Matthew Henry on Lamentations 3:1-20
The title of the 102nd Psalm 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 of his wrath. Note, God is sometimes angry with his own people; yet it is to be complained of, not as a sword to cut off, by only as a rod to correct; it is to them the rod of his wrath, a chastening whi…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Lamentations 3:10
(Job 10:16; Hos 13:7-8).
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 3:9
He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone - He has put insuperable obstacles in my way; and confounded all my projects of deliverance and all my expectations of prosperity.
John Gill on Lamentations 3:10
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait,.... For its prey, which seizes on it at once, and tears it in pieces; such were the Chaldeans to the Jews by divine permission:
and as a lion in secret places; lurking there, in order to take every opportunity and advantage, and fall upon any creature that comes that way. The same thing is signified here as before; see Hosea 5:14.
John Calvin on Lamentations 3:10
Lamentations 3:10
10. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
10. Urus insidians fuit mihi (ipse mihi,) leo in latebris.
Harsh is the complaint when Jeremiah compares God to a. bear and a lion. But we have said that the apprehension of God's wrath so terrified the faithful, that they could not sufficiently express the atrocity of their calamity; and then borne in mind must also be what we have stated, that they spoke according to the judgment of the flesh; for they did not always so moderate their feelings, but that something fell from them worthy of blame. We ought not, then, to make as a rule in religion all the complaints of holy men, when they were pre…
