The prophet continues to lament
3
📚I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath 📖.
3:1 In this chapter the prophet again is speaking. Here and there he uses the word “we” – vs 22,40-47. Even when he is speaking of his own experiences the people are never far from his thoughts and feelings. This chapter is the heart of this little book. In it we see deep sorrow, the beginning of hope as he thinks of God’s goodness, the willingness to quietly accept the will of God, to learn the lessons God was teaching through chastisement, and the prayer that justice would prevail. When the people suffered calamities it was as though Jeremiah suffered them. Their inner experiences were his inner experiences.⚜
2 📚He has led me and brought me
into darkness,
but not into light.
3 📚Surely he has turned against me;
he turns his hand against me
all day long.
4 📚He has made my flesh and
my skin grow old.
He has broken my bones.
5 📚He has built siege works
against me,
and surrounded me with bitterness
and hardship.
3:5 This may refer to the siege of the Babylonian armies.⚜
6 📚He has set me in dark places,
like the dead of long ago.
7 📚He has hedged me in,
so that I cannot get out.
He has made my chain heavy.
8 📚Also when I cry and shout,
he shuts out my prayer.
9 📚He has blocked up my ways with cut stones.
He has made my paths crooked.
10 📚He was like a bear lying
in wait for me,
and like a lion in secret places.
11 📚He has turned aside my ways,
and pulled me in pieces.
He has made me desolate.
12 📚He has bent his bow,
and set me as a target for the arrow.
13 📚He has caused the arrows of his quiver
to enter my inner being.
14 📚I was an object of derision
to all my people,
and their mocking
song all day long.
15 📚He has filled me with bitterness.
He has made me drunk with wormwood.
16 📚He has also broken my teeth
with gravel.
He has covered me with ashes.
3:16 Since God had appointed all this the prophet is attributing all of it to God.⚜
17 📚And you have moved my soul
far from peace.
I have forgotten prosperity 📖.
18 📚And I said, “My strength,
and my hope from the LORD have perished.
19 📚I remember 📖 my affliction and my misery,
the wormwood and the bitterness,
20 📚My soul still remembers them, and sinks down within me.
Bright beams of hope
21 📚This I recall to my mind,
therefore I have hope:
3:19-21 The prophet cannot forget the fearful things which he has experienced. But by thinking again of the wonderful truths found in the following verses (up to v 39), he is able to stand in faith instead of falling into despair. By doing so he shows the way for anyone to endure discouragement, mental distress, and inner pain and to come out safely on the other side.⚜
22 📚Because of the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
for his compassions do not fail.
23 📚They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness.
3:22-23 The prophet remembers what God is like, and by contemplating God’s loving and gracious qualities finds peace for his troubled heart. He knows very well that both himself and Jerusalem have deserved even worse punishment than has actually come on them (compare Ps 103:10). He realizes afresh that only one thing kept them from complete destruction and gave them hope for the future, and that one thing was the grace of God. God loves those whom He has chosen with an eternal love (Jer 31:3; Rom 8:37-39). So His love remains on them forever (Ps 78:38; 103:13-14). Every morning believers can make new beginnings. They can receive fresh encouragement every day by understanding that their sins are blotted out, and that God’s love and mercy will surround them in the future. They can go on from the failures and mistakes of the past to higher, better things in the future, knowing that God will always be faithful to His covenant and promises (Ex 34:6; Ps 89:1-2; 108:4; 115:1).⚜
24 📚The LORD is my portion,
says my soul,
therefore I will hope in him.
25 📚The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
3:25 Ps 25:3; 34:8; 86:5; Jer 29:14; Matt 7:7-11. In spite of the experiences recorded in vs 1-18 he knows that God is good and does good. This is the victory faith achieves over every circumstance that seems against faith.⚜
26 📚It is good to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
27 📚It is good for a man to bear the yoke 📖 in his youth.
28 📚Let him sit alone and keep silent,
because he has laid it on him.
3:28 If God has put certain things on us to bear we should not try to escape from them by fellowship with other people, but face up to them in God’s presence. Compare Jer 15:17.⚜
29 📚Let him put his mouth in the dust 📖;
perhaps there is hope.
30 📚Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him.
Let him be filled with disgrace.
31 📚For the Lord will not reject forever.
32 📚For though he causes grief,
he will have compassion in accordance with the abundance of his mercies.
3:31-32 Ps 30:5; 66:10-12; 94:14; Isa 54:7-8; Heb 13:5. The prophet encourages himself by the thought that the troubles and griefs that God causes His people to undergo are only for a comparatively short time. See 2 Cor 4:17-18.⚜
33 📚For he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.
3:33 Ps 103:13-14; Jer 48:36-38; Isa 63:9; Ezek 18:23, 32; Hos 11:8; Heb 12:10-11. God, in accordance with His absolute justice, brings troubles and distress on people because of their sins. But this gives him no pleasure at all. In all that He does He has good motives and grand purposes.⚜
34 📚To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside a man’s rights before the face of the Most High,
36 📚To defraud a man in his case,
the Lord does not approve of such things.
3:34-36 God sees the cruel and unjust acts of men such as those displayed by the leaders of Judah and the armies of Babylon, but He does not approve of them – quite the opposite.⚜
37 📚Who is he who speaks,
and it comes to pass,
when the Lord has not commanded it?
38 📚Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that disaster and good things come?
39 📚Why should a living man complain 📖,
a man undergoing punishment for his sins?
3:37-39 If God had not decreed the disaster that came on Jerusalem and its people then it would not have happened (Lam 1:17; Amos 3:6; Isa 14:26-27). But all left alive in Jerusalem (and all men everywhere) should understand that any punishment from God comes because of their sins. Micah 7:9 perfectly describes the kind of attitude we should have when God causes troubles to come to us.⚜
40 📚Let us search and examine our ways,
and turn back to the LORD.
3:40 There will be good results from the troubles and griefs which come to us if we are able to do this (Ps 119:59; 139:23-24; 1 Cor 11:28; 2 Cor 13:5).⚜
41 📚Let us lift up our heart together with our hands to God in the heavens.
42 📚We have transgressed and have rebelled;
3:41-42 This was the way for the people of Jerusalem to obtain forgiveness and restoration, and the only way. Compare Ps 32:3-5; Prov 28:13; 1 John 1:9.⚜
But grief remains
you have not pardoned.
43 📚You have covered us with anger,
and pursued us.
You have slain us;
you have not shown pity.
44 📚You have covered yourself
with a cloud,
so that our prayer
cannot pass through.
45 📚You have made us like scrapings
and trash in the midst of the people.
46 📚All our enemies have opened
their mouths against us.
47 📚Fear and a snare have come upon us,
desolation and destruction.
3:43-47 This happened just as God foretold in Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28.⚜
48 📚My eye runs down with rivers of water
for the destruction of the daughter
of my people.
49 📚My eye will flow without
interruption,
and will not stop,
50 📚Until the LORD looks down,
and sees from heaven.
51 📚My eye affects my heart because
of all the daughters of my city.
3:48-51 The prophet has humbly submitted to what God has done to him and to Jerusalem and is looking with hope to the future. But this has not removed the grief he feels for his people. He determines that he will go on lamenting until God shows mercy and compassion on them. Having peace in our personal relationship with God does not mean that we will not feel sorrow at the troubles and pains of others. Compare Luke 19:41; Rom 9:1-3; Ps 126:5.⚜
52 📚My enemies hunted me down
like a bird, without cause.
53 📚They cut off my life in the dungeon,
and hurled a stone on me;
54 📚Waters flowed over my head.
Then I said,
“I am cut off”.
55 📚I called on your name,
O LORD,
out of the deep dungeon.
56 📚You heard my voice:
“Do not hide your ear at my breathing,
at my cry”.
57 📚You drew near in the day that
I called to you. You said,
“Do not fear”.
58 📚O Lord,
you have pleaded the case for my soul.
You have redeemed my life.
59 📚O LORD,
you have seen the wrong done to me.
Judge my case.
60 📚You have seen all their vengeance and
all their plots against me.
61 📚You have heard their insults,
O LORD, and all their plots
against me,
62 📚The words 📖 of those who rose up
against me,
and their whispering against me
all day long.
63 📚Look at their sitting down,
and their rising up.
I am their mocking song.
3:52-63 These words bring before us Jeremiah’s personal experiences. Compare v 53 with Jer 37:16 and Jer 38:6, v 58 with Jer 38:7-13, v 59 with Jer 18:19-20, v 60 and 61 with Jer 11:18-21; 12:6; 18:18.⚜
64 📚Repay them, O LORD,
in accordance with the work
of their hands.
65 📚Give them sorrow of heart.
Your curse be on them!
3:65 Compare Isa 6:9-10.⚜
66 📚In anger pursue and destroy them 📖
from under the LORD’s heavens!
3:64-66 This is a prayer that justice might prevail. See the note on such prayers at Ps 35:8.⚜