Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 3:14
I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song all the day.
14. a derision ] See on Jer 20:7 f., and cp. Job 12:4; Job 30:1-9; Psa 69:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Though some think the prophet speaks this of himself, yet, considering he hath all along spoken in the name of the people, it is not probable, which makes a difficulty, how the people could be a derision to themselves? It seemeth therefore ill translated, and that it should have been,
I was a derision to all people, leaving out my, that is, to all foreigners, to whom the Jews were made a derision and a hissing; there only wants the last letter in and it is well observed by the learned author of the English Annotations, that the like defect is to be found, as to the same word, 2Sa 22:41, compared with Psa 18:43, so that is not a pronoun affix, (upon which supposal our translators go,) but one of the letters that form the plural number, the other being left out, and put for .
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. (Jer20:7).
their song (Ps69:12). Jeremiah herein was a type of Messiah. “All mypeople” (Joh 1:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I was a derision to all my people,…. So Jeremiah was to the people of the Jews, and especially to his townsmen, the men of Anathoth, Jer 20:7; but if he represents the body of the people, others must be intended; for they could not be a derision to themselves. The Targum renders it, to the spoilers of my people; that is, either the wicked among themselves, or the Chaldeans; and Aben Ezra well observes, that “ammi” is put for “ammim”, the people; and so is to be understood of all the people round about them, the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, that laughed at their destruction; though some interpret it of the wicked among the Jews, to whom the godly were a derision; or of those who had been formerly subject to the Jews, and so their people, though not now:
[and] their song all the day; beating on their tabrets, and striking their harps, for joy; for the word l used signifies not vocal, but instrumental music; of such usage of the Messiah, see Ps 69:12.
l a “pulsare istrumentum musicum”.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet again complains of the reproaches to which God had exposed the Jews. We have said that of all evils the most grievous is reproach, and experience teaches us that sorrow is greatly embittered when scoffs and taunts are added to it; for he who silently bears the most grievous sorrows, becomes broken in heart when he finds himself contumeliously treated. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet again amplifies the miseries of the people, because they were exposed to the scoffs of all men. But it may seem a strange thing that the Jews were derided by their own people. This is the reason why some think that the Prophet complains of his own private evils, and that he does not represent the whole people or the public condition of the Church. But it may also be said in reply, that the Prophet does not mean that the people were derided by themselves, which could not be; but it is the same as though he had said, that their state was so disgraceful, that while they looked on one another, they had a reason for taunting, if this their condition was allowed to continue.
In short, the Prophet does not mean what was actually done, but he simply complains that their calamity was liable to all kinds of reproaches, so that any one looking on Jerusalem might justly deride such a disgraceful spectacle. And it was, as we have said, a most equitable reward, for they had not ceased to reproach God. Then rendered to them was what they had deserved, when God loaded them in turn with dishonor.
He afterwards adds, that he was their song, that is, of derision; for it is a confirmation of the former clause, and the same complaint is also formal in Job. He says that he was their song daily or all the day. This constancy, as it has been said, proved more clearly the grievousness of the evil.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
Lam. 3:14. The figure is hardly changed. Perhaps a laughing-stock to all my people, their song all the day, may be regarded as the shaft which went to the quick. Jeremiah calls a deceiving tongue a deadly arrow (Jer. 9:8). They who should have stood by him, as partaking of the same afflictions, hurled at him bolts of ridicule in jaunty songs. Another reading ascribes the mocking to all peoples, not to his fellow-countrymen.
Lam. 3:15. The nutriment and comfort which I needed were replaced by adversities which I endured to the utmost extent bearable. He has filled me with bitternessesdifferent kinds of sufferingsand sated me with wormwood.
() Lam. 3:16. In respect to means of nourishment, I have been still further exasperated. Also he has broken my teeth with gravel; either that which was chewed was full of gritty sand, or for bread he had stones given him. A strange work for the Father! He has covered me with ashes, I am one who mourneth in bitterness.
Lam. 3:17. Notwithstanding all my afflictions, I might have been calm and hopeful, but the culminating point of all I have to sustain is the conviction that I am put far from God. Is it not a piteous condition which may extort complaint of Thyself? Thou hast cast off my soul from peace. So dense is this outer darkness, that any recollection of ever being in comfort has faded away, I forget good.
HOMILETICS
COMPLEX PHASES OF DISTRESS
(Lam. 3:14-17)
I. The sufferer is the subject of ridicule. I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day (Lam. 3:14). Dropping the use of metaphor for the nonce, the prophet plainly indicates in these words what the arrows were that pierced him to the quick. They were the darts of ridicule, sharpened with envy and poisoned with rancoura ridicule all the keener as coming from his own people, and revealing the base treachery that had been all along cherished under the mask of professed friendship. It is a deep wound to a sensitive heart to discover the fickleness of perverse human nature. The very people who smile upon and flatter us in our prosperity are the first to curl the lip of scorn and to join those who make sport over our misfortunes. The idol of the crowd to-day may be the execration of the crowd to-morrow. It is a part of the suffering of the unfaithful to have to endure the contempt of God and man, and the sting of the distress is the consciousness that it is self-induced and richly deserved. Where shall he look for sympathy and help? Not from man. His only refuge is in God.
II. The sufferer is satiated with pain and sunk in abject humiliation. He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath covered me with ashes (Lam. 3:15-16). He is as one glutted with bitter food and stupified with nauseous drinks. An Arabic poet describes a man grievously afflicted as a pounder of wormwood. His food is so mingled with the grit of the ashes in which it is baked that his teeth are broken in eating it, and he is himself smothered with the ashes into the midst of which he has been thrown down. To the Oriental mind this is a graphic description of acute suffering and shame. Vanity, pride, and disobedience end in humiliation and trouble. It seems appointed, says Lange, that much of the highest instruction should come to us, even in the Bible, through the sufferings and struggles of individual men. The anguish of the prophet was a type of the sufferings of a rebellious nation.
III. The sufferer is robbed of happiness. Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace (Lam. 3:17). Peace in Hebrew has the wider signification of welfare, happiness. Hence it was their salutation in life, Peace be to thee, and in death was engraved upon their sepulchres, In peace. Peace with God is the source of permanent and overflowing happiness, and its possession is conditioned on the obedience of faith, for being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. How great is the loss when our peace is gone and our happiness takes wing! It is the loss of that we most highly prize and diligently seek after, for happiness is the object of universal search. Rob a man of his peace, and what is there left to live for? The soul, unloosed from her old moorings, is tossed about like a helpless ship in the troubled sea which cannot rest. Life is an intolerable burden, and, swung in a whirl of black despair, the soul cries out with the distracted patriarch, Oh, that I might have my request, &c. (Job. 6:8-10).
IV. The sufferer loses the very idea of good. I forgot prosperity (Lam. 3:17). I forgot what good is, lost the very idea of what it means. There is no enjoyment in the present; there is no hope in the future. It is impossible to conceive a more pitiable and forlorn condition. The prophet has surely reached the bottom of his despair; there is no lower depth. This is the fate of the man who tries to live without God. His views of right and wrong, of liberty and bondage, of prosperity and adversity, are utterly confounded. It is a dangerous experiment for any man to try. Christ is the Hope of humanity. To be without Him is to be without God, and to be in the condition of the Ephesians of a former age, Having no hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).
LESSONS.
1. It is a painful experience to meet with scorn where we expected sympathy.
2. There is always something to modify the happiness of life.
3. It is one of the saddest results of suffering when the soul loses faith in goodness.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 3:14-15. Ridicule:
1. Is hard to bear when coming from our enemies. II. Has a special aggravation when it is exultingly employed against us by those we had loved and trusted. III. Overwhelms its victim by its bitterness and ceaseless outflow.
Lam. 3:17. The loss of happiness: I. Is the loss of peace. II. Is the loss of true notions of goodness. III. Is the fate of the obstinately unbelieving.
ILLUSTRATIONSTriumph over ridicule. A pious poor man was much ridiculed on account of his religion. Being asked if these daily persecutions did not make him ready to give up his profession, he replied, No! Our minister once said in his sermon that if we were so foolish as to permit such people to laugh us out of religion till at last we dropped into hell, they could not laugh us out again.
What would the nightingale care if the toad despised her singing? She would still sing on, and leave the cold toad to his dank shadows. And what care I for the sneers of men who grovel upon earth? I will still sing on in the ear and bosom of God.Beecher.
Treachery has no pity. Sir Anthony Kingston, the provost-marshal of the Protector, the Earl of Hertford, sent word to the mayor of Bodmin that he would dine with him. He had a man to hang too, he said, and a stout gallows must be ready. The dinner was duly eaten and the gallows prepared. Think you, said Kingston as they stood looking at it, think you is it strong enough? Yea, sir, quoth the mayor, it is. Well, then, said Sir Anthony, get up; it is for you. The mayor, greatly abashed, exclaimed and protested. Sir, said Kingston, there is no remedy; ye have been a busy rebel, and this is appointed for your reward; and so, without respite or stay, the mayor was hanged.
Suffering and its compensations. Should the Empress determine to banish me, let her banish me; The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof. If she will cast me into the sea, let her cast me into the sea; I will remember Jonah. If she will throw me into a burning fiery furnace, the three children were there before me. If she will throw me to the wild beasts, I will remember that Daniel was in the den of lions. If she will condemn me to be stoned, I shall be an associate of Stephen, the proto-martyr. If she will have me beheaded, the Baptist has submitted to the same punishment. If she will take away my substance, naked came I out of my mothers womb, and naked shall I return to it.Chrysostom.
The best work comes out of distress. The people of Verona, when they saw Dante in the streets, used to say, See, there is the man that was in hell! Ah yes! he had been in hellin hell enough, in long severe sorrow and struggle, as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. Commedias that come out divine are not accomplished otherwise. Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind; true effort, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is thought. In all ways we are to become perfect through suffering.Carlyle.
Happiness depends on God. Solon said, No man ought to be called happy till he dies, because he knows not what his life is to be. But the Christian may always call himself happy here because wherever his tent is carried, he need never pitch it where the cloud does not move and where he is not surrounded by a wall of fire. I will be a wall of fire round about them, and their glory in the midst. They cannot dwell where God is not householder, warder, and bulwark of salvation.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(14) I was a derision.The personal experience of the prophet breaks through the succession of imagery. The arrows that pierced to the quick were the taunts of the mockers who derided him (Jer. 20:7). Their song. (Comp. Job. 30:9.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. My people “There is no reason, but the contrary, for changing (with Ewald) ‘my people’ into peoples.” R. PAYNE SMITH, in the Speaker’s Commentary. So also Keil, Nagelsbach, Gerlach, and others.
That even these fearful judgments, so clearly foretold and fully identified as from God, did not subdue and turn the people from their obstinacy and rebellion, and bring them to see the prophet in his true character, is sufficiently evident from Jer 41:1, etc., Jer 43:2, and numerous other passages. In the case of such as Jeremiah the bitterness of personal hate and persecution was added to the common burden of sorrow and disappointment.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 3:14 I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song all the day.
Ver. 14. I was a derision, to all my people. ] Or, To all peoples. Our Saviour suffered all this and much more for us.
And their song all the day.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
derision. Compare Jer 20:8.
all my People. A special various reading called Sevir (App-34), with some codices, and Syriac, read “all peoples”.
song = mocking-song. Compare Lam 3:63 and Psa 69:12.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Lam 3:63, Neh 4:2-4, Job 30:1-9, Psa 22:6, Psa 22:7, Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16, Psa 44:13, Psa 69:11, Psa 69:12, Psa 79:4, Psa 123:3, Psa 123:4, Psa 137:3, Jer 20:7, Jer 48:27, Mat 27:39-44, 1Co 4:9-13
Reciprocal: Job 30:9 – am I Lam 3:45 – as Luk 23:35 – derided
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 3:14. Yes, even as righteous a man as Jeremiah could not escape persecution from his own people. They falsified against him and even mistreated him by thrusting him into the mire (Jer 37:13-14; Jer 38:6). To be a derision means l.o be treated sneet’Ingly, and that was done to the prophet by his own countrymen as may be seen in the passages cited above.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Lam 3:14-19. I was a derision to all my people To all the wicked among them, who made themselves merry with the prophets 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 Gods 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, (Psa 77:10,) for with God there is everlasting strength, and he is his peoples never-failing hope, whatever they may suspect to the contrary.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The prophet’s contemporaries mocked and ridiculed him constantly. He had become full of bitter experiences, like poison, which the Lord had given him to drink (cf. Job 9:18).
"Wormwood is the name given to certain plants used for imparting a bitter flavor to some drinks; the name has no connection with either worm or wood." [Note: Ellison, p. 718.]