Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Lamentations 3:43
Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
43. covered ] mg., better, covered thyself. Thou hast clothed thyself in wrath. This accords with the next line.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In verses 43-66, far from pardoning, God is still actively punishing His people.
Rather, Thou hast covered Thyself with wrath and pursued (Lam 1:3 note) us. The covering (here and in Lam 3:44) is that of clothing and enwrapping.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Thou hast covered with anger; either thou hast covered thyself with anger, or covered thy own face with anger, 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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
43-45. coverednamely, thyself(so La 3:44), so as not to seeand pity our calamities, for even the most cruel in seeing a sadspectacle are moved to pity. Compare as to God “hiding Hisface,” Psa 10:11; Psa 22:25.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou hast covered with anger,…. Either himself; not as a tender father, that cannot bear to see the affliction of a child; this does not suit with anger; but rather as one greatly displeased, in whose face anger appears, being covered with it; or who covers his face with it, that he may not be seen, withdrawing his gracious presence; or hast put anger as a wall between thee and us, as Jarchi: so that there was no coming nigh to him: or else it means covering his people with it; so the Targum,
“thou hast covered “us” with anger;”
denoting the largeness and abundance of afflictions upon them; they were as it were covered with them, as tokens of the divine displeasure; one wave and billow after another passing over them. Sanctius thinks the allusion is to the covering of the faces of condemned malefactors, as a token of their being guilty:
and persecuted us; the Targum adds, in captivity; that is, pursued and followed us with fresh instances of anger and resentment; to have men to be persecutors is bad, but to have God to be a persecutor is dreadful:
thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied; had suffered them to be stain by the sword of the enemy, and had shown no compassion to them;
[See comments on La 2:21]; here, and in some following verses, the prophet, or the people he represents, are got to complaining again; though before he had checked himself for it; so hard it is under afflictions to put in practice what should be done by ourselves and others.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
God has not pardoned, but positively punished, the people for their misdeeds. “Thou hast covered with anger,” Lam 3:43, corresponds to “Thou hast covered with a cloud,” Lam 3:44; hence “Thou hast covered” is plainly used both times in the same meaning, in spite of the fact that is wanting in Lam 3:43. means to “cover,” here to “make a cover.” “Thou didst make a cover with anger,” i.e., Thou didst hide Thyself in wrath; there is no necessity for taking as in itself reflexive. This mode of viewing it agrees also with what follows. The objection of J. D. Michaelis, qui se obtegit non persequitur alios, ut statim additur , which Bttcher and Thenius have repeated, does not hold good in every respect, but chiefly applies to material covering. And the explanation of Thenius, “Thou hast covered us with wrath, and persecuted us,” is shown to be wrong by the fact that signifies to cover for protection, concealment, etc., but not to cover in the sense of heaping upon, pouring upon (as Luther translates it); nor, again, can the word be taken here in a sense different from that assigned to it in Lam 3:44. “The covering of wrath, which the Lord draws around Him, conceals under it the lightnings of His wrath, which are spoken of immediately afterwards” (Ngelsbach). The anger vents itself in the persecution of the people, in killing them unsparingly. For, that these two are connected, is shown not merely in Lam 3:66, but still more plainly by the threatening in Jer 29:18: “I will pursue them with sword, and famine, and pestilence, and give them for maltreatment to all the kingdoms of the earth.” On “Thou hast slain, Thou hast not spared,” cf. Lam 2:21. In Lam 3:44, is further appended to : “Thou makest a cover with clouds for Thyself,” round about Thee, so that no prayer can penetrate to Thee; cf. Psa 55:2. These words form the expression of the painful conclusion drawn by God’s people from their experience, that God answered no cry for help that came to Him, i.e., granted no help. Israel was thereby given up, in a defenceless state, to the foe, so that they could treat them like dirt and abuse them. (from , Eze 26:4), found only here as a noun, signifies “sweepings;” and is a noun, “disesteem, aversion.” The words of Lam 3:45, indeed, imply the dispersion of Israel among the nations, but are not to be limited to the maltreatment of the Jews in exile; moreover, they rather apply to the conduct of their foes when Judah was conquered and Jerusalem destroyed. Such treatment, especially the rejection, is further depicted in Lam 3:46. The verse is almost a verbatim repetition of Lam 2:16, and is quite in the style of Jeremiah as regards the reproduction of particular thoughts; while Thenius, from the repetition, is inclined to infer that chs. 2 and 3 had different authors: cf. Gerlach on the other side. The very next verse might have been sufficient to keep Thenius from such a precipitate conclusion, inasmuch as it contains expressions and figures that are still more clearly peculiar to Jeremiah. On , cf. Jer 48:43; is also one of the favourite expressions of the prophet. hashee’t is certainly . . , but reminds one of , Num 24:17, for which in Jer 48:45 there stands . It comes from , to make a noise, roar, fall into ruins with a loud noise, i.e., be laid waste (cf. Isa 6:11); and, as Raschi has already observed, it has the same meaning as , “devastation,” Isa 24:12. It is incorrect to derive the word from the Hiphil of (J. D. Michaelis and Ewald), according to which it ought to mean “disappointment,” for the does not form an essential portion of the word, but is the article, as shows. Still more erroneous are the renderings (lxx, from ) and vaticinatio (Jerome, who has confounded with ).
Over this terrible calamity, rivers of tears must be shed, until the Lord looks down from heaven on it, Lam 3:48-51. The prophet once more utters this complaint in the first person, because he who has risked his life in his endeavour to keep the people in the service of God must feel the deepest sympathy for them in their misfortunes. “Rivers of water” is stronger than “water,” Lam 1:16, and “tears like a stream,” Lam 2:18; but the mode of expression is in the main like that in those passages, and used again in Psa 119:136, but in a different connection. The second member of the verse is the same as in Lam 2:11.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Vs. 43-54: THE HIGH COST OF REBELLION
1. Because of unrepented sin, the judgment of the Lord has fallen upon His people, (vs. 43-45; Rom 1:18). Jeremiah pictures the Lord as:
a. So wrapping himself in righteous anger that He shows no pity toward the suffering transgressors whom He pursues unto death, (vs. 43, 66; comp. Lam 2:1; Lam 2:21).
b. So covering Himself with a cloud that the prayers of Judah cannot pass through, (vs. 8, 44; Psa 97:2; Zec 7:12-13); the REAL barrier is SIN! (vs. 44).
c. Causing His unrepentant people to be regarded as an “offscouring” (Lam 4:15; comp. 1Co 4:13) and “refuse” (comp. Php_3:8) in the midst of the nations, (vs. 45).
2. The Lord’s protecting hand withdrawn, the enemies of Judah have opened wide their mouths against her (Lam 2:16 a; comp. Job 30:9-10; Psa 22:6-8) so that “fear and the pit” (comp. Isa 24:16-18, Jer 48:43 -44), devastation and destruction, are come upon her, (vs. 46-47).
3. Jeremiah pictures himself as weeping, uncontrollably, and without ceasing, until He is conscious of the Lord’s regarding, from heaven, the sad plight of His people, (vs. 48-51; Lam 1:16; Lam 2:11; Jer 9:1; Jeremiah 1819; 14:17-18; Psa 77:2; Psa 80:14; Isa 63:15); yet, he knows how impossible this is UNTIL JUDAH REPENTS!
4. Beginning with verse 52, Jeremiah personifies, in himself, the sufferings of the whole nation, (vs. 52-54).
a. Without a cause, the enemies of Judah have chased him as a bird, (vs. 52).
b. Casting him, alive, into a pit, they have closed him in with stones, (vs. 53) – something that was very vivid in his memory, (Jer 38:6-8).
c. Changing the figure again, he declares that the waters have so overflowed him, by a sweeping tide of destruction, that he has lost all hope of life! (vs. 54; comp. Jon 2:3; Psa 69:1-2).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
At the first view, this complaint may seem to proceed from a bitter heart; for here the faithful complain that they had been slain, and then that God had executed his judgment as it were in darkness, without any indulgence; and the next verse confirms the same thing. But it is a simple acknowledgment of God’s righteous vengeance for in their extreme calamities the faithful could not declare that God dealt mercifully with them, for they had been subjected to extreme rigor, as we have before seen. Had they said that they had been leniently chastised, it would have been very strange, for the temple had been burnt, the city had been demolished, the kingdom had been overthrown, the people for the most part had been driven into exile, the remainder had been scattered, the covenant of God had been in a manner abolished; for it could not have been thought otherwise according to the judgment of the flesh. Had, then, the exiles in Chaldea said that God had smitten them leniently, would not such an extenuation have appeared very strange? and had also the Prophet spoken in the same strain? For the causes of sorrow were almost innumerable: every one had been robbed of his goods; then there were many widows, many orphans; but the chief causes of sorrow were the burning of the temple and the ruin of the kingdom. No wonder, then, that the faithful set forth here their aggravated evils: but yet they seek out no other cause than their own sins.
Hence they say now, that God had covered them over in wrath It is a most suitable metaphor; as though he had said, that God had executed his vengeance in thick darkness. For an object presented to the eye produces sympathy, and we are easily inclined to mercy when a sad spectacle is presented to us. Hence it is, that even the most savage enemies are sometimes softened, for they are led by their eyes to acts of humanity. The Prophet, then, in order to set forth the horrible vengeance of God, says that there had been a covering introduced, so that God had punished the wicked people in an implacable manner. But as I have said, he does not charge God with cruelty, though he says that he had covered them over in wrath. (196)
He then says, Thou hast pursued us and killed us, and hast not spared They intimate, in short, that God had been a severe judge; but they at the same time turned to themselves and sought there the cause, even that they might not, by their own hardness, provoke God against themselves, as hypocrites are wont to do. And the consciousness of evil leads us also to repentance; for whence is it that men grow torpid in their sins, except that they flatter themselves? When, therefore, God suspends his judgments, or when he moderates them, and does not punish men as they deserve, then, if there be any repentance, it is yet frigid, and soon vanishes. This, then, is the reason why God inflicts deadly strokes, because we feel not his hand except the stroke be as it were deadly. As, then, simple chastisement is not sufficient to lead us to repentance, the Prophet introduces the faithful as speaking thus, “Behold, thou hast in wrath covered us over, so as not to look on us,” so that there might be no opportunity for mercy, that is, that they might be the judges of themselves, and conclude from the atrocity of their punishment how grievously they must have provoked the wrath of God. It follows in the same sense, —
(196) To “cover” is the idea given to the verb by the Sept. , the Vulg, the Syr. , and the Targ. ; but Blayney and some others take it in the sense of fencing in, enclosing, in allusion to the practice of hunters; and the next verb, which means to pursue, to chase, favors this meaning, —
Thou hast in wrath enclosed and chased us, Thou hast slain and not spared.
Then the same verb begins the next verse, —
Thou hast enclosed thyself in a cloud, That prayer might not pass through.
—
Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
EXEGETICAL NOTES.
() Lam. 3:43. Thou hast covered with anger, whether Himself or us is not clear, but as the next clause, and pursued us, mentions the latter, it may be preferable to regard the people as wrapped round with a garment woven in the loom of wrath, and which marked them out as the objects to be chased for punishment.
Lam. 3:44. There had been cries for relief (Lam. 3:41), but unavailing, for Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud; clouds and darkness are round about Him when He displays His royal righteousness and judgment in burning up His adversaries (Psa. 97:2-3). That cloud is a barrier [preventing] prayer from passing through to His mercy-seat.
Lam. 3:45. Troubles are accumulated upon the nation. Rejected prayers signify condemnation of their religiousness. It is not the act, but the motive and purpose which determine the relation of the worshipper to the Worshipped. Ritual may be punctiliously carried out, and hide God instead of helping to reveal Him. When He hides His face, they are troubled, and, as if He would exhibit a striking illustration before the world of what will result from disobedience to His will, Thou hast made us the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples. Treated as worthless, like Paul and his brethren in Christ (1Co. 4:13), but these were more than conquerors through Him who loved them.
() Lam. 3:46-48 present significant intimations of their base condition. Enemies making sport of them fear and pitfalls surrounding them, and the oft-recurring feeling of utter destruction instigating tears shed as copiously as rivers of water.
HOMILETICS
THE TENSION OF PROLONGED SUFFERING
(Lam. 3:43-47)
I. Fosters exaggerated views of Gods unpitying anger. Thou hast covered with anger and persecuted us; Thou hast slain, Thou hast not pitied (Lam. 3:43). The people had acknowledged their sin and repented; but no relief came. Not only were they not pardoned, but it seemed as if the Divine wrath was more relentless than ever. The Chaldeans are still wrecking the holy city, and the citizens are being ignominiously dragged into captivity. The cloud of the Divine anger, instead of vanishing, thickens into darker threatenings of vengeance. This is one of the unvarying phases of continued sufferingevery affliction is magnified into disproportionate dimensions.
II. Induces the hasty conclusion that prayer is useless. Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through (Lam. 3:44). A deity so densely veiled is unapproachable. The veil is a cloud of wrath, and the suffering suppliant is stricken with terror and dismay. Prayer can never pierce so dense a cloud, and it is useless to try. The tension of prolonged suffering is apt to shake ones confidence in the utility of prayer, and suggest the doubt whether God is after all a prayer-hearing God. It is a great calamity when the soul restrains prayer.
III. Creates the impression that the sufferer is utterly despised and scorned. Thou hast made us as the off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the people. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us (Lam. 3:45-46). There is nothing so depressing as suffering, and the sufferer is often the prey of self-depreciation and false imaginings, haunted with the idea that he is the sport and laughing-stock of others. It is the effect of sin to lower us in our own estimation, and it is a part of its punishment that we sink in the estimation of others.
IV. Intensifles the feeling of hopeless rain. Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction (Lam. 3:47). The light of hope, that flickered for a moment (Lam. 3:21), is extinguished, and the sufferer relapses into dull, dead hopelessness (Lam. 3:11). The enemy has completely hemmed in the city with his forces; his grip tightens, strategy and bravery succeed, the city falls, and is abandoned to riot and destruction. The protection of Jehovah is withdrawn, and, what is the most disheartening revelation of all, He now appears as an angry foe. Hope perishes when we discover that God is against us.
LESSONS.
1. Excessive suffering is apt to impair the moral vision.
2. It is a calamity to lose faith in prayer when we most need its solace.
3. The outlook it not always so desperate as it appears to the despondent sufferer.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam. 3:43-47. The pitilessness of the Divine anger: I. As it appears to the abject sufferer (Lam. 3:47). II. Seen in its relentless persecution (Lam. 3:43). III. In its apparent indifference to human entreaty (Lam. 3:44). IV. In abandoning its victims to the contempt and derision of others (Lam. 3:45-46).
ILLUSTRATIONS.Anger restrained more terrible. Writing upon the symbolical carvings of the ducal palace at Venice, Mr. Ruskin remarks that there is a figure of Anger represented by a woman tearing open her dress at her breast. Giotto represents this vice under the same symbol, but it is the weakest of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The Wrath of Spencer rides upon a lion, brandishing a firebrand, his garments stained with blood. Rage, or Furor, occurs subordinately in other places. It occurs to me very strange that neither Giotto nor Spencer should have given any representation of the restrained anger which is infinitely the most terrible; both of them make him violent. Gods forbearance of sin is restrained angernot therefore less, but more terrible. The future retribution is not less, but more awful, since it is the wrath of the Lamb. Anger now restrained will be direr when once revealed. Long-suffering is a sign of suppressed indignation.
Perverted views of suffering. That extraordinary sufferings indicated extraordinary sins was contradicted by the Book of Job. So also consistent Pharisaism saw in the lowliness of Jesus His unworthiness, in His defencelessness His guilt, and after having crucified Him, in His cross His curse; whilst Jesus recognises therein His own glorification and the salvation of the world. The clouds that are the precursors of a storm do not appear so black to us when they hang immediately over our heads as when we see them rising up at the edge of the horizon. It is easier to know the worst than to dread the worst. All misfortunes appear more formidable at a distance than when we actually come to grapple with them.
Unjustifiable depression. In a fit of dejection Dean Hook once wroteMy life has been a failure. I have done many things tolerably, but nothing well. As a parish priest, as a preacher, and now as a writer, I am quite aware that I have failed, and the more so because my friends contradict the assertion.
God does hear prayer. There is no such thing in the long history of Gods kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a childs heart finds some true answer in the heart of God. Most certain it is that the prayer of the Church of God since creation has not been the cry of orphans in an empty home without a Father to hear or answer. Jesus Christ did not pray in vain or to an unknown God, nor has He spoken in ignorance of God or of His brethren when He says, Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.Norman Macleod.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(43) Thou hast covered with anger.Better, as in the next verse, Thou hast covered thyself. Wrath is as the garment in which God wraps Himself to execute His righteous judgments. In Lam. 3:44 the wrath is represented more definitely as a cloud through which the prayers of the afflicted cannot pass.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
43. Thou hast covered That is, thyself. The verb means, not overwhelming, but clothing. The thought is the same in form with that of the following verse. As one puts on a coat of mail that he may enter the fight, so God puts on the covering of his wrath, out of which the lightnings leap forth unto destruction.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lam 3:43. Thou hast covered with anger, &c. Thou hast fenced about with anger. The verb sakak appears to have this sense, Job 3:23; Job 10:11; Job 38:8. There seems to be a manifest allusion to the manner of hunting wild beasts in the eastern countries, by surrounding at first a large tract of ground with toils, which the beasts could not break through; and these being drawn in by degrees, the bears were driven into a narrower space, where they were killed with darts and javelins, at the will of the hunters. See Bishop Lowth’s Note on Isa 24:17-18. Statius gives a description, exactly similar, of the method of inclosing wild beasts in toils or nets; Achill. l. 459.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Lam 3:43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
Ver. 43. Thou hast covered with anger. ] Overwhelmed us with thy judgments. None out of hell have ever suffered more than the saints: they have felt the sad effects of displeased love.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
persecuted = pursued. Compare Psa 35:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
covered: Lam 2:1, Psa 44:19
persecuted: Lam 3:66, Psa 83:15
thou hast slain: Lam 2:2, Lam 2:17, Lam 2:21, 2Ch 36:16, 2Ch 36:17, Eze 7:9, Eze 8:18, Eze 9:10
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lam 3:43. Persecute is from a Hebrew word that means to pursue with hostile intent. The hostility might be Justified which it was in the case of the Lord pursuing his disobedient people. His anger was in the form of righteous indignation. Hast not pitied is used In the sense that God did not spare his corrupt nation when it became so bad as to need chastisement.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The Lord had become angry over the sins of His people and had pursued them in judgment, slaying them without stinting.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
GRIEVING BEFORE GOD
Lam 3:43-54
AS might have been expected, the mourning patriot quickly forsakes the patch of sunshine which lights up a few verses of this elegy. But the vision of it has not come in vain; for it leaves gracious effects to tone the gloomy ideas upon which the meditations of the poet now return, like birds of the night hastening back to their darksome haunts. In the first place, his grief is no longer solitary. It is enlarged in its sympathies so as to take in the sorrows of others. Purely selfish trouble tends to become a mean and sordid thing. If we are not yet freed from our own pain some element of a nobler nature will be imported into it when we can find room for the larger thoughts that the contemplation of the distresses of others arouses. But a greater change than this has taken place. The “man who hath seen affliction” now feels himself to be in the presence of God. Speaking for others as well as for himself he pours out his lamentations before God. In the first part of the elegy he had only mentioned the Divine name as that of his great Antagonist; now it is the name of his close Confidant.
Then the elegist is here giving voice to the peoples penitent confession and prayer. This is another feature of the changed situation. An unqualified admission of the truth that the sufferings of Israel are just the merited punishment of the peoples sin has come between the complaints with which the poem opens, and the renewed expressions of grief.
Still, when all due allowance is made for these improvements, the renewed outburst of grief is sufficiently dismal. The people are supposed to represent themselves as being hunted down like helpless fugitives, and slain without pity by God, who has wrapped Himself in a mantle of anger, which is as a cloud impenetrable to the prayers of His miserable victims. {Lam 3:44} This description of their helpless state follows immediately after an. outpouring of prayer. It would seem, therefore, that the poet conceived that this particular utterance was hindered from reaching the ear of God. Now in many cases it may be that a feeling such as is here expressed is purely subjective and imaginary. The souls cry of agony passes out into the night, and dies away into silence, without eliciting a whisper of response. Yet it is not necessary to conclude that the cry is not heard. The closest attention may be the most silent. But, it may be objected, this possibility only aggravates the evil; for it is better not to hear at all than to hear and not to heed. Will any one attribute such stony indifference to. God? God may attend, and yet He may not speak to us-speech not being the usual form of: Divine response. He may be helping us most effectually in silence, unperceived by us, at the very moment when we imagine that He has completely deserted us. If we were more keenly alive to the signs of His coming we should be less hasty to despair at the failure of our prayers. The priests of Baal may scream, “O Baal, hear us!” from morning to night till their frenzy sinks into despair; but that is no reason why men and women who worship a spiritual God should come to the conclusion that their inability to wrest a sign from heaven is itself a sign of desertion by Him to whom they call. The oracle may be dumb; but the God whom we worship is not limited to the utterance of prophetic voices for the expression of His will. He hears, even if in silence; and, in truth, He also answers, though we are too deaf in our unbelief to discern the still small voice of His Spirit.
But can we say that the idea of the Divine disregard of prayer is always and only imaginary? Are the clouds that come between us and God invariably earth-born? Does He never really wrap Himself in the garment of wrath? Surely we dare not say so much. The anger of God is as real as His love. No being can be perfectly holy and not feel a righteous indignation in the presence of sin. But if God is angry, and while He is so, He cannot at the same time be holding friendly intercourse with the people who are provoking His wrath. Then the Divine anger must be as a thick, impervious curtain between the prayers of the sinful and the gracious hearing of God. The universal confession of the need of an atonement is a witness to the perception of this condition by mankind. Whether we are dealing with the crude notions of ancient sacrifice, or with the high thoughts that circle about Calvary, the same spiritual instinct presses for recognition. We may try to reason it down, but it persistently reasserts itself. Most certainly it is not the teaching of Scripture that the only condition of salvation is prayer. The Gospel is not to the effect that we are to be saved by our own petitions. The penitent is taught to feel that without Christ and the cross his prayers are of no avail for his salvation. Even if they knew no respite still they would never atone for sin. Is not this an axiom of evangelical doctrine? Then the prayers that are offered in the old unreconciled condition must fall back on the head of the vain petitioner, unable to penetrate the awful barrier that he has himself caused to be raised between his cries and the heavens where God dwells.
Turning from the contemplation of the hopeless failure of prayer the lament naturally falls into an almost despairing wail of grief. The state of the Jews is painted in the very darkest colours. God has made them as no better than the refuse people cast out of their houses, or the very sweepings of the streets-not fit even to be trampled under foot of men. {Lam 3:45} This is their position among the nations. The poet seems to be alluding to the exceptional severity with which the obstinate defenders of Jerusalem had been treated by their exasperated conquerors. The neighbouring tribes had been compelled to succumb beneath the devasting wave of the Babylonian invasion; but since none of them had offered so stubborn a resistance to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar none of them had been punished by so severe a scourge of vengeance. So it has been repeatedly with the unhappy people who have encountered unparalleled persecutions through the long weary ages of their melancholy history. In the days of Antiochus Epiphanes the Jews were the most insulted and cruelly outraged victims of Syrian tyranny. When their long tragedy reached a climax at the final siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the more liberal-minded Roman government laid on them harsh punishments of exile, slavery, torture, and death, such as it rarely inflicted on a fallen foe-for with statesmanlike wisdom the Romans preferred, as a rule, conciliation to extermination; but in the case of this one unhappy city of Jerusalem the almost unique fate of the hated and dreaded city of Carthage was repeated. So it was in the Middle Ages, as “Ivanhoe” vividly shows: and so it is today in the East of Europe, as the fierce Juden-hetze is continually proving. The irony of history is nowhere more apparent than in the fact that the “favoured” people, the “chosen” people of Jehovah, should have been treated so continuously as “the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.” As privilege and responsibility always go hand in hand, so also do blessing and suffering-the Jew hated, the Church persecuted, the Christ crucified. We cannot say that this paradox is simply “a mysterious dispensation of Providence”: because in the case of Israel, at all events in the early ages, the unparalleled misery was traced to the abuse of unparalleled favour. But this does not exhaust the mystery, for in the most striking instances innocence suffers. We can have no satisfaction in our view of these contradictions till we see the glory of the martyrs crown and the even higher glory of the triumph of Christ and His people over failure, agony, insult, and death; but just in proportion as we are able to lift up the eyes of faith to the blessedness of the unseen world, we shall be able to discover that even here and now there is a pain that is better than pleasure, and a shame that is truest glory. These truths, however, are not readily perceived at the time of endurance, when the iron is entering into the soul. The elegist feels the degradations of his people most keenly, and he represents them complaining how their enemies rage at them as with open mouths-belching forth gross insults, shouting curses, like wild beasts ready to devour their hapless victims. {Lam 3:46} There seems to be nothing in store for them but the terrors of death, the pit of destruction. {Lam 3:47}
At the contemplation of this extremity of hopeless misery the poet drops the plural number, in which he has been personating his people, as abruptly as he assumed it a few verses earlier, and bewails the dread calamities in his own person. {Lam 3:48} Then, in truly Jeremiah-like fashion, he describes his incessant weeping for the woes of the wretched citizens of Jerusalem and the surrounding villages. The reference to “the daughters of my city” {Lam 3:51} seems to be best explained as a figurative expression for the neighbouring places, all of which it would seem had shared in the devastation produced by the great wave of conquest which had overwhelmed the capital. But the previous mention of “the daughter of my people,” {Lam 3:48} followed as it is by this phrase about “the daughters of my city,” strikes a deeper note of compassion. These places contained many defenceless women, the indescribable cruelty of whose fate when they fell into the hands of the brutal heathen soldiery was one of the worst features of the whole ghastly scene; and the wretchedness of the once proud city and its dependencies when they were completely overthrown is finely represented so as to appeal most effectually to our sympathy by a metaphor that pictures them as hapless maidens, touching us like Spensers piteous picture of the forlorn Una, deserted in the forest and left a prey to its savage denizens. Like Una, too, the daughters in this metaphor claim the chivalry which our English poet has so exquisitely portrayed as awakened even in the breast of a wild animal. The woman of Europe is far removed from her sister in the East, who still follows the ancient type in submitting to the imputation of weakness as a claim for consideration. But this is because Europe has learnt that strength of character – in which woman can be at least the equal of man – is more potent in a community civilised in the Christian way than strength of muscle. Where the more brutal forces are let loose the duties of chivalry are always in requisition. Then it is apparent that deference to the claims of women for protection produces a civilising effect in softening the roughness of men. It is difficult to say it today in the teeth of the just claims that women are making, and still more difficult in face of what women are now achieving, in spite of many relics of barbarism in the form of unfair restrictions, but yet it must be asserted that the feebleness of femininity-in the old-fashioned sense of the word-pervades these poems, and is their most touching characteristic, so that much of the pathos and beauty of poetry such as that of these elegies is to be traced to representations of woman wronged and suffering and calling for the sympathy of all beholders.
The poet is moved to tears-quite unselfish roars, tears of patriotic grief, tears of compassion for helpless suffering. Here again the modern Anglo-Saxon habit makes it difficult for us to appreciate his conduct as it deserves. We think it a dreadful thing for a man to be seen weeping; and a feeling of shame accompanies such an outburst of unrestrained distress. But surely there are holy tears, and tears which it is an honour for any one to be capable of shedding. If mere callousness is the explanation of dry eyes in view of sorrow, there can be no credit for such a condition. This is not the restraint of tears. Nothing is easier than for the unfeeling not to weep. Nor can it be maintained that it is always necessary to restrain the outward expression of sympathy in accordance with its most natural impulses. Our Lord was strong; yet we could never wish that the evangelist had not had occasion to write the ever memorable sentence, “Jesus wept.” Sufferers lose much, not only from lack of sympathy, but also from a shy concealment of the fellow-feeling that is truly experienced. There are seasons of keenest agony, when to weep with those who weep is the only possible expression of brotherly kindness; and this may be a very real act of love, appreciably alleviating suffering. A little courage on the part of Englishmen in daring to weep would knit the ties of brotherhood more closely. At present a chill reserve rather than any actual coldness of heart separates people who might be much more helpful to one another if they could but bring themselves to break down this barrier.
But while the poet is thus expressing his large patriotic grief he cannot forget his own private sorrows. They are all parts of one common woe. So he returns to his personal experience, and adds some graphic details that enable us to picture him in the midst of his misery. {Lam 3:52} Though he had never provoked the enemy, he was chased like a bird, flung into a dungeon, where a stone was hurled down upon him, and where the water was lying so deep that he was completely submerged. There is no reason to question that definite statements such as these represent the exact experience of the writer. At the first glance they call to our minds the persecutions inflicted on Jeremiah by his own people. But the allusion would be peculiarly inappropriate, and the cases do not quite fit together.
The poet has been bewailing the sufferings of the Jews at the hands of the Chaldaeans, and he seems to identify his own troubles in the closest way with the general flood of calamities that swept over his nation. It would be quite out of place for him to insert here a reminder of earlier troubles which his own people had inflicted upon him. Besides, the particulars do not exactly agree with what we learn of the prophets hardships from his own pen. The dungeon into which he was flung was very foul, and he sank in the mire, but it. is expressly stated that there was no water in it, and there is no mention of stoning. {Jer 38:6} There were many sufferers in that dark time of tumult and outrage whose fate was as hard as that of Jeremiah.
A graphic picture like this helps us to imagine the fearful accompaniments of the destruction of Jerusalem much better than any general summary. As we gaze at this one scene among the many miseries that followed the siege – the poet hunted out and run down, his capture and conveyance to the dungeon, apparently without a shadow of a trial, the danger of drowning and the misery of standing in the water that had gathered in a place so utterly unfit for human habitation, the needless additional cruelty of the stone throwing-there rises before us a picture which cannot but impress our minds with the unutterable wretchedness of the sufferers from such a calamity as the siege of Jerusalem. Of course there must have been some special reason for the exceptionally severe treatment of the poet. What this was we cannot tell. If the same patriotic spirit burned in his soul in the midst of the war as we now find at the time of later reflection, it would be most reasonable to conjecture that the ardent lover of his country had done or said something to irritate the enemy, and possibly that as he devoted his poetic gifts at a subsequent time to lamenting the overthrow of his city, he may have employed them with a more practical purpose among the battle scenes to write some inspiring martial ode in which we may be sure he would not have spared the ruthless invader. But then he says his persecution was without a cause. He may have been undeservedly suspected of acting as a spy. It is only by chance that now and again we get a glimpse of the backwaters of a great flood such as that which was now devastating the land of Judah; most of the dreary scene is shrouded in gloom.
Lastly, we must not fail to remember, in reading these expressions of patriotic and personal grief, that they are the outpourings of the heart of the poet before God. They are all addressed to Gods ear; they are all part of a prayer. Thus they illustrate the way in which prayer takes the form of confiding in God. It is a great relief to be able simply to tell Him everything. Perhaps, however, here we may detect a note of complaint; but if so it is not a note of rebellion or of unbelief. Although the evils from which the elegist and his people are suffering so grievously are attributed to God in the most uncompromising manner, the writer does not hesitate to look to God for deliverance. Thus in the very midst of his lamentations he says that his weeping is to continue “till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.” {Lam 3:50} He will not cease weeping until this happens; but he does not expect to have to spend all the remainder of his days in tears. He is assured that God will hear, and answer, and deliver. The time of the Divine response is quite unknown to him; it may be still far off, and there may be much weary waiting to be endured first. But it will come, arid if no one can tell how long the interval of trial may be, so also no one can say but that the deliverance may arrive suddenly and with a surprise of mercy. Thus the poet weeps on, but in undying hope.
This is the right attitude of the Christian mourner. We cannot penetrate the mystery of Gods times; but that they are in His own hands is not to be denied. Therefore the test of faith is often given in the necessity for indefinite waiting. To the man who trusts God there is always a future. Whatever such a man may have to endure he should find a place in his plaint for the word “until.” He is not plunged into everlasting night. He has but to endure until the day dawn.