Lamentations 3

I am the man who has seen suffering under the rod of God's anger.

1I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

NoteThis chapter is an alphabet poem: sixty-six lines in twenty-two groups of three, and all three lines of each group begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, working through the alphabet in order. The pattern is invisible in English. "The man" translates a Hebrew word for a grown male in his strength, often a soldier, not simply a person.

2He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness instead of light.

2He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

3Yes, he has turned against me; he turns his hand against me again and again, all day long.

3Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.

4He has worn out my flesh and my skin; he has broken my bones.

4My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

5He has built up walls to close me in, and has surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

5He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.

Note"He hath builded against me" is siege language. An army attacking a walled city built ramps and blockading walls around it to seal it off and starve it out. The speaker pictures God doing that to him.

6He has made me live in dark places, like people who died long ago.

6He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.

Note"They that be dead of old" means the long dead. The darkness is the darkness of the grave, where the Hebrews pictured the dead as remaining.

7He has walled me in so I cannot get out; he has weighed me down with heavy chains.

7He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

8Even when I cry out and shout for help, he shuts my prayer out.

8Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

9He has blocked my roads with cut stone; he has made my paths twist and turn.

9He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.

NoteHewn stone is quarried and squared building block, not loose rubble. A wall of it is meant to be permanent.

10To me he has been like a bear waiting to attack, like a lion hiding to ambush me.

10He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

11He pulled me off my path and tore me to pieces; he left me with no help at all.

11He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.

12He bent his bow and set me up as the target for his arrow.

12He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

13He drove the arrows from his quiver deep into my body.

13He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

NoteThe King James "reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew writers located the deepest feelings and the innermost self in the kidneys, much as English speakers locate them in the heart. An arrow there is also a fatal wound.

14I became a joke to all my people; they sang about me all day long.

14I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

NoteMany Hebrew manuscripts read "all my people," but a good number read "all peoples", mocked by his own countrymen, or by everyone. Mocking songs were a recognized form of public humiliation.

15He has filled me with bitter things; he has made me drink wormwood until I stagger like a drunk man.

15He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.

NoteWormwood is a shrub of the Artemisia family with an intensely bitter taste. In Hebrew it is a stock image for anything bitter to endure.

16He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has pushed me down into the ashes.

16He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.

NoteAshes and dust are the standard signs of mourning, a grieving person sat in them or poured them over his head. Here the picture is more violent: being ground down into them.

17You have taken peace far away from me; I have forgotten what it is like to do well.

17And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.

18So I said, "My strength is gone, and so is my hope in the LORD."

18And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:

19Remember my suffering and my misery, the wormwood and the bitter poison.

19Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

Note"Gall" translates a Hebrew word for a bitter, poisonous plant (its exact identity is uncertain, poppy and hemlock have both been suggested). Paired with wormwood it is a set phrase for bitter suffering.

20My soul keeps remembering these things, and I am bowed down inside.

20My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

21But this I call to mind, and so I have hope:

21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

22Because of the LORD's steady love we are not destroyed, for his mercies never run out.

22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

Note"Mercies" here translates the Hebrew word *chesed*: loyal, committed love, the kind owed within a binding relationship rather than a passing feeling. The Hebrew of this verse is difficult; some ancient versions read "the LORD's acts of love never cease" instead of "we are not consumed."

23They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

24"The LORD is my portion," I tell myself, "so I will put my hope in him."

24The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

NoteA "portion" was a person's allotted share of the land, the inheritance he lived off. The priests and Levites were given no land of their own; the LORD was said to be their portion instead. To call him "my portion" is to claim him as one's entire holding.

25The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the person who looks for him.

25The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

26It is good to hope, and to wait quietly, for the LORD to save.

26It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Note"Salvation" in the King James usually carries its older, ordinary sense: rescue or deliverance from danger, not a term about the afterlife.

27It is good for a man to bear the yoke, the load laid on him, while he is still young.

27It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

NoteA yoke is the wooden frame laid across the necks of oxen to harness them to a plow or cart. It is the standard image for a burden or a discipline imposed from outside.

28Let him sit alone and stay silent, because God has laid this load on him.

28He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.

29Let him put his face down in the dust; maybe there is still hope.

29He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

NotePutting the mouth or face to the ground was the physical gesture of total submission, how a defeated man or a subject approached a king. "If so be" means "perhaps"; the hope is uncertain.

30Let him turn his cheek to the one who strikes him, and take his full share of insults.

30He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.

NoteA blow to the cheek was an insult before it was an injury; the point was public shaming rather than damage.

31For the Lord will not turn people away forever.

31For the LORD will not cast off for ever:

32Even when he brings grief, he will show pity, because his steady love is so great.

32But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

33He does not want to bring pain or grief to people.

33For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

NoteThe Hebrew is literally "not from his heart", not out of his own inclination or desire.

34Crushing under foot all the prisoners of the land,

34To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

NoteVerses 34, 35 and 36 form a single sentence, and it does not finish until the end of verse 36: these three things are what the Lord does not approve.

35denying a person justice right in front of the Most High,

35To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

36cheating a person in his court case, the Lord does not approve of any of this.

36To subvert a man in his cause, the LORD approveth not.

37Who can say a thing and have it happen, if the Lord has not ordered it?

37Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

38Do not both bad times and good times come from the mouth of the Most High?

38Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

Note"Evil" in the King James commonly means disaster, harm or calamity rather than moral wickedness. The pairing here is bad fortune and good fortune.

39So why should any living person complain, when he is being punished for his own sins?

39Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

40Let us look closely at our ways and test them, and turn back to the LORD.

40Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.

41Let us lift up our hearts along with our hands to God in heaven.

41Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

NoteStanding with hands raised and open was the ordinary posture of prayer. "Lift up our heart with our hands" asks that the inward attitude match the outward gesture.

42We have broken your law and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

42We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.

43You wrapped yourself in anger and chased us down; you killed, and you showed no pity.

43Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

44You wrapped yourself in a cloud, so that no prayer could get through.

44Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.

45You have made us garbage and trash among the nations.

45Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.

46All our enemies open their mouths wide against us.

46All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

47Terror and traps have come on us, ruin and destruction.

47Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.

NoteThe Hebrew pairs two near-identical sounding words, *pachad* and *pachat*, terror and pit. The "snare" is a concealed pit dug to trap animals.

48Rivers of tears run down from my eyes because my people, dear to me as a daughter, have been destroyed.

48Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Note"The daughter of my people" is a Hebrew idiom in which a city or a nation is spoken of as a woman. It carries affection, like calling a community "my poor people."

49My eyes keep overflowing and will not stop; there is no relief,

49Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,

50until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees.

50Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

51What my eyes see brings grief to my heart, because of all the young women of my city.

51Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.

NoteAmbiguous in the Hebrew. "The daughters of my city" may mean the women of Jerusalem, or it may use the common idiom by which the villages surrounding a city are called its daughters.

52My enemies hunted me hard, like a bird, and I had done nothing to them.

52Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.

53They cut off my life in a pit, and they threw stones down on me.

53They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

NoteThe King James "dungeon" is a cistern, a bottle-shaped pit cut into rock to store water. Empty ones were used as makeshift prisons, and a stone was rolled over the narrow mouth to seal a prisoner in.

54Water flowed over my head, and I said, "I am finished."

54Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.

NoteWater rising over the head is a standing image for death and the grave, and here also the literal danger of a cistern that still holds water.

55I called on your name, LORD, from deep down in the pit.

55I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.

56You heard my voice. Do not close your ears when I gasp for breath and cry for help.

56Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.

57You came near on the day I called to you; you said, "Do not be afraid."

57Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

58Lord, you argued my case for me; you bought my life back.

58O LORD, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.

NoteThe whole verse is courtroom language: God takes the role of the advocate who argues the case. "Redeemed" translates a word from family law, the nearest male relative was obliged to buy back a kinsman's land or freedom, and to take up his cause. That relative was the redeemer.

59LORD, you have seen the wrong done to me. Judge my case.

59O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.

60You have seen how badly they want revenge, and all their plots against me.

60Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.

61LORD, you have heard their insults, and all their plots against me

61Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;

62what my attackers say out loud, and what they scheme against me all day long.

62The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

63Look at them, sitting down and standing up: they make up songs to mock me.

63Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

Note"Their sitting down and their rising up" is a Hebrew way of saying everything they do, all the time. "I am their musick" means he is the subject of their mocking songs.

64Pay them back, LORD, for what their hands have done.

64Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.

65Give their hearts nothing but grief; put your curse on them.

65Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "sorrow of heart" occurs nowhere else and its meaning is uncertain. It seems to mean a covering laid over the heart, which could be dullness, hardness, or anguish.

66Chase them down in anger and wipe them out from under the heavens of the LORD.

66Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.