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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shutteth out--image from a door shutting out any entrance (Job 30:20). So the antitype. Christ (Psa 22:2).
Adam Clarke on Lamentations 3:7
He hath hedged me about - This also may refer to the lines drawn round the city during the siege. But these and similar expressions in the following verses may be merely metaphorical, to point out their straitened, oppressed, and distressed state.
John Gill on Lamentations 3:8
Also when I cry and shout,.... Cry, because of the distress of the enemy within; "shout", or cry aloud for help from others without; as persons in a prison do, to make them hear and pity their case: thus the prophet in his affliction cried aloud to God; was fervent, earnest, and importunate in prayer; and yet not heard:
he shutteth out my prayer; shuts the door, that it may not enter; as the door is sometimes shut upon beggars, that their cry may not be heard. The Targum is,
"the house of my prayer is shut.''
Jarchi interprets it of the windows of the firmament being shut, so that his prayer could not pass through, or be heard; see Lamentations 3:44. The phrase designs God's disregard, or…
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