Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 3:42
We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
42. We thou ] The pronouns are emphatic in the original. Thou and we have been at variance.
thou pardoned ] Observe how this clause forms a connecting link with the next group; similarly “mine eye” in Lam 3:48.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The prophet doth not dictate words, but sense to them, teaching them the matter of their prayer; first, by way of confession. Sin is called a transgression, because it is going aside from the way of Gods precepts; it is called rebellion, because it is an act contrary to that allegiance and duty which we owe unto God, and the covenant we have made with him. By pardoning here is meant the discharge of the guilty persons from the temporal punishment due for sin (as it is often taken in Scripture); so it signifies, thou hast plagued us according to the just desert of our sins.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
42. not pardonedTheBabylonian captivity had not yet ended.
Samech.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
We have transgressed, and have rebelled,…. Here begins the prayer, the sense of which is directed to, though the words are not dictated; and it begins with confession of sin, as prayer should, especially when in such circumstances as the people of the Jews now were; and with confession of it, as a transgression of the law of God; and as rebellion against him, as every sin is, a breach of his law, a contempt of his authority, and a trampling under foot his legislative power, and an act of hostility against him; and so downright rebellion; every sin being an overt act of that kind; and which is aggravated by the favours before acknowledged to have been received:
thou hast not pardoned; as they apprehended; they had not the discovery and application of pardoning grace and mercy; otherwise pardon of sin with God is past, and includes all sin present and future, as well as past; but temporal afflictions being upon them, they concluded their sins were not pardoned; pardon of sin in Scripture often signifying the removal of such afflictions.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Complaining to God. | B. C. 588. |
42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. 43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. 44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. 45 Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people. 46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. 47 Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction. 48 Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. 49 Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, 50 Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven. 51 Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city. 52 Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause. 53 They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me. 54 Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. The prophet had owned that a living man should not complain, as if he checked himself for his complaints in the former part of the chapter; and yet here the clouds return after the rain and the wound bleeds afresh; for great pains must be taken with a troubled spirit to bring it into temper.
I. They confess the righteousness of God in afflicting them (v. 42): We have transgressed and have rebelled. Note, It becomes us, when we are in trouble, to justify God, by owning our sins, and laying the load upon ourselves for them. Call sin a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not miscall it. This is the result of their searching and trying their ways; the more they enquired into them the worse they found them. Yet,
II. They complain of the afflictions they are under, not without some reflections upon God, which we are not to imitate, but, under the sharpest trials, must always think and speak highly and kindly of him.
1. They complain of his frowns and the tokens of his displeasure against them. Their sins were repented of, and yet (v. 42), Thou hast not pardoned. They had not the assurance and comfort of the pardon; the judgments brought upon them for their sins were not removed, and therefore they thought they could not say the sin was pardoned, which was a mistake, but a common mistake with the people of God when their souls are cast down and disquieted within them. Their case was really pitiable, yet they complain, Thou hast not pitied, v. 43. Their enemies persecuted and slew them, but that was not the worst of it; they were but the instruments in God’s hand: “Thou hast persecuted us, and thou hast slain us, though we expected thou wouldst protect and deliver us.” They complain that there was a wall of partition between them and God, and, (1.) This hindered God’s favours from coming down upon them. The reflected beams of God’s kindness to them used to be the beauty of Israel; but now “thou hast covered us with anger, so that our glory is concealed and gone; now God is angry with us, and we do not appear that illustrious people that we have formerly been thought to be.” Or, “Thou hast covered us up as men that are buried are covered up and forgotten.” (2.) It hindered their prayers from coming up unto God (v. 44): “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,” not like that bright cloud in which he took possession of the temple, which enabled the worshippers to draw near to him, but like that in which he came down upon Mount Sinai, which obliged the people to stand at a distance. “This cloud is so thick that our prayers seem as if they were lost in it; they cannot pass through; we cannot obtain an audience.” Note, The prolonging of troubles is sometimes a temptation, even to praying people, to question whether God be what they have always believed him to be, a prayer-hearing God.
2. They complain of the contempt of their neighbours and the reproach and ignominy they were under (v. 45): “Thou hast made us as the off-scouring, or scrapings, of the first floor, which are thrown to the dunghill.” This St. Paul refers to in his account of the sufferings of the apostles. 1 Cor. iv. 13, We are made as the filth of the world and are the off-scouring of all things. “We are the refuse, or dross, in the midst of the people, trodden upon by every body, and looked upon as the vilest of the nations, and good for nothing but to be cast out as salt which has lost its savour. Our enemies have opened their mouths against us (v. 46), have gaped upon us as roaring lions, to swallow us up, or made mouths at us, or have taken liberty to say what they please of us.” These complaints we had before, Lam 2:15; Lam 2:16. Note, It is common for base and ill-natured men to run upon, and run down, those that have fallen into the depths of distress from the height of honour. But this they brought upon themselves by sin. If they had not made themselves vile, their enemies could not have made them so: but therefore men call them reprobate silver, because the Lord has rejected them for rejecting him.
3. They complain of the lamentable destruction that their enemies made of them (v. 47): Fear and a snare have come upon us; the enemies have not only terrified us with those alarms, but prevailed against us by their stratagems, and surprised us with the ambushes they laid for us; and then follows nothing but desolation and destruction, the destruction of the daughter of my people (v. 48), of all the daughters of my city, v. 51. The enemies, having taken some of them like a bird in a snare, chased others as a harmless bird is chased by a bird of prey (v. 52): My enemies chased me sorely like a bird which is beaten from bush to bush, as Saul hunted David like a partridge. Thus restless was the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless. They have done it without cause, without any provocation given them. Though God was righteous, they were unrighteous. David often complains of those that hated him without cause; and such are the enemies of Christ and his church, John xv. 25. Their enemies chased them till they had quite prevailed over them (v. 53): They have cut off my life in the dungeon. They have shut up their captives in close and dark prisons, where they are as it were cut off from the land of the living (as v. 6), or the state and kingdom are sunk and ruined, the life and being of them are gone, and they are as it were thrown into the dungeon or grave and a stone cast upon them, such as used to be rolled to the door of the sepulchres. They look upon the Jewish nation as dead and buried, and imagine that there is not possibility of its resurrection. Thus Ezekiel saw it, in vision, a valley full of dead and dry bones. Their destruction is compared not only to the burying of a dead man, but to the sinking of a living man into the water, who cannot long be a living man there, v. 54. Waters of affliction flowed over my head. The deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them. The Chaldean forces broke in upon them as the breaking forth of waters, which rose so high as to flow over their heads; they could not wade, they could not swim, and therefore must unavoidably sink. Note, The distresses of God’s people sometimes prevail to such a degree that they cannot find any footing for their faith, nor keep their head above water, with any comfortable expectation.
4. They complain of their own excessive grief and fear upon this account. (1.) The afflicted church is drowned in tears, and the prophet for her (Lam 3:48; Lam 3:49): My eye runs down with rivers of water, so abundant was their weeping; it trickles down and ceases not, so constant was their weeping, without any intermission, there being no relaxation of their miseries. The distemper was in continual extremity, and they had no better day. It is added (v. 51), “My eye affects my heart. My seeing eye affects my heart. The more I look upon the desolation of the city and country the more I am grieved. Which way soever I cast my eye, I see that which renews my sorrow, even because of all the daughters of my city,” all the neighbouring towns, which were as daughters to Jerusalem the mother-city. Or, My weeping eye affects my heart; the venting of the grief, instead of easing it, did but increase and exasperate it. Or, My eye melts my soul; I have quite wept away my spirits; not only my eye is consumed with grief, but my soul and my life are spent with it,Psa 31:9; Psa 31:10. Great and long grief exhausts the spirits, and brings not only many a gray head, but many a green head too, to the grave. I weep, ways the prophet, more than all the daughters of my city (so the margin reads it); he outdid even those of the tender sex in the expressions of grief. And it is no diminution to any to be much in tears for the sins of sinners and the sufferings of saints; our Lord Jesus was so; for, when he came near, he beheld this same city and wept over it, which the daughters of Jerusalem did not. (2.) She is overwhelmed with fears, not only grieves for what is, but fears worse, and gives up all for gone (v. 54): “Then I said, I am cut off, ruined, and see no hope of recovery; I am as one dead.” Note, Those that are cast down are commonly tempted to think themselves cast off, Psa 31:22; Jon 2:4.
5. In the midst of these sad complaints here is one word of comfort, by which it appears that their case was not altogether so bad as they made it, v. 50. We continue thus weeping till the Lord look down and behold from heaven. This intimates, (1.) That they were satisfied that God’s gracious regard to them in their miseries would be an effectual redress of all their grievances. “If God, who now covers himself with a cloud, as if he took no notice of our troubles (Job xxii. 13), would but shine forth, all would be well; if he look upon us, we shall be saved,” Psa 80:19; Dan 9:17. Bad as the case is, one favourable look from heaven will set all to rights. (2.) That they had hopes that he would at length look graciously upon them and relieve them; nay, they take it for granted that he will: “Though he contend long, he will not contend for ever, thou we deserve that he should.” (3.) That while they continued weeping they continued waiting, and neither did nor would expect relief and succour from any hand but his; nothing shall comfort them but his gracious returns, nor shall any thing wipe tears from their eyes till he look down. Their eyes, which now run down with water, shall still wait upon the Lord their God until he have mercy upon them, Ps. cxxiii. 2.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
The faithful do not here expostulate with God, but on the contrary acknowledge that God’s severity was just. That God then had dealt with them severely, they ascribe to their own sins, This is the substance of what is said.
We hence learn that an ingenuous confession ever accompanies repentance, as also Paul teaches us, (2Co 7:11.) For when a sinner is either secure or tries to cover his wickedness, and flatters himself, as we see but a few who willingly humble themselves before God, he contracts the hardness of obstinacy. For this reason the Prophet requires confession; nay, he suggests here the words suitable to be used, when we desire to obtain pardon from God. We have done wickedly, he says, and have been rebellious The pronoun, we, is here emphatical, as though the faithful had taken on themselves the blame of all the evils, which the greater part ever sought to disown. (195)
Here then the Prophet shews that there is no other way of being reconciled to God, than by confessing ourselves to be the authors of all our evils; and he also teaches us, that it is an evidence of true repentance, when we do not allege vain pretences as it is commonly done, nor flatter ourselves, but confess that we are guilty. He now shows that guilt ought by no means to be extenuated, so that our confession may be real and complete: but in this respect the world trifle with God. The most wicked are, indeed, ashamed to deny that they are sinners; but as they are forced to make some kind of confession, this they do lightly; and it seems an extorted confession, and is therefore jejune, or at least not complete. But the Prophet here shews that they who seek to be reconciled to God, ought not only in words to acknowledge and confess their guilt, but also ingenuously to open their hearts. Hence he connects perverseness with sin: as though he had said, “We have not sinned simply or in one way, but we have exasperated God himself; and by sinning in many ways and constantly, we have provoked him against us.” He says, in short, that there is then an access open to us to obtain favor, when we do not murmur against God nor contend with him as though he had dealt severely with us, but when we confess that he has been hard and rigid with us, because he had a reason to be so on account of our sins and wickedness. He adds, —
(195) To give the proper emphasis to the pronoun, the version ought to be as follows, —
We, transgressed have we rebelled.
—
Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(42) We have transgressed . . .The verses that follow (Lam 3;42-47) give the prayer which answers to the call of Lam. 3:41. Both pronouns are emphatic: The suppliant has sinned and God has not yet pardoned, in the sense of ceasing to punish.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
42. Thou hast not pardoned As in the preceding triplet, so here, we may have a transition to the section immediately following. The prophet reminds God that the people have been punished and not “pardoned,” which is an appeal for him to stay his hand and fulfil his oft-repeated promise that he would again remember them for good.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 3:42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
Ver. 42. We have transgressed and have rebelled. ] We have committed evil and omitted good, and failed in the manner, and are therefore justly punished. Let God hear such words fall from our mouths, set to work by our hearts, and then we may have anything.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
transgressed = revolted. Hebrew. pasha’. App-44. Compare Lam 1:22.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
transgressed: Lam 1:18, Lam 5:16, Neh 9:26, Job 33:27, Job 33:28, Jer 3:13, Dan 9:5-14, Luk 15:18, Luk 15:19
thou: 2Ki 24:4, Jer 5:7, Jer 5:8, Eze 24:13, Zec 1:5
Reciprocal: 2Ch 12:12 – when Job 7:21 – why dost Isa 44:22 – as a thick Dan 9:8 – because Zec 1:2 – Lord
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 3:42. Thou hast not pardoned applies to the nation as a whole, and means that it must suffer the captivity until its end has been accomplished. See the note at 2Ki 22:17 in volume 2 of this Commentary.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Lam 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, Pro 28:13; 1Jn 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.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
He and his people had transgressed the covenant and had rebelled against the Lord, and He had not pardoned their sin but allowed them to experience judgment.