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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hewn stone--which coheres so closely as not to admit of being broken through.
paths crooked--thwarted our plans and efforts so that none went right.
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 3:9
He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone,.... Not with a hedge of thorns, or mud walls, but with a fence of stones; and these not rough, and laid loosely together, but hewn and put in order, and well cemented. The Targum is, with marble hewn stones, which are harder than common stones, and not so easily demolished; this may respect the case of the prophet in prison, and in the dungeon, and in Jerusalem, when besieged; or in general his afflictive state, from whence he had no prospect of deliverance; or the state of the Jews in captivity, from which there was no likelihood of a release;
he hath made my paths crooked; or, "perverted my ways" (h); so that he could not find his way out, when he…
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