Man of Affliction: Chapter 3 constitutes a new and complete poem. Like the two chapters that precede it, it is marked by a complete acrostic. Unlike the previous chapters where each verse started with a successive letter of the alphabet, in chapter 3 each letter repeats at the start of three verses before going on to the next letter. Thus, there are sixty-six verses, not twenty-two verses. However, since the verses are shorter in chapter 3, the overall length of the chapters is approximately the same.
The new poem also has a new speaker. So far we have heard the voice of the poet/narrator and the voice of Zion personified as a woman. Chapter 3 begins, I am the man who has seen affliction. The first person speech continues through verse 39, where it shifts to first person plural. It reverts to first person singular in vv. 48–66. The identity of the “man of affliction” is not clear, at least in particulars. He could be another personification of Zion and its inhabitants. If so, then the book as a whole would contain both feminine and masculine images of the people of God, perhaps indicating that men and women both suffered in the destruction of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the “man” might be the poet/narrator, who identifies with the suffering people. In any case, whether personification or narrator, the “man” represents the suffering people and articulates their emotions.
Even though this is a separate poem, Provan (Lamentations, pp. 80–81) rightly points out that it was never meant to be read separately from the previous two. 3:1 begins with a reference to his wrath rather than “God’s wrath.” The antecedent is provided by “the LORD’s anger” in 2:22.
3:1–3 alef. The stanza begins with an autobiographical introduction of the speaker who identifies himself simply as the man. As argued above, the man represents the suffering people of God. The Hebrew word is geber and is distinctively male and can mean “strong man.” If so, this strong man has been rendered powerless by none other than God. He has been the object of God’s punishment (the rod of his [God’s] wrath). While no reason is given immediately for God’s anger and punishment, later in the poem there is an acknowledgement of sin (vv. 39, 42).
There is no doubting through this entire section that the extreme suffering of the man is the result of God’s actions. It is God that has driven him away, presumably from his presence and literally from Jerusalem. The passage uses language that is reminiscent of Proverbs. In Proverbs, the rod is used to keep a son on the straight path that leads to life (10:13; 22:8; 23:13, 14; 29:15), but here God uses the rod to drive the man off the well-lit straight path and onto the dark path that leads to death. The well-lit path is for the wise, not for the fool: “I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness” (Eccl. 2:13–14a).
In former good days, the hand of God, a metaphor for his effective power in the world, was used for the man’s (Israel’s) benefit (Exod. 3:19–20), but now it is used to punish him (see also Ps. 32:4; Jer. 21:5). This punishment was not just a one-time act, but a continuous and seemingly perpetual change of divine attitude and behavior.
3:4–6 Bet. The second stanza begins a list of particular actions that describe how God has “turned his hand” against the man introduced in verse 1. We understand this man to represent the suffering people of God. God has taken a series of actions against him. The first verse (v. 4) describes God as physically afflicting the man. First, God has made the man’s skin/flesh grow old. The verb is blh and can also mean “wear out.” It is used of the worn-out clothes that the Gibeonites wear when they fool Joshua into thinking that they have come from a distance (Josh. 9:4, 5). Thus, the verb in connection with the skin would indicate the kind of wear and tear that would normally come from aging, but could be induced by other means (hunger [Provan, Lamentations, p. 85 points out that hunger goes well with the siege metaphor to follow]), illness, or being assaulted). The pairing of skin/flesh and bones indicates that the man’s affliction permeates his whole being, both outside and in.
The next verse (v. 5) plays with the fact that the man stands for the people who live in the city of Jerusalem. In other words, it uses verbs that are appropriate for the assault of a city. God besieged and surrounded the man. Of course, this is the action that an attacking army would (and in the case of Babylon in 586 B.C., did) take against a walled city like Jerusalem. But in keeping with the metaphor of the man, this siege is accomplished not by an army but with bitterness and hardship.
The final bet verse (v. 6) indicates that God consigned the man to the fate of the dead. He lives now in darkness like a corpse in a grave. The thought of the man in darkness continues into the next stanza.
3:7–9 Gimel. In the final verse of the preceding stanza, we learned that God placed the man in darkness, like the darkness of the grave. In this stanza, the man is sealed off alive in a prison with no possibility of parole or escape. Verse 7 speaks of his being walled in and bound in chains. Verse 8 notes that the walls are so thick that his shouts and prayers are stifled. It is interesting that the man is imagined to be trying to pray and that God refuses to hear these prayers. God had given his people the chance to repent and pray to him to reverse the fate that was coming on them, but there is a point where such prayers are ineffective. Now God will not hear their prayers at least initially. Verse 9 continues the idea of God restricting the movement of the man and adds the picture of God making the man’s paths crooked. The latter comes from wisdom literature, notably Proverbs. While the word for path (netib) is not the main one used in Proverbs, it occurs often enough (see Prov. 1:15; 3:17; 7:25; 8:2, 20) as a synonym for the main word (derek). In Proverbs, the straight path leads to life and the crooked path leads to death. The fact that the man must follow crooked paths may be the direct result of the obstacles described in verse 8. Compare the similar language here and throughout chapter 3 with Job 19:7–12.
3:10–12 Dalet. This stanza continues the description of God’s assault on the “man who has seen affliction” (v. 1). The poet uses two metaphors to picture God’s violent actions against Jerusalem. The first likens God to dangerous animals that pounce on an unwary traveler. As we know from its frequent use in Proverbs, the path stands for life’s journey. From the perspective of the man, God’s actions seem cruel. Other passages recognize Jerusalem’s sin as a cause of this action, but the present context does not mention it, since the purpose of the poet is to build up sympathy for the suffering nation.
The bear and the lion often appear together as harbingers (sometimes metaphorically and sometimes in reality) of destruction and death (1 Sam. 17:34, 34–37; 2 Sam. 17:8, 10; Isa. 11:7; Hos. 13:8; Amos 5:19). The passages from Hosea and Amos are particularly interesting since they, too, picture God’s judgment as the mauling action of these animals:
Like a bear robbed of her cubs,
I will attack them and rip them open.
Like a lion I will devour them;
a wild animal will tear them apart. (Hos. 13:8)
In Amos, it is the Day of the Lord that is the topic when God says:
It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear. (5:19)
Verse 12 changes metaphors. God is no longer a mauling animal, but now an archer taking target practice. This language is reminiscent of the suffering of Job, who complains that God has made him a target of his arrows (Job 7:20; 16:12 [here God has made him a target for the arrows of others]).
Both metaphors (wild animals and target practice) emphasize the sufferer’s helplessness. A walker has no real defense against a predatory animal and a target cannot move or fight back. This description attempts to elicit sympathy from the reader (and from God?).
3:13–15 He. The fifth stanza continues the metaphor from the end of the previous one. The man charged God with using him for target practice and now he reveals that God hit a bull’s eye (also similar to Job, see 16:13): he is skewered. The NIV translates kilyah as heart, though technically the word means “kidney.” According to NIDOTTE (vol. 2, p. 656), “the kidneys are viewed as the seat of human joy/grief,” thus “heart” is the English idiom that is equivalent. God has pierced the seat of his emotions, thereby unleashing them.
As the object of God’s violent rage, the man is reduced to helplessness. As such, those around him ridicule (mock) him. The psalmist often expressed the same consternation when his bad condition aroused the ridicule of those who saw him (Pss. 22:7; 69:12; 119:51). Job too felt humiliated by the mocking of people who saw him suffer (Job 30:1, 9).
God has fed the man, but he has forced him to eat revolting food. Gall “(wormwood) is a bitter-tasting shrub used for medicinal purposes” (IVPBBCOT, p. 687). The adjective on bitter herbs tells the story there. In Psalm 69, the gall the mockers made the psalmist eat (v. 21) causes him to utter a strong curse against them (vv. 22–28). The afflicted man here does not do the same toward God. His (actually the poet’s) intention is to evoke sympathy from the reader.
3:16–18 Vav. The sixth stanza continues and completes the description of God’s violent actions against the “man of affliction” that began at the start of the chapter. The first colon complains that God has broken his teeth with gravel. Most likely, the image intends the reader to picture the man of affliction eating gravel and thus breaking his teeth (indeed the rare verb grs [occurring elsewhere only at Ps. 119:20] may better be translated “made to grind” rather than broken, see NRSV). The only other use of “gravel” is found in Prov. 20:17, where wealth gained by deceitful means produces a good taste at first, but ultimately is like eating gravel. The next colon pictures God trampling (the verb [kps] is a hapax) the man in the dust, not only painful but also humiliating.
The next poetic parallelism (v.16) again (see v.14) expresses the reflections of the man to the horrific events of his life. Peace is gone as well as prosperity. As we have earlier observed in the introduction to chapter 3, the man represents the people of Judah and the suffering they have experienced at the hand of God’s judgment.
The NIV renders the first colon of v. 18 So I say, “My splendor is gone.” There is a debate over the exact translation of the word “splendor,” a better rendition is “everlastingness.” That is, Judah, because of its sins, has forfeited the longlasting affection that God has demonstrated toward his people. Thus, their hope of a good relationship with God and the concomitant prosperity were also gone.
3:19–21 Zayin. The seventh stanza continues the lament, but in the last parallel line begins a shift toward hope. While in verse 17 the man stated that he had “forgotten” his prosperity, he now states that he “remembers” his affliction. After all, he began by proclaiming that he is a man who has experienced affliction (3:1). Prosperity is long past; affliction is now his daily course. It is an affliction characterized by wandering. To be uprooted is negative under any circumstances; here it is reminiscent of exile and homelessness caused by the Babylonian destruction of homes in Jerusalem. His experience is all bitterness and gall (for gall, see comment on v. 15).
Such thoughts lead to depression (my soul is downcast within me). The language is reminiscent of Pss. 42–43 (see 42:5, 11; 43:5). These psalms (probably an original unity as indicated by the repeated refrain and lack of title on 43) bemoan separation from the presence of God and likely separation from Jerusalem.
Even so, the final line in this stanza moves to hope. While denying a sense of hope in verse 18, the man now expresses the birth of hope. It is based on something that he has called to mind (this). The next three-verse stanza will explicate what “this” is.
3:22–24 Het. The eighth stanza is the most optimistic of the entire poem. Indeed, it is the most optimistic of the entire book. The fact that it is found in the middle indicates that while hope is present, it is neither the beginning nor the final thought. The pain is still too fresh and the end is not yet in sight. Even so, this stanza, though brief, indicates that the poet is has not completely abandoned himself to hopelessness.
The first line (v. 22) initially strikes one as odd. After all, the poet has repeatedly expressed the sentiment that his/their suffering is deep and pervasive. The destruction is nearly total. But here the poet acknowledges that though he and those he speaks of are deeply afflicted, they are still there. They are not completely consumed, and he attributes this to God’s grace as expressed in his khesed (covenantal love) and his rekhem (compassion). Psalm 77 is the poem of a desperate person who attributes his suffering to God. He accuses God of betraying his khesed and rekhem in verses 8–9. The poet in Lamentations sees the fact that anyone survived the debacle as evidence of God’s love and compassion.
Not only do God’s love and compassion not wear out, grow weak, or vanish over time, they are new every morning. That is, they are renewed as vital as ever before. In addition, verse 23 introduces yet a third quality of God’s covenantal love toward his people, his faithfulness (ʾemuna). This word refers to God’s persistence in his relationship with his people. God is often praised as displaying faithfulness in the Psalms (33:4; 92:2 [3]; 143:1).
Because of God’s love, compassion, and faithfulness, the poet, on behalf of the community, expresses his willingness to wait for him. Now things are bad, but God will make them good again. The metaphor of portion comes from land distribution. Joshua 19:9 refers to the land allotted to the tribes as their portion and associates the word with the word “inheritance” (nahala). The Levites had God as their special portion (Deut. 10:9), since they did not receive land, and now the man of affliction on behalf of the community lays claim to the same type of relationship.
3:25–27 Tet. All three verses not only begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet (tet), but the very same word tob, “good.” The poet presents three things that are good for those who are faithful to him.
The first good stated comes from the Lord. The Lord is good to those who put their hope in him. The poet, speaking in the persona of the “man of affliction,” has already stated that he has hope (v. 21, though the previous verse had stated that his hope was gone). According to the second colon of this verse, the one who has hope actively pursues God. The natural tendency of one who suffers at the hand of God is to try to run away, but the better course, as spelled out by verse 25, is rather to seek God. To seek God means to communicate with him, to come into his presence, and to get his help. In the light of the sin that has brought on the punishment, it likely means that they confess and repent of wrong doing (see vv. 40–42). The Lord will be good to such people. God’s goodness would begin by withdrawing from the punishment that he was presently directing at his people. He would restore them and bring them prosperity rather than pain.
The second and third lines in this stanza state what good things God’s people can do. The first involves quiet (patient?) waiting for the salvation of God. This statement needs to be read in the context of Lamentations, which are words directed toward God with the hope of eliciting relief from his punishment. The poet is not silent, but neither is the poet angry and fuming toward God. He raises challenges toward God’s continued affliction, but he does not question the fundamental justice of it. In other words, he acknowledges that it is punishment for their sin. However, he believes that enough is enough. He will go on to argue that the enemies that God used have overstepped their bounds and now deserve God’s punishment (see vv. 52–66).
The final good of the stanza states that it is good to bear the yoke when one is young. The yoke here is the yoke of God’s discipline. As a yoke channels the energies of animals, so God’s yoke of discipline curbs the wayward actions of his people. The implication of the statement seems to be that if one experiences God’s chastisement when young, then later in life the person will walk the straight and godly path. The mention of the yoke is reminiscent of Jeremiah 27 and 28. There the prophet is described as wearing a yoke and declaring God’s charge that his people submit themselves to Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar was God’s instrument of discipline and the people should accept that and learn. If they did, then they would be able to stay in the land. However, if they did not, then God would bring “sword, famine and plague” (Jer. 27:13) on them, which is exactly what happened. The people chose to listen to false prophets of peace like Hananiah rather than to Jeremiah. Accordingly, they suffered a fate worse than the wooden yoke of discipline that Jeremiah wore.
3:28–30 Yod. The tenth stanza continues to describe a proper attitude toward the suffering induced by God’s judgment. It expands on the idea of “quiet waiting” advocated in the previous stanza. It calls on the sufferer to sit alone in silence. In the book of Job, Job sits in silence for the first seven days (Job 2:13). Conflict with his friends and ultimately with God begins when he utters his lament directed not toward God but toward the three friends (ch. 3). The poet assumes the position that Job ultimately came to, silently sitting in the presence of God (“I put my hand over my mouth” [40:4]). The difference of course between Job and the suffering of Lamentations is that the suffering of the former did not result from sin, whereas the suffering of the exilic generation did, as acknowledged by the poet himself (3:42 and passim).
The second poetic line of the stanza (v. 29) advises burying one’s face in the dust. This is different than being trampled in the dust (v. 16). It involves a voluntary abasement, signifying repentance. Though not literally putting his face into the dust, Job assumes an analogous attitude when he says, “Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). Such an attitude and behavior moves the “man of affliction”/poet toward hope of restoration.
In the third line of the stanza (v. 30) the poet even encourages an acceptance of the abuse that comes toward him (let him offer his cheek to the one who would strike him). Such an attitude acknowledges the justice of the suffering.
3:31–33 Kaf. The poet creates the kaf stanza by beginning all three verses with the particle ki. The NIV translates the first and the last as for, and the middle verse with the concessive, though. In this way, the stanza gives the motivation for why the sufferer, described in the previous stanzas, should passively accept the pain and quietly wait for future divine deliverance.
Verse 31 asserts that God’s punishment is not eternal. It has a terminus. This poem does not state why, but elsewhere in Scripture one detects a divine strategy for the punishment of God’s people. Psalm 30 is a case in point. God had blessed the psalmist with prosperity (Ps. 30:7b, “you made my mountain stand firm”), but rather than respond with faith, the psalmist became presumptuous (Ps. 30:7a, “When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken’”). God then abandoned the psalmist (Ps. 30:7c-d, “but when you hid your face, I was dismayed”). Indeed, the psalmist suffered with sickness and nearly died until he “cried for mercy” (Ps. 30:8). As a result, God’s punishments came to an end and he turned the psalmist’s “wailing into dancing” (Ps. 30:11a). The poet of Lamentations expects the same divine turn from wailing to dancing in his future as well.
The next verse (v. 32) shares the poet’s expectation that grief will turn to compassion (rekhem). This expectation is built on his unfailing love (khesed). The latter is the same word translated “great love” in the pivotal verse 22. Notice that there too compassion is linked to love.
Verse 33 at first is surprising. What does it mean to say that God does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men? Who is forcing him? Indeed, the description of God as a warrior attacking the city of Jerusalem shows that he was not hesitant but approached the task with a certain relish (Lam. 2:1–12). But there is an important sense in which this statement is true. The same phenomenon is found in Isaiah where, after many devastating oracles, the prophet announces that God’s wrathful judgment constitutes his “strange” work (see Is. 28:21). That is, God’s violent judgment is not the typical, normal, hoped-for relationship with the covenant people. The poet finds in this realization further hope that compassion will follow grief.
3:34–36 Lamed. This stanza is created by three lameds prefixed to verbs (forming infinitives) that describe the present experience of the people of God. They are prisoners (of the Babylonians) and are being crushed underfoot. They are powerless before their captors. They have no rights as the subject of an occupying empire. God had granted people rights, but they are now being denied by those who reject Yahweh.
Thus, the present experience of God’s people is a life without justice at the hands of oppressive human occupiers. However, the final colon (would not the Lord see such things?) is a rhetorical question that demands a positive answer. Their present situation is not outside of the purview of the people; it is not outside of the control of their God.
3:37–39 Mem. The poet poses two questions that further reveal his awareness that God is behind their suffering, and a third question that brings his readers up short when they complain about their suffering.
Verse 37 points out that no one is beyond the effective control of the Lord. They can do nothing unless God allows it. A similar dynamic may be seen in Daniel 1:1–2. From a human perspective it looked like Nebuchadnezzar has simply cowed Jerusalem into submission. However, the narrator pulls back the curtains and tells the reader, “the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.” Nebuchadnezzar could not have spoken it or had it happen if the Lord had not decreed it. The same is the case for the present condition of the people of God at the time the book of Lamentations was written.
The next verse (v. 38) asserts that good and bad things come from God. He decrees all things. After his second test, Job came to the same conclusion: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10a), and with this response Job passed the second test posed by God to his piety (“In all this, Job did not sin” [Job 2:10b]).
All of this leads to the conclusion that people should not complain if they are being punished for their sin. If an innocent sufferer like Job was not supposed to and did not complain, how much less the exile generation whose plight was caused by their sins and the sins of their forefathers?
3:40–42 Nun. The thirteenth stanza begins with the language of introspection. The poet calls on the community to examine their ways and test them. The way (derek) is a well-known metaphor from wisdom literature to represent life’s journey. There are two ways, according to the pervasive teaching of Proverbs, the godly, wise, straight path and the ungodly, foolish, crooked path. The first way ends in life, the second in death. In order to improve its relationship with God, the community must comes to terms with the way they have chosen to go.
Of course, according to Jeremiah 17:9–10, since the heart is callous, it is only God who can do this with precise accuracy:
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
“I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”
Thus, the psalmist calls on God to examine his heart:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:23–24)
Nonetheless, it is important for the devastated community of Judah to inspect their lives as well, and take the next step and repent (let us return to the LORD). Such a suggestion of course implies that they have previously moved away from the Lord.
Verses 41–42 suggest words and actions to articulate the repentance. They are to assume the attitude of prayer (lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven). They are to acknowledge their wayward behavior (We have sinned and rebelled). However, the final thought of the stanza remarks that, even though they have repented, God has not yet seen fit to forgive them. His actions, as described in the next stanzas reveal his continuing wrath against them.
3:43–45 Samek. The previous stanza has suggested community confession and repentance, but the suggestion has evoked memories of the fact that God has not yet seen fit to forgive and restore. Now and in the next few stanzas the poet dwells on God’s hard judgment. The strategy is to convince God that perhaps he has gone a bit too far in his treatment of his people with the hope that his anger will subside.
Thus, though he earlier asserted that God “does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men” (3:33), he now pictures him as pursuing his wrathful task with a passionate zeal. God has pursued them and slain without pity.
Not only that, but he has recused himself from their prayers (v. 44). He acts as though he does not hear their prayers of confession. The cloud is often associated with God in the Old Testament. It represents his presence (Exod. 40:34–38) and it also stands for the divine war chariot that he rides into battle (Ps. 18:7–19; 68: 4; 104:1–4). However, here the cloud is something that he uses as a barrier between himself and his people.
Worse still, God has made them scum and refuse among the nations. God’s judgment has brought a tremendous reversal. With God’s blessing Jerusalem was a shining city (Ps. 48). Again, the strategy is to shock God with the idea that his people are so demeaned in the presence of the nations in hopes that he would restore them again to their previous exalted position.
3:46–48 Pe, the sixteenth letter (see Additional Notes) of the Hebrew alphabet. The first two verses develop the idea expressed in 3:45 that they have become the “scum and refuse” among the nations. The nations have opened their mouths wide against them as in 2:16. They speak harmful words against them. The poet then sums up what has happened to them (terror and pitfalls, ruin and destruction) and registers his deep grief, especially as he considers the women. Women were noncombatants at this time, and most of them were not decision makers. Thus, they suffered a horrible fate in such situations (rape and death) and had no control.
3:49–51 Ayin, the seventeenth letter (see Additional Notes for 3:46–48) of the Hebrew alphabet. The stanza expands the description of the grief of the poet, speaking in the persona of the “man of affliction.” His grief is limitless; his tears do not stop. Verse 50 suggests that the poet desires that his tears will cause the Lord to pay attention with the implicit hope that that will cause him to change course in his attitudes and actions toward the city. God is in heaven and has covered himself “with a cloud so that no prayer can get through” (v. 44), but perhaps he will be moved by tears of grief. The poet has already frequently tried to get the Lord to look on their piteous state (1:9, 11, 20; 2:20; see Provan, Lamentations, p. 103).
But he is not forcing the tears by any means. All he has to do is look around (what I see) to elicit sadness (see Additional Notes). In a classic “A, what’s more B” parallelism, the second colon of v. 50 speaks specifically of what in particular evokes sadness, the fate of the female population of the city. Women are particularly vulnerable at times like this. Men make the decision to go to battle and women lose their husbands and sons, while they themselves are subject to all kinds of abuse at the hands of the victors.
3:52–54 Tsade. The “man” now turns his attention to the enemies who afflict him. He has earlier numerous times acknowledged that his (representing the city’s) suffering was the result of sin and God’s judgment (1:5, 8–9, 12, 14 and many more passages). Even so, the poet is able to differentiate God from the enemy that God used to bring judgment upon him so that he can complain to God about the enemy, as he does in this section of the poem. Interestingly, in the prophets God does castigate and announce judgment on the foreign nations he uses to bring punishment on his people (i.e., Isa. 10:5–19; 34; Jer. 50–51).
The description of the enemy’s evil actions reminds the reader of language of the psalms. The fact that the enemy has no reason (without cause) to hurt the people of God makes their actions all the more reprehensible (see Pss. 7:4; 35:7, 19; 69:4; 109:3; 119:78, 86, 161; Prov. 24:28). Indeed, they are sneaky in their attack on the people of God; they hunt them like a fowler hunts birds (see Prov. 6:5; 7:23). Only God can help someone escape from the fowler’s snare (Pss. 91:3; 124:7).
Verse 52 changes the metaphor, describing the way that the enemy tries to ensnare the people of God. Now the trap is a pit into which the people of God have fallen and they are thus the easy target of stones that are thrown at them. Again in the book of Psalms the pit often was a metaphor for trouble, at times even suggesting the grave or the underworld (Pss. 7:15; 9:15; 28:1; 30:3, 9, 35:78–8; 40:2; 57:6; Prov. 1:12; 22:14; 23:27; 26:27).
Verse 53 presents one more metaphor of the trouble the “man” has encountered. These are the waters that threaten to overwhelm him. These waters are the waters of chaos and may even be connected to the idea of the ritual of “ordeal.” When someone was suspected of malfeasance, but with insufficient evidence, the judges or elders took the person to the river and threw them in. If the water overwhelmed the person, she or he was judged both guilty and punished with that one act. Ps. 69:1–2 is a comparable passage:
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
3:55–57 Qof. The NIV (see also NRSV) renders the verbs in this stanza and through verse 63 as past actions. Provan (Lamentations, p. 105, citing D. Michel, Tempora und Satzstellung in den Psalmen [AET 1; Bonn, 1961], pp. 79–81; see also Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, p. 126) argues that the verbs in verses 55–66 should be taken as imperatives throughout and suggests “in the midst of his current distress in the pit, the speaker cries out for God’s help.” Beside the arguments Provan provides, it seems that such an interpretation fits better with the context, where it is said that God has not listened to the people’s prayers (see vv. 43–45). Sticking with the NIV translation, but taking the verbs as imperatives rather than past tense, results in the following:
I call on your name, O LORD,
from the depths of the pit.
Hear my plea: “Do not close your ears
to my cry for relief.”
Come near when I call you,
and say, “Do not fear.”
In the previous stanza (vv. 52–54), the poet describes his plight as being thrown into a pit (v. 53) and now in the present stanza he turns to God from the pit. Again, the language is reminiscent of the psalms. In Psalm 30, for instance, the psalmist understands his condition as being placed in the pit with his enemies gloating over him. But he calls on the Lord who saves him from the pit. Indeed, Psalm 30 is a thanksgiving psalm, and this portion of Lamentations reads surprisingly like a thanksgiving. He not only records his pitiful cry from the pit (“Do not close your ears to my cry for relief”), but he also beseeches God to come near him at his cry with the reassuring words that he should not fear.
3:58–60 Resh. See the previous stanza for information about the correct rendition of the verbs in this section. The passage is best translated:
O Lord, take up my case;
redeem my life.
See, O LORD, the wrong done to me.
Uphold my cause!
See the depth of their vengeance,
all their plots against me.
The poet has called on God’s name to rescue him from the harsh treatment of the enemy and requests that God respond to him. Verses 58–60 are a development of verse 57. He asks that God take up his case. This legal language is found in the prophets to describe God as a prosecuting attorney, charging his people with breaking the covenantal law and thus making them subject to the curses of the covenant (i.e., Jer. 2:9; Mic. 6:1–2). But here the poet wants God to take the side of his people who are represented by “the man of affliction.” The enemy has treated him as if he is guilty, but God should become not his prosecuting attorney but his defense lawyer, and save (redeemed; should be imperative, “redeem”) his life. The poet is particularly concerned that God see the enemy’s bad treatment of God’s people. On that basis, he again appeals to God to come to his side (Uphold my cause!).
3:61–63 S(h)in. See comment at verses 55–57 for information about the correct rendition of the verbs in this section. The passage is best translated:
O Lord, hear their insults,
all their plots against me—
what my enemies whisper and mutter
against me all day long.
Look at them! Sitting or standing,
they mock me in their songs.
Again, the poet appeals to God to come to his aid based on the horrible treatment he receives from the enemy. He hopes to garner God’s sympathy and thus to change his attitude toward his people. The language here evokes the psalms of lament. In Psalm 69, the psalmist calls on God for help and describes his difficult situation in order to elicit God’s sympathy in terms similar to the present passage:
For I endure scorn for your sake,
and shame covers my face.
I am a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons;
For zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
When I weep and fast,
I endure scorn;
when I put on sackcloth,
people make sport of me.
Those who sit at the gate mock me,
and I am the song of drunkards. (Ps. 69:7–12)
Job too complains that he has become the subject of the musical mockery of the sons of people who were beneath him (Job 30:9). The poet of Lamentations thus joins a mournful group of people who are the persistent subject of an enemy’s ridicule. In the Lamentations passage this ridicule is constant as signaled by the merism sitting or standing, that is, all the time.
3:64–66 Tav. The poet’s lament ends as a number of psalmic laments end—with an imprecation directed toward the enemy. These imprecations arise from a sense of justice. They have acted wickedly and have so far gotten away with it, so the poet calls God’s attention to the inequity and he calls on God to rectify the situation. Modern sensibilities struggle with imprecations because they seem so self-centeredly vengeful, but then most commentators who so hesitate are typically themselves not subject to the type of exploitative behavior that elicits such a response.
The poet calls on God to put a veil over their hearts, an image not found elsewhere in Scripture (the word translated “veil” is difficult and subject to debate). The heart is a way of referring to a person’s inner life, perhaps with an emphasis on cognitive ability. Thus, to veil one’s heart is to confuse them, to make it hard for them to make a proper decision. In this way, the enemy will be weakened and vulnerable and subject to the destruction that the poet requests in the final verse of the chapter.
Additional Notes
3:17 NIV takes the verb as a third person feminine with “my soul” (nafshi) as the subject and then treats “my soul” as indicating first person speech. However, it is more likely that the verb is second person with God as the understood subject, producing the following more dramatic translation: “You have rejected my soul from peace.”
3:18 NIV renders nitskhi as “my splendor.” Earlier in Lamentations, NIV renders two other words as splendor as well. In 1:6 the splendor that has departed is hadar, and in 2:1 it is tifʾeret. While netsakh could be rendered something like “splendor” or “glory,” other options are available and are more likely since the other two words are used to cover the semantic range of “splendor.” Specifically, netsakh could mean “lastingness.” It has this meaning in the expression lenetsakh netsakhim (“forever and ever,” Isa. 34:10) as well as in a number of other contexts (see NIDOTTE, vol. 3, pp. 139–40).
3:41 The Hebrew of the first colon (nissaʾ lebabenu ʾel-kappayim) could be rendered with NIV (Let us lift up our hearts and our hands) or “Let us lift up our hearts in our hands.” Either translation gets the point across well, though the latter one is certainly more vivid and dramatic.
3:46–49 Typically, pe is the sixteenth letter and follows ayin, the fifteenth letter, in the Hebrew alphabet, but in this acrostic the order is reversed.
3:51 Literally, colon A says “My eyes inflict pain on my soul.” This expression could mean that he is crying so much and so hard that it hurts or, as NIV takes it, that what he sees with his eyes emotionally damages him.
