Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 3:25

The LORD [is] good unto them that wait for him, to the soul [that] seeketh him.

25 27. Good is the leading word of this group. The knowledge of the Lord’s goodness (25) is that which (26) makes it good that man should be hopeful and submissive and (27) makes him also to recognise the moral good that comes of suffering. Lhr and Pe. cp. Rom 5:3-5. “These vv. have the ring of autobiography” (Dummelow). Cp.

“Nor less I deem

That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.”

Wordsworth, Expostulation and Reply ( Poems of Sentiment and Reflection).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25 51. See intr. note.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

In these three verses, each beginning in the Hebrew with the word good, we have first the fundamental idea that Yahweh Himself is good, and if good to all, then especially is He so to those who being in adversity can yet wait in confidence upon His mercy.

Lam 3:26

And quietly wait – literally, and be in silence, i. e. abstain from all complaining.

Lam 3:27

The yoke – Or, a yoke. By bearing a yoke in his youth, i. e. being called upon to suffer in early age, a man learns betimes the lesson of silent endurance, and so finds it more easy to be calm and patient in later years.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Good is a term of a very comprehensive notion. The nature of it lieth in a suitableness to the thing or person to whom it relateth; so it signifieth profit and pleasantness. There is in God an essential goodness, which is his absolute perfection; but this text speaketh of a communicative goodness, which floweth from him to his creatures, and is seen in his suiting their various necessities and desires with satisfactory dispensations of providence. Though God be in one degree or oilier good to all, yet he is more especially good to the true worshippers of him; yet possibly not in their seasons or times when they expect or would have God show himself so to them, in this or that way, but always to those who wait for him, patiently enduring trials and afflictions until God please to send them deliverance.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

25-27. The repetition of “good”at the beginning of each of the three verses heightens the effect.

wait (Isa30:18).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

The Lord [is] good to them that wait for him,…. For the enjoyment of him as their portion in this world, and in that to come; for his presence here and hereafter; which they are sometimes now deprived of, but should wait patiently for it; since he has his set time to arise and favour them with it; to such is he “good” communicatively, and in a special way and manner. They that wait for him shall not be ashamed, or disappointed of what they expect; they shall renew their spiritual strength, and grow stronger and stronger; they shall inherit the earth, the new heavens and the new earth; enjoy many blessings now, and have good things laid up for them hereafter, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Isa 49:23; perhaps some regard may be had to the coming of Christ in the flesh, which the saints then expected, and were waiting for in faith and hope; to whom the Lord was good and gracious in due time, by performing the mercy promised them, Isa 25:9;

to the soul [that] seeketh him; that seeketh him aright; that seeks him by prayer and supplication; that seeks him in his house and ordinances, where he is to be found; that seeks him early, in the first place, and above all things else; that seeks him earnestly, diligently, with his whole spirit, heart, and soul; that seeks his face, his favour, grace, and glory, and all in Christ, through whom all are to be enjoyed. God is good to such souls; he is a rewarder of them in a way of grace; with himself, as their shield and exceeding great reward; with his Son, and all things freely with him; with his Spirit and graces, and with eternal glory and happiness; such find what they seek for, Christ, his grace, and eternal fire; the Lord never forsakes them, nor the work of his hand in them, and they shall live spiritually and eternally; see

Heb 11:6.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

He continues the same subject: he however adds now something to it, even that God always deals mercifully with his servants, who recumb on him, mid who seek him. We hence see that the last verse is confirmed, where he said that he was content with God alone, while suffering all kinds of adversity: How so? for God, he says, is good to those who wait for him. (184) It might have been objected and said, that adversities produce sorrow, weariness, sadness, and anguish, so that it cannot be that they retain hope who only look to God alone; and it is no doubt true that, when all confess that they hope in God, they afterwards run here and there; and the consequence is, that they fail in their adversities. As, then, this might have been objected to the Prophet, he gives indirectly this answer, that God is good to those who wait for him, as though he had said, that the confidence which recumbs on God alone cannot disappoint us, for God will at length shew his kindness to all those who hope in him. In short, the Prophet teaches us here, that the blessings of God, by which he exhilarates his own children, cannot be separated from his mercy or his paternal favor. Such a sentence as this, “Whatever can be expected is found in God,” would be deemed frigid by many; for they might object and say, as before stated, that they were at the same time miserable. Hence the Prophet reminds us here that God’s blessings flow to us from his favor as from a fountain, as though he had said, “As a perennial fountain sends forth water, so also God’s goodness manifests and extends itself.”

We now, then, understand the Prophet’s meaning. He had indeed said, that we ought to acquiesce in God alone; but now he adds, by way of favor, regarding the infirmity of men, that God is kind and bountiful to all those who hope in him. The sum of what he states is, as I have said, that God’s goodness brings forth its own fruits, and that the faithful find by experience, that nothing is better than to have all their thoughts fixed on God alone. God’s goodness, then, ought to be understood, so to speak, as actual, even what is really enjoyed. As, then, God deals bountifully with all who hope in him, it follows that they cannot be disappointed, while they are satisfied with him alone, and thus patiently submit to all adversities. In short, the Prophet teaches here what the Scripture often declares, that hope maketh not ashamed. (Rom 5:5.)

But the second clause must be noticed: for the Prophet defines what it is to hope in God, when he says that he is good to the soul that seeks him. Many indeed imagine hope to be I know not what — a dead speculation; and hypocrites, when God spares them, go on securely and exult, but their confidence is mere ebriety, very different from hope. We must then remember what the Prophet says here, that they alone hope hi God who from the heart seek him, that is, who acknowledge how greatly they need the mercy of God, who go directly to him whenever any temptation harasses them, and who, when any danger threatens them, flee to his aid, and thus prove that they really hope in God. It now follows, —

(184) There is more authority for the word for “wait” being in the singular than in the plural, as it is given in the Syr. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

EXEGETICAL NOTES.

() Lam. 3:25. Such an acceptance suggests more knowledge. Good is Jehovah to them that wait for him, to a soul that seeks him. He is ready to respond to those who feel need of Him and foster longings after Himself.

Lam. 3:26. So when the graciousness of the Lord is perceived, and its proffers yielded to, blessedness is not far off. Good it is both to wait and be silent for the salvation of Jehovah. There is to be no striving, nor crying, nor causing the voice to be heard in the street. Confidence in His power to save hushes fears and doubts, and enables us calmly to meet the events of life. He will in no wise leave or forsake those who wait for Him.

Lam. 3:27. Good is it for a man to bear a yoke, that is, anything by which he will be trained for his Owner, and to do his Owners work. Teaching may do so; affliction may do so. Both the one and the other show to a man what he isignorant, weak, with more that is bad than he had believed he had. God speaks in both methods as issues of His love, and to obtain vessels unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Masters use. The phrase in his youth does not mean that the poet was still a young man. He might be an aged man, looking back on the experiences of his life, and conscious of the value of the discipline he had been subjected to when the dew of youth was upon him. He is blessed who, in earlier years, has been drawn or driven to look into the face of realities, and to learn something of the afflictions of Christ before he has been in grip with temptations from the clamant lusts of the flesh and of the mind.

HOMILETICS

THREE GRADES OF GOODNESS

(Lam. 3:25-27)

I. There is the goodness of Jehovah to those who cling to Him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him (Lam. 3:25). God is absolutely and supremely goodgood in Himself, good in all things, good at all times. If He is good to all, then He must be especially so to those who wait on Him in conscious dependence and earnestly supplicate His help. There are mysteries about the Divine procedure which we cannot fathom, and we are sometimes tempted to question the goodness of God. But clearer light dispels our doubts, and the more completely we trust in Him the more real and tender and potent does His goodness become. We never know God aright till we trust Him fully.

II. There is the goodness of patient and uncomplaining waiting for Gods time of deliverance. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord (Lam. 3:26). To indulge in querulous complaints only increases the irritation of our sufferings. Murmuring begets murmuring, and we are apt to blame every one but ourselves. The more we grumble, the farther are we away from goodness. It is only when we are silent and abstain from complaining that we begin to see that our deliverance must come from God, and that it is our wisdom to bide His time and humbly submit to His method. The soul attains goodness by exercising an active and larger faith in the Divine goodness. A clearer apprehension of goodness in God begets a corresponding goodness in the soul that sees it.

III. There is the goodness of being accustomed to the harden of suffering early in life. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth (Lam. 3:27). Youth is the period of enjoyment, and it has a pleasure all its own, with its bright and gay romancing, its poetic dreams of beauty and delight, its relishable love of work, its daring enterprise and bold ambitions, its soaring hopes and confident prophecies, its sparkling wit and brimming funbrilliant and harmless as tropical lightning; buoyant, radiant, joyous youth-time, when every sense is steeped in the intoxicating nectar of innocent rapture, when the whole world shines with the golden glory of perpetual summer, and when life is one long, sweet poem, set to the enchanting movements of exquisite music. But youth has also its burdens and responsibilities, and its happiness is not destroyed but intensified when it learns to bear with bravery the disappointments and afflictions of life. The youth who has known little of suffering is ill prepared for the stern realities of ordinary life. Early sorrow brings early comfort and peace and strength. The best that is in man is tested and perfected by misfortune.

LESSONS.

1. God is good in Himself inherently and essentially.

2. Man is good only in the degree in which he receives Divine grace and submits to the Divine discipline.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Lam. 3:25. The Divine goodness.

1. A grand reality.
2. Continually manifested.
3. Specially revealed to the earnest seeker.

Lam. 3:26. The advantages of a state of expectation.

1. It seems implied that our incapacity of looking into the future has much to do with the production of disquietude and unhappiness.
2. And yet the possession of this power of anticipating the future would be incalculably more detrimental.
3. Our ignorance of what shall happen stimulates exertion. We are so constituted that to deprive us of hope would be to make us inactive and wretched.
4. It is for our advantage that salvation, instead of being a thing of certainty and present possession, must be hoped and quietly waited for.
5. If true believers were withdrawn from earth at the moment of their becoming such, the influences of piety which now make themselves felt through the mass of a population would be altogether destroyed, and the world deprived of that salt which alone preserves it from total decomposition.
6. No fair explanation can be given of the text unless you bring into the account the difference in the portions to be assigned hereafter to the righteous.
7. The continuance of the justified on earth affords them opportunity of rising higher in the scale of future blessedness.
8. Being compelled to hope and to wait is a good moral discipline, so that the exercises prescribed are calculated to promote holiness and ensure happiness.
9. It is good as affording time in which to glorify God.
10. Religion gives a character to hope of which otherwise it is altogether destitute. Hope is a beautiful meteor; but nevertheless this meteor, like the rainbow, is not only lovely because of its seven rich and radiant stripes; it is the memorial of a covenant between man and his Maker, telling us that we are born for immortality, destined, unless we sepulchre our greatness, to the highest honour and noblest happiness.Henry Melville.

Hope and patience. I. What is meant by the salvation of the Lord? Gods salvation is used very frequently in the Bible for His interposition to save the soul of man from sin. It is not this salvation which is here spoken of, for though a man may be encouraged to hope, he cannot be urged quietly to wait for it. The language of the chapter is not that of a man ignorant of God. It is the salvation which a man needs in any crisis of life, where he suffers under trial, or is threatened with it. Our strength and resources, all possible expedients, have been brought into exercise. The last reserve has been thrown into the battle, and yet it goes against us. It is then the case rises distinctly into the salvation of the Lord. A man who has faith only in worldly resources is powerless here. He must give up in despair, or cast himself on a blind chance. But, for a believing man, there is still a duty and a stay. When he cannot take a step farther in human effort, there is a pathway to the skies, and his heart can travel it. II. What is meant by these exercises of the soul towards Gods salvationto hope and quietly wait?

1. The foundation of hope lies in desire. But desire may pursue things that can never be objects of hope to us. We can only hope for that which is felt to be possible and reasonable. The next element is faith. But we believe in many things in regard to which we do not hope. Hope is faith with desire pointing out the objects. A third element to make our hope strong is imagination. While sin has made this world a charnel-house of corruption or a storehouse of vanities, purity can fill its treasury with divine aspirations which are as grand as they are transcendently real. II. Quiet waiting. It is termed in the Bible patience. It is the part of hope to seek the future; it is the duty of patience to rest calmly in the present, exercising faith, and giving calm attention to duties. The tamest and most insignificant of daily duties may be made noble and divine when the thought of God and the will of Christ are carried into them. III. Consider the benefit of uniting theseboth to hope and quietly wait.

1. The one is needful to save the other from sinking into sin.
2. To raise the other to its full strength.
3. It is good now in the depth of the soul, in the conscious assurance that it is better to rest in the hardest of Gods ways than to wander at will in our own.
4. It is good in the enhancement of every blessing for which we have to wait. Between your use of the means and the result which you desire there is still a gulf of separation, on the brink of which Patience must sit and look across, waiting Gods time and way to pass it.John Ker, D.D.

Ver.

Lam. 3:27. Youth the proper season of discipline. I. In the principles of true religion. II. In the arts of honest industry.Berriman.

The best burden for young shoulders. The bullocks have to bear the yoke. They go in pairs, and the yoke is borne upon their shoulders. If the bullock is not broken in when young, it will never make a good ploughing ox. So it is good for us when young to learn obedience, to acquire knowledge, and to encounter difficulties and troubles. I. It is good to be a Christian while you are young.

1. The man whose heart is conquered by Divine grace early is made happy soon.
2. Is saved from a thousand snares.
3. Is saved from having his shoulders galled with the devils yoke.
4. Gives him longer time in which to serve God.
5. Enables him to be well established in Divine things. II. It is good for young Christians that they bear the yoke of Jesus.

1. They render to Jesus complete obedience from the very first.
2. They attain clear instruction in Divine truth.
3. They serve Christ early.
4. It is good to meet with difficulties and persecution in youth. III. Practically we are all of us in our youth.

1. Bearing the yoke, the old Adam is kept in check.
2. We are helpful to others who have known affliction.
3. Will make heaven all the sweeter.Spurgeon.

ILLUSTRATIONS.The goodness of God experienced. A German just converted was greatly surprised at the goodness of God to him, which he now realised. One day he was overheard in prayer saying, O Lord Jesus! I did not know Thou wert so good! How general is this ignorance!

Patience conquers. Twenty-five years ago the founder of a college for negroes in America was hunted like a wild beast through the region where his name is now spoken by men of all parties with reverence. Lloyd Garrison was nearly murdered by an infuriated mob for championing the emancipation of the slaves, and years afterwards, in the same city, was made the recipient of its highest honours. Time fights against every tyranny, and in favour of the tyrannised. To endure is to conquer.

Fellow-suffering silences complaints. During one of the campaigns in the American civil war, when the winter weather was very severe, some of Stonewall Jacksons men, having crawled out in the morning from their snow-laden blankets, half-frozen, began to abuse him as the cause of their sufferings. He lay close by under a tree, himself covered with snow, and heard all this; but, without noticing it, presently crawled out too, and, shaking off the snow, made some jocular remark to the nearest men, who had no idea he had ridden up in the night and lain down amongst them! The incident ran through the array in a few hours, and reconciled his followers to all the hardships of the expedition, and fully re-established his popularity.

Skill acquired in youth. Livy says that at the siege of Sam one hundred slingers were brought from geum, Patr, and Dym. These men, according to the practice of that nation, were exercised from their childhood in throwing with a sling into the open sea the round pebbles which strew the shore. Being accustomed to drive their missiles through circular marks of small circumference placed at a great distance, they not only hit the enemys heads, but any part of their faces they aimed at. These slings checked the Sameans from sallying out either so frequently or so boldly, insomuch that they would sometimes from the walls beseech the Achans to retire for a while and be quiet spectators of their fight with the Roman guards.

A brave youth. William Hunter, a London apprentice, was in 1555 ordered by a priest to attend mass. He refused, and one day was found reading the Bible in Brentwood Church. He fled. His father was seized, and to release him the boy returned and surrendered. He was imprisoned for nine months, then offered a bribe by Bishop Bonner if he would recant. To all he opposed a courageous resistance, and was burned at the stake in his native village, retaining to the last his religious sturdiness and bravery.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(25) The Lord is good.The alliterative form of the Hebrew makes good the first word of this and the two following verses, the adjective being predicated, first of the essential character of Jehovah, and then of the conditions in man on which the manifestation of that character depends.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

25-27. Good This teth ( ) verse has each of its clauses commencing with “good.” The present verse division serves somewhat to conceal the structure Good is Jehovah; Good that man hope and wait; and, Good that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments