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…
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As often as my soul calls them to remembrance, it is humbled or bowed down in me.
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 3:20
By soul - is humbled in me - It is evident that in the preceding verses there is a bitterness of complaint against the bitterness of adversity, that is not becoming to man when under the chastising hand of God; and, while indulging this feeling, all hope fled. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives, Lam 3:21.
John Gill on Lamentations 3:20
My soul hath them still in remembrance,.... That is, according to our version, affliction and misery, compared to wormwood and gall: but the words, "my soul", are fetched from the next clause, where they ought to stand, and this to be rendered, "in remembering thou wilt remember" (t); or, "thou wilt surely remember", and so expresses the confidence of the prophet, and his firm belief, his faith and hope increasing in prayer, that God would in much mercy remember his people, and their afflictions, and save them out of them:
and is humbled in me; both under the afflicting hand of God, and in view and hope of his mercy: though rather it should be rendered, "and" or "for my soul meditateth with…