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Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Lamentations 3:1-20

The title of the Ps. 102:1-28 might very fitly be prefixed to this chapter?The prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before the Lord; for it is very feelingly and fluently that the complaint is here poured out. Let us observe the particulars of it. The prophet complains, 1. That God is angry. This gives both birth and bitterness to the affliction (Lam. 3:1): I am the man, the remarkable man, that has seen affliction, and has felt it sensibly, by the rod... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Lamentations 3:18

And I said, my strength and my hope are perished from the Lord. The former of these words signifies, according to Aben Ezra, "my standing", my subsistence, my continuance in being, or my perpetuity; according to Jarchi, my abiding F18 נצחי "duratio mea", Montanus; "perennitas mea", Cocceius. in this world; it is rendered "blood" in Isaiah 63:3 ; which is the support of life; and which when gone, or ceases to circulate, a man ceases to be: the sense is, that the prophet, or those he... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 3:18

And my hope - That first, that last support of the miserable - it is gone! it is perished! The sovereign God alone can revive it. read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Lamentations 3:18

Verse 18 This verse shews what I have before reminded you of, that the Prophet does not here speak as though he was divested of every sin, and prescribed a perfect rule for prayer. But, on the contrary, in order to animate the faithful to seek God, he sets before them here an instance of infirmity which every one finds true as to himself. It was yet a most grievous trial, because the Prophet almost despaired; for since faith is the mother of hope, it follows, that when any one is overwhelmed... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 3:1-21

MONOLOGUE SPOKEN BY AN INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER WHOSE FATE IS BOUND UP WITH THAT OF THE NATION ; OR PERHAPS BY THE NATION PERSONIFIED (see Introduction). read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 3:18

Strength and hope perished. The sufferer feels as though his strength, or rather in the expressive word of the Hebrew, his "sap" were destroyed, and with it his hope also; and he attributes this desperate condition to the action of God, it is a condition Of spiritual affliction the pathology of which demands careful investigation, for it is symptomatic of a great progress of inward trouble. I. IT INDICATES THAT EXTERNAL CALAMITIES HAVE PRODUCED INTERNAL DISTRESS .... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Lamentations 3:18

The sum of a terrible experience. This chapter must doubtless be taken as the utterance of Jeremiah's own feelings—feelings induced by the continual stress and difficulty of his life. Through the first seventeen verses he alludes to some opponent and tormentor continually thwarting his every purpose, not for a single moment leaving him free. Are we to suppose, then, that the prophet really believed all these untoward experiences to come from some one agent who had special designs against... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Lamentations 3:10-18

Having dwelt upon the difficulties which hemmed in his path, he now shows that there are dangers attending upon escape.Lamentations 3:11The meaning is, “God, as a lion, lying in wait, has made me turn aside from my path, but my flight was in vain, for springing upon me from His ambush lie has torn me in pieces.”Desolate - Or, astonied, stupefied that he cannot flee. The word is a favorite one with Jeremiah.Lamentations 3:12This new simile arises out of the former one, the idea of a hunter being... read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - Lamentations 3:14-19

Lamentations 3:14-19. I was a derision to all my people To all the wicked among them, who made themselves merry with the prophet’s griefs and the public judgments; and their song all the day Hebrew, נגינתם , 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... read more

Donald C. Fleming

Bridgeway Bible Commentary - Lamentations 3:1-66

Grief, repentance and hope (3:1-66)This poem is different in style from the previous two. The poet speaks as if he is the representative of all Judah, describing Judah’s sufferings as if they were his own. And those sufferings are God’s righteous judgment (3:1-3). He is like a starving man ready to die. Indeed, he feels as if he already dwells in the world of the dead (4-6). He is like a man chained and locked inside a stone prison from which there is no way out (7-9).To the writer God seems... read more

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