Lamentations 3: 1 – 66
A Taunting Song
1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. 2 He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. 3 Surely He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day. 4 He has aged my flesh and my skin, and broken my bones. 5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. 6 He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago. 7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy. 8 Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer. 9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked. 10 He has been to me a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush. 11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces; He has made me desolate. 12 He has bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. 13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my loins. 14 I have become the ridicule of all my people—Their taunting song all the day. 15 He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood. 16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes. 17 You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity. 18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.” 19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. 20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me. 21 This I recall to my mind; therefore I have hope. 22 Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. 26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. 28 Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him; 29 Let him put his mouth in the dust—There may yet be hope. 30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him and be full of reproach. 31 For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. 34 To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35 To turn aside the justice due a man before the face of the Most High, 36 Or subvert a man in his cause—The Lord does not approve. 37 Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed? 39 Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 40 Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the LORD; 41 Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. 42 We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned. 43 You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain and not pitied. 44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through. 45 You have made us an offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples. 46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 47 Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction. 48 My eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 49 My eyes flow and do not cease, without interruption, 50 Till the LORD from heaven looks down and sees. 51 My eyes bring suffering to my soul because of all the daughters of my city. 52 My enemies without cause hunted me down like a bird. 53 They silenced my life in the pit and threw stones at me. 54 The waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!” 55 I called on Your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit. 56 You have heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help.” 57 You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, “Do not fear!” 58 O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life. 59 O LORD, You have seen how I am wronged; Judge my case. 60 You have seen all their vengeance, All their schemes against me. 61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their schemes against me, 62 The lips of my enemies and their whispering against me all the day. 63 Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their taunting song. 64 Repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. 65 Give them a veiled heart; Your curse be upon them! 66 In Your anger, pursue and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.
Have you ever gone to a sports game and heard the chant. Na-nana-naa-nah Na-nana-naa-nah, hey hey hey goodbye! It is sung for the opposing team and their fans. Essentially it is a taunt.
In 1977, the Chicago White Sox organist began playing the song when White Sox sluggers knocked one out of the park. It later was adopted for throwing out the opposing pitcher. The fans would sing, and a sports ritual was born. The song's chorus remains well-known and is still frequently used as a crowd chant at many sporting events. It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected or disqualified. It has also been sung by crowds in political rallies, to taunt political opponents or to drown out and mock disruptive counter-protesters.
It is bad enough when you are defeated but to hear someone sing a taunt song at you is like they are pouring salt on an open wound.
Our brother Jeremiah the prophet of God Most High has been obedient and gave the people all the words of Father God Yahweh. They never listened to him and as you know, they experienced total devastation.
Instead of appreciating Jeremiah’s faithfulness in his obedience to speak up the pending destruction the people on the other hand rejoiced in his heartache by putting together their own version of a taunting song. We will learn how this comes about in today’s study.
In this lament we have a wonderful picture of a godly man struggling through from a position of almost despair to a confident trust that God is with him in the midst of his troubles, so much so that he can turn his thoughts away from himself to others (the change from ‘I’ to ‘we’) as he brings them before God.
In this section God is simply spoken of as ‘He’, the only mention of His Name being in verse 18 where the prophet declares that his expectation from YHWH has perished. It describes what the prophet has had to endure in the most trying of circumstances, and the condition of soul that it has brought him to. He is almost in blank despair. But it is soul preparation which will then lead on to a recognition of God’s faithfulness. God does not leave him in the dark. He prays through it. It is a reminder that life is not necessarily easy for the people of God. Sometimes we have to walk in a difficult pathway, so that God can seem far away, and even hostile, because we do not understand His ways. But always beyond the darkness there will be light.
1 I ?am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. 2 He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light. 3 Surely, He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day.
The prophet is very much aware that his afflictions, which are many, and the misery that he is enduring, are due to the wrath of God, not necessarily directly directed against him, but against his people, although he is a participant in it. He is aware that he is not blameless.
In terms later taken up by Jesus, Who spoke of walking in darkness (John 8.12, “hen Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”), and Who brought light into the darkness, the prophet recognizes that God has led him in a dark path. Although he is conscious that God is leading him, He feels that he is walking in darkness and not in light. But unlike the Psalmist in Psalm 23 he does not have the confidence that YHWH is with him in a positive way in the valley of deep darkness. Rather all is black. He sees no glimmer of hope for the future. (But he still sees himself as led by God. In that no doubt was his comfort to hang in there).
Indeed he feels that God is turning His hand against him ‘again and again’, from morning til night. He feels totally battered by God. Many who have truly known God have had similar experiences. Sometimes God can seem very far away. But elsewhere we learn that this can be due, not to God’s lack of love, but to God’s loving chastening (Proverbs 3.11-12, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor detest His correction; For whom the LORD loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights).
4 He has aged my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. 5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. 6 He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago.
The prophet feels that God has worn away his flesh and broken his bones, not literally but figuratively . He feels absolutely ‘wasted’ both outwardly and inwardly. The whole of his being is affected.
He feels under siege, under attack and surrounded by bitterness (gall) and stress (travail). He feels almost as though he in the grave with the dead, with no hope for the future (with those who are dead forever), so dark is his experience.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy. 8 Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer. 9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.
He feels himself like a prisoner, walled in so that he cannot go out, and bowed down by a heavy chain, constricted in his movements. Life has hemmed him in.
Things are so bad that he feels that God is shutting out his prayer. The heavens appear silent and unresponsive. Everywhere he turns he finds his way blocked as though by hewn stone (huge blocks of stone), so that he has to make his way through as best he can along devious paths.
10 He has been to me a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush. 11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces; He has made me desolate. 12 He has bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.
The prophet feels as though YHWH is out to get him. He feels that YHWH has prevented him from taking the way that he wanted and has rather pulled him to pieces. He feels as though he has been savagely attacked, making him desolate. Indeed YHWH appears to him to have turned him into a target for His arrows, which are thudding into him one by one. Instead of the Hunter slaying the lion and the bear, He is slaying the prophet. The arrows represent the ills and sorrows appointed by God.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my loins. 14 I have become the ridicule of all my people—Their taunting song all the day. 15 He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood.
The thought of the arrows of YHWH continues. YHWH has caused them to enter into his ‘reins’ (kidneys, mind, a man’s inmost parts), how his life is guided and controlled. He has also made him into a laughingstock and object of derision, as men derisively sing about him all day. Jeremiah was a good illustration of this. And He has filled him full of bitterness and wormwood (something poisonous and accursed).
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel and covered me with ashes. 17 You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity. 18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”
The idea here is that the grain of which the bread he is given is made is so coarse that it breaks his teeth. The main idea, however, is that he has been given something hard to accept and unpalatable. To be covered with ashes indicated a state of real unpleasantness. It is a figure signifying either the deepest disgrace and humiliation or indicating mourning and deep sorrow.
Indeed, things have become so bad for him that he has lost all peace, something that he lays at God’s door, while well-being, both spiritual and material, has become a thing of the past. He has thus lost all hope. His strength has gone and so has any expectation that he had from YHWH. He has reached the bottom of the barrel.
When our souls have reached their lowest point there is only one thing to do, and that is to cast ourselves on God. That is what the prophet now does. He remembers past times of affliction and misery and how God has kept him through them, and this gives him the confidence that he can hope in God again.
19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. 20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me. 21 This I recall to my mind; therefore, I have hope.
The prophet calls to mind his past experiences of affliction and misery, and of extreme bitterness, ‘of the wormwood and the gall’. He still remembers them and is bowed down by them. But he recalls to mind that he had experienced them and survived them, and this enables him to express hope. Alternately ‘bowed down’ might indicate a humble submission to YHWH, the idea being that he remembers in the past how affliction had caused him to bow down to YHWH.
22 Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”
He recognizes that the very reason that he has survived his experiences, and that part of the nation has survived, is because of YHWH’s ‘covenant loves’ (His mercies), the plural expressing intensity. That is why he has hope. He recognizes that he has survived because of it. It is because ‘His compassions fail not and are new every morning’. For despite the circumstances YHWH is still faithful to those who look to Him. Indeed, his compassions are new every morning because great is His faithfulness. Nothing has happened that He had not said would happen. That is why the prophet can say that YHWH is still his portion, the One in Whom he has confidence and to whom he gives his loyalty, and it is because of that that he can have hope in Him. It is declaring that YHWH is all that the prophet wants, and that He is his all-sufficiency.
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. 26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
For while God’s judgment has come upon Jerusalem, YHWH is still good to those who wait for Him, who are trusting in His faithfulness, and seeking Him with all their hearts. So it is a good thing that a man should hope and quietly wait (‘wait in silence’) for YHWH to deliver, not complaining and not trying to hurry God up. Just as it is good for him to bear the yoke of suffering during his youth, so that he will thereby be strengthened and fitted for what might lie ahead. Patient endurance and confidence in God should be man’s response to YHWH’s goodness.
28 Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him; 29 Let him put his mouth in the dust—There may yet be hope. 30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him and be full of reproach.
The yoke that the young man should be ready to bear is now described:
. It enables him to sit alone and in silence because it is YHWH’s will for him. He does not complain or get involved in doubtful activities.
. It makes him ready for complete submission to the will of YHWH because he knows that in that will is his hope. Prostrating oneself in the dust was a token of complete submission.
. It makes him ready to accept insults and reproach because he knows that he is bearing them because of his faithfulness to God.
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
And such a man can have the above attitudes because he knows that he will not be cast off forever by the Lord. For though the Lord might make him endure grief, He will have compassion on him in accordance with the multitude of His loving kindnesses and mercies, His covenant love. For He never afflicts men willingly, nor does He gladly grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35 To turn aside the justice due a man before the face of the Most High, 36 Or subvert a man in his cause—The Lord does not approve.
For there are three things of which the Lord does not approve:
. He does not approve of the crushing underfoot of the prisoners of the earth. They have a right for their needs to be considered and to compassion.
. He does not approve of the turning aside of the rights of a man before the face of the Most High (Elyon). All should be allowed full access to Him and be given justice when their cases are tried before Him. And He does not approve of injustice and false dealings regarding those who bring their cases to the lower judiciary. For above all God is a God of justice.
37 Who is he who speaks, and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed? 39 Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
Thus, no man should complain at his lot, because he should realize that in the end it has come from God. Whenever someone speaks and brings something about we can be sure that God is overall, and therefore that He has allowed it. We should see that it is His purpose. For in the way of things both evil and good do ‘come from out of the mouth of the Lord’. In other words, He gives permission for them and allows them to happen, even in some cases stepping in and exerting His own will. This does not, of course, mean that God is approving of moral evil, but only that He allows things to happen, some of which are good and beneficial, and some of which are harmful. And He does this for our good. It is because He is chastening us for our sinfulness. Thus, rather than complaining a man who still has life granted to him should accept it and rejoice in it, and respond accordingly.
The prophet now calls on the people to examine themselves and to seek YHWH and pray sincerely to Him from the heart, not just by lifting their hands formally. They are to recognize and acknowledge why He does not hear them. It is because they have rebelled and transgressed against Him. They are also to recognise their present position, that He pursues them, slaying and covering His ears against their cries, while He makes them like refuse among the peoples. This then brings the prophet himself to tears, as he prays on behalf of his people, contemplating their destruction. He is determined to go on praying without stopping until YHWH looks down from Heaven and sees the situation.
40 Let us search out and examine our ways and turn back to the LORD; 41 Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven. 42 We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned.
The prophet calls on the people to seek YHWH, by searching out and putting to the test their own ways, that is by self-examination, and then by turning to YHWH and lifting up not only their hands, but also their hearts to God in the heaven, in other words engaging in genuine and not just formal prayer. They were to admit that they had rebelled and transgressed against Him, and that He had not pardoned them. They were being required to face up to the reality of what they had done. Their hope must be that in spite of the fact that they had transgressed and rebelled God would hear them. But as we learn from what follows in their view He did not immediately hear. He did not pardon. Their punishment went on. They were acknowledging that He had reached the limits of His patience.
43 You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain and not pitied. 44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through. 45 You have made us an offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
They cried out that YHWH had put on anger as a garment and had pursued them, slaying without pity. That He had covered Himself with a cloud so that no prayer could pass through. That He was deaf to their pleas. And that He had made them like dirt and refuse among the peoples. His chastening was severe so that they would learn their lesson.
We can view this either as a cry of despair, or as an admission that they were getting what they deserved. Either way the people were facing up to the realities of their situation. Being honest with God is very often necessary before we can begin to have a new hope.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 47 Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction. 48 My eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Their prayer continues as they continue to face up to the facts about their situation. Their enemies were ‘opening their mouths against them’, scornfully pointing to what had happened to them, and sneering at them. They also acknowledge why that is. It is because they have been overcome by ‘devastation and destruction’. They are experiencing fear, and what it was like to be a trapped animal. They are experiencing total devastation. The very thought of this destruction of his people causes the prophet to weep, and his eyes run down like streams of water.
49 My eyes flow and do not cease, without interruption, 50 Till the LORD from heaven looks down and sees. 51 My eyes bring suffering to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
It is not only his eye that weeps. His weeping affects him deep inside as he thinks of what has happened to ‘the daughters of my city’. This last almost certainly refers to the women of Jerusalem who would receive cavalier treatment from the invaders both before and after the fall of Jerusalem, especially the young virgins who would have suffered the most.
The statement ‘My eye affects my soul’ is saying ‘my eye inflicts an injury on my inner life’, referring to the pain he feels as he contemplates the situation.
The chapter commenced with the personal experience of the prophet in verses 1-18 but there it was the present experiences that he was going through which were in mind. He now closes the chapter with a look back to his personal experiences, to what he has suffered at the hands of the leaders of his people, and calls on YHWH to avenge him.
It is quite possible that the prophet felt deeply for his people, while still feeling hard done by about the aristocrats who had for so long opposed and mistreated him, who were after all responsible for the sufferings of the people.
52 My enemies without cause hunted me down like a bird. 53 They silenced my life in the pit and threw stones at me. 54 The waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!”
Here have three vivid pictures of the prophet’s sufferings. He had been like a hunted bird, he had been put in a pit, he had experience overflowing suffering.
‘They have chased me sore (hunted me down) like a bird.’ It is the upright in heart who are the targets. The prophet sees himself as having been constantly hunted. And it was by ‘They who are my enemies without cause’. He considers that they had had no grounds for their enmity because he had only had the good of his people at heart.
‘They have cut off my life in the dungeon (pit), and have cast a stone on me.’ This was literally true of Jeremiah as the pit into which he was lowered probably did have a stone covering.
55 I called on Your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit. 56 You have heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help.” 57 You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, “Do not fear!”
His momentary doubt laid to rest the prophet called on YHWH ‘out of the lowest pit’ and was immediately heard. So he now calls on YHWH to regard his sighing and respond in the same way. For YHWH had drawn near on the day that he had called on Him, and had given him the assurance, ‘Do not be afraid’.
When we reach the very lowest pit we can be sure that He will be there ready to respond to our prayer, whatever the circumstances. Notice the sequence, ‘I called -- you heard -- do not hide -- you drew near’.
58 O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life. 59 O LORD, You have seen how I am wronged; Judge my case. 60 You have seen all their vengeance, All their schemes against me. 61 You have heard their reproach, O LORD, all their schemes against me, 62 The lips of my enemies and their whispering against me all the day. 63 Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their taunting song.
The prophet calls on YHWH to judge his case. For YHWH is the One Who has pleaded, as it were before a court, the causes of his inner life, and has redeemed his life (from threatened destruction). In other words YHWH has fought for him and delivered him. YHWH is on his side. So now he calls on Him to judge his cause, because having pleaded them He must know his causes intimately.
Three times he draws attention to their device/devices against him. The first connected with their desire for vengeance, the second connected with all their reproach, and the third connected with their charges against him. They wanted vengeance, they were filled with reproach towards him, and they got together and spoke with animosity against him. And this was because they considered that he was a traitor who sided with the Babylonians.
He points out that when He does so He will see that they sang insulting songs about him all day, mocking and belittling him.
64 Repay them, O LORD, According to the work of their hands. 65 Give them a veiled heart; Your curse be upon them! 66 In Your anger, pursue and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.
So he expresses his confidence that YHWH will:
. Recompense them (his adversaries) according to what they had done. Give them hardness (or blindness) of heart which will be a curse to them.
. Pursue them in anger and destroy them from the earth (from under the heavens of YHWH).
