all of us, that since absorption with one class of ideas entirely excludes their opposites, when the latter are allowed to enter the mind they will rush in with the force of a pent-up flood? Then we are astonished that we could ever have forgotten them. We build our theories in disregard of whole regions of thought. When these occur to us it is with the shock of a sudden discovery, and in the flash of the new light we begin at once to take very different views of our universe. Possibly we have been oblivious of our own character, until suddenly we are awakened to our true state, to be overwhelmed with shame at an unexpected revelation of sordid meanness, of despicable selfishness. Or perhaps the vision is of the heart of another person, whose quiet, unassuming goodness we have not appreciated, because it has been so unvarying and dependable that we have taken it as a matter of course, like the daily sunrise, never perceiving that this very constancy is the highest merit. We have been more grateful for the occasional lapses into kindness with which habitually churlish people have surprised us. Then there has come the revelation, in which we have been made to see that a saint has been walking by our side all the day. Many of us are very slow in reaching a similar discovery concerning God. But when we begin to take a right view of His relations to us we are amazed to think that we had not perceived them before, so rich and full and abounding are the proofs of His exceeding goodness. Still it may seem to us a strange thing that this most perfect expression of a joyous assurance of the mercy and compassion of God should be found in the Book of Lamentations of all places. It may well give heart to those who have not sounded the depths of sorrow, as the author of these sad poems had done, to learn that even he had been able to recognise the merciful kindness of God in the largest possible measure. A little reflection, however, should teach us that it is not so unnatural a thing for this gem of grateful appreciation to appear where it is. We do not find, as a rule, that the most prosperous people are the foremost to recognise the love of God. The reverse is very frequently the case. If prosperity is not always accompanied by callous ingratitude-and of course it would be grossly unjust to assert anything so harsh-at all events it is certain that adversity is far from blinding our eyes to the brighter side of the revelation of God. Sometimes it is the very means by which they are opened. In trouble the blessings of the past are best valued, and in trouble the need of God’s compassion is most acutely felt. But this is not all. The softening influence of sorrow seems to have a more direct effect upon our sense of Divine goodness. Perhaps, too, it is some compensation for melancholy, that persons who are afflicted with it are most responsive to sympathy. The morbid, despondent poet Cowper has written most exquisitely about the love of God. Watts is enthusiastic in his praise of the Divine grace; but a deeper note is sounded in the Olney hymns, as, for example, in that beginning with the line- "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord." While reading this hymn today we cannot fail to feel the peculiar thrill of personal emotion that still quivers through its living words, revealing the very soul of their author. This is more than joyous praise; it is the expression of a personal experience of the compassion of God in times of deepest need. The same sensitive poet has given us a description of the very condition that is illustrated by the passage in the Hebrew elegist we are now considering, in lines which, familiar as they are, acquire a fresh meaning when read in this association-the lines- "Sometimes a light surprises The Christian while he sings: It is the Lord who rises With healing in His wings". "When comforts are declining, He grants the soul, again, A season of clear shining, To cheer it after rain." We may thank the Calvinistic poet for here touching on another side of the subject. He reminds us that it is God who brings about the unexpected joy of renewed trust in His unfailing mercy. The sorrowful soul is, consciously or unconscionsly, visited by the Holy Spirit, and the effect of contact with the Divine is that scales fall from the eyes of the surprised sufferer. If it is right to say that one portion of Scripture is more inspired than another we must feel that there is more Divine light in the second part of this elegy than in the first. It is this surprising light from Heaven that ultimately accounts for the sudden revolution in the feelings of the poet. In his new consciousness of the love of God the elegist is first struck by its amazing persistence. Probably we should follow the Targum and the Syriac version in rendering the twenty-second verse thus- "The Lord’s mercies, verily they cease not," etc . instead of the usual English rendering- "It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed," etc. There are two reasons for this emendation. First, the momentary transition to the plural "we" is harsh and improbable. It is true the author makes a somewhat similar change a little later; { Lamentations 3:40-48 } but there it is in an extended passage, and one in which he evidently wishes to represent his people with ideas that are manifestly appropriate to the community at large. Here, on the other hand, the sentence breaks into the midst of personal reflections. Second- and this is the principal consideration-the balance of the phrases, which is so carefully observed throughout this elegy, is upset by the common rendering, but restored by the emendation. The topic of the triplet in which the disputed passage occurs is the amazing persistence of God’s goodness to His suffering children. The proposed alteration is in harmony with this. The thought here presented to us rests on the truth of the eternity and essential changelessness of God. We cannot think of Him as either fickle or failing; to do so would be to cease to think of Him as God. If He is merciful at all He cannot be merciful only spasmodically, erratically, or temporarily. For all that, we need not regard these heart-stirring utterances as the expressions of a self-evident truism. The wonder and glory of the idea they dilate upon are not the less for the fact that we should entertain no doubt of its truth. The certainty that the character of God is good and great does not detract from His goodness or His greatness. When we are assured that His nature is not fallible our contemplation of it does not cease to be an act of adoration. On the contrary, we can worship the immutable perfection of God with fuller praises than we should give to fitful gleams of less abiding qualities. As a matter of fact, however, our religious experience is never the simple conclusion of bare logic. Our feelings, and not these only, but also our faith need repeated assurances of the continuance of God’s goodness, because it seems as though there were so much to absorb and quench it. Therefore the perception of the fact of its continuance takes the form of a glad wonder