Matthew Henry on Lamentations 3:42-54
It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. The prophet had owned that a living man should not complain, as if he checked himself for his complaints in the former part of the chapter; and yet here the clouds return after the rain and the wound bleeds afresh; for great pains must be taken with a troubled spirit to bring it into temper.
I. They confess the righteousness of God in afflicting them (Lam 3:42): We have transgressed and have rebelled. Note, It becomes us, when we are in trouble, to justify God, by owning our sins, and laying the load upon ourselves for them. Call sin a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not miscall it. This is the…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Lamentations 3:51
eye affecteth mine heart--that is, causeth me grief with continual tears; or, "affecteth my life" (literally, "soul," Margin), that is, my health [GROTIUS].
daughters of . . . city--the towns around, dependencies of Jerusalem, taken by the foe.
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 3:51
Mine eye affecteth mine heart - What I see I feel. I see nothing but misery; and I feel, in consequence, nothing but pain. There have been various translations of the original: but they all amount to this.
The daughters of my city - The villages about Jerusalem.
John Gill on Lamentations 3:51
Mine eye affecteth mine heart,.... Seeing the desolation of his country; the ruins of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and the multitudes of those that were slain, and carried captive; and the distresses the rest were in; this affected his heart, and filled it with grief; as his heart also affected his eyes, and caused them to run down in rivers of water, as before expressed; or, as the Targum,
"the weeping of mine eyes is the occasion of hurt to my soul or life;''
his excessive weeping endangered his life:
because of all the daughters of my city; not Anathoth, his native place, but Jerusalem; so the Targum,
"of Jerusalem my city.''
The meaning is, that his heart was affected at seeing…
