This elegy Lamentations. 3 is both the most elaborate in form and the most sublime in its ideas of the five poems which compose the Book of Lamentations. It presents the image of the deepest suffering, passing on to the confession of sin, the acknowledgment of God's justice, and the prayer of faith for forgiveness. It is the ideal representation of that godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of 2-Corinthians 12:10.

The prophet, by enumerating his own severe trials, vv. 1-20, and showing his trust in God, Lamentations 3:21, encourages his people to the like resignation and trust in the Divine and never-failing mercy, Lamentations 3:22-27. He vindicates the goodness of God in all his dispensations, and the unreasonableness of murmuring under them, Lamentations 3:28-39. He recommends self-examination and repentance; and then, from their experience of former deliverances from God, encourages them to look for pardon for their sins, and retribution to their enemies, vv. 40-66.

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 3
This chapter is a complaint and lamentation like the former, and on the same subject, only the prophet mixes his own afflictions and distresses with the public calamities; or else he represents the church in her complaints; and some have thought him to be a type of Christ throughout the whole; to whom various things may be applied. It is indeed written in a different form from the other chapters, in another sort of metre; and though in an alphabetical manner as the rest, yet with this difference, that three verses together begin with the same letter; so that the alphabet is gone through three times in it. Here is first a complaint of the afflictions of the prophet, and of the people, expressed by a rod, by darkness, by wormwood and gall, and many other things; and especially by the Lord's appearing against them as an enemy, in a most severe and terrible manner; shutting out their prayer; being as a bear and lion to them; and giving them up to the cruelty and scorn of their enemies, Lamentations 3:1; then follows some comfort taken by them, from the mercy, faithfulness, and goodness of God; from the usefulness of patience in bearing afflictions; and from the end of God in laying them upon men; and from the providence of God, by which all things are ordered, Lamentations 3:22; wherefore, instead of complaining, it would be better, it is suggested, to attend to the duties of examination of their ways, and of repentance, and of prayer, Lamentations 3:39; and a particular prayer is directed to, in which confession of sin is made, and their miseries deplored, by reason of the hidings of God's face, and the insults of their enemies, Lamentations 3:42; and then the prophet expresses his sympathy with his people under affliction, and declares what he himself met with from his enemies, Lamentations 3:48; and relates bow he called upon the Lord, and he heard and delivered him, Lamentations 3:55; and concludes with a request that he would judge his cause, and avenge him on enemies, Lamentations 3:59.

The faithful lament their calamities, and hope in God's mercies.

The Suffering and the Consolation of the Gospel
1 I am the man that have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 Me hat He led, and brought [through] darkness, and not light.
3 Only against me He repeatedly turneth His hand all the day.
4 He has wasted away my flesh and my skin; He hath broken my bones.
5 He buildeth up round about me poison and toil.
6 He maketh me sit down in dark places, like those for ever dead.
7 He hath hedged me about, so that I cannot get out; He hath made heavy my chain.
8 Moreover, when I cry and shout, He obstructeth my prayer.
9 He hath walled round my ways with hewn stone, He hath subverted my paths.
10 He is to me [like] a bear lying in wait, a lion in secret places.
11 He removeth my ways, and teareth me in pieces; He maketh me desolate.
12 He bendeth His bow, and setteth me up as the mark for the arrow.
13 He causeth the sons of His quiver to go into my reins.
14 I am become a derision to all my people, their [subject of] satire all the day.
15 He filleth me with bitterness, maketh me drink wormwood.
16 And He grindeth my teeth on gravel, He covereth me with ashes.
17 And my soul hath become despised by prosperity; I have forgotten [what] good [is].
18 And I said, My vital power is gone, and my hope from Jahveh.
19 Remember my misery and my persecution, wormwood and poison.
20 My soul remembereth [them] indeed, and sinketh down in me.
21 This I bring back to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 [It is a sign of] the mercies of Jahveh that we are not consumed, for His compassions fail not;
23 [They are] new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness.
24 Jahveh [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore I hope in Him.
25 Jahveh is good unto those who wait for Him, to a soul [that] seeketh Him.
26 It is good that [one] should wait, and that is silence, for the salvation of Jahveh.
27 It is good for man that he should bear a yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit solitary and be silent, for [God] hath laid [the burden] on him.
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust; perhaps there is [still] hope.
30 Let him give [his] cheek to him that smites him, let him be filled with reproach.
31 Because the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 For, though He causeth grief, He also pities, according to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He doth not afflict from His heart, and grieve the children of men.
34 To the crushing all the prisoners of the earth under one's feet,
35 To the setting aside of a man's rights before the face of the Most High.
36 To the overthrowing of a man in his cause: - doth not the Lord look [to such doings as these]?
37 Who hath spoken, and it was done, [which] the Lord commanded not?
38 Doth not evil and good come out of the mouth of Jahveh?
39 Why doth a man complain [because] he liveth? [Let every] man [rather lament] because of his sins.
40 Let us search and examine our ways, and let us return to Jahveh.
41 Let us lift up our heart to [our] hands towards God in the heavens.
42 We have transgressed and rebelled, Thou hast not pardoned.
43 Thou didst cover [Thyself] with anger, and didst persecute us; Thou hast slain, Thou hast not pitied.
(Note: In the latter part of this verse, Keil has written mitten unter den Vlkern, which is also (correctly) given as the rendering of the second part of Lamentations 3:45. This obvious inadvertence has been rectified in the English translation. - Tr.)
44 Thou didst cover Thyself with a cloud, so that prayer could not pass through.
45 Thou didst make us [like] offscourings and refuse in the midst of the nations.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Terror and a snare are ours, destruction and ruin.
48 Mine eye runneth down [with] streams of water, because of the ruin of the daughter of my people.
49 Mine eye poureth itself forth, and ceaseth not, so that there are no stoppings,
50 Until Jahveh shall look down and behold from heaven.
51 Mine eye causeth pain to my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
(Note: Keil has here misread the Hebrew text, and translated "my people" (עמּי) instead of "my city" (עירי). - Tr.)
52 Mine enemies closely pursued me, like a bird, without cause.
53 They were for destroying my life in the pit, and cast a stone on me.
54 Waters overflowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.
55 I called on Thy name, O Jahveh, out of the lowest dungeon.
56 Thou hast heard my voice; hide not Thine ear at my sighing, at my cry.
57 Thou art near in the day [when] I call on Thee; Thou sayest, Fear not.
58 Thou hast defended, O Lord, my soul; Thou hast redeemed my life.
59 Thou hast seen, O Jahveh, mine oppression; judge my cause.
60 Thou hast seen all their vengeance, all their projects against me.
61 Thou hast heard their reproach, O Jahveh, all their projects against me;
62 The lips of those who rise up against me, and their meditation against me all the day.
63 Behold their sitting down and their rising up: I am their satire.
64 Thou shalt return a recompense to them, O Jahveh, according to the work of their hands.
65 Thou shalf give to them blindness of heart, - Thy curse to them.
66 Thou shalt pursue [them] in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Jahveh.
Lamentations 3:1-66
The two preceding poems ended with sorrowful complaint. This third poem begins with the complaint of a man over grievous personal suffering. Regarding the contents of this poem, and its relation to the two which precede, Ewald makes the following excellent remarks: "In consequence of experiences most peculiarly his own, the individual may indeed at first make complaint, in such a way that, as here, still deeper despair for the third time begins (vv. 1-18); but, by the deepest meditation for himself on the eternal relation of God to men, he may also very readily come to the due acknowledgment of his own sins and the necessity for repentance, and thereby also to believing prayer. Who is this individual that complains, and thinks, and entreats in this fashion, whose I passes unobserved, but quite appropriately, into we? O man, it is the very image of thyself! Every one must now speak and think as he does. Thus it is just by this address, which commences in the most doleful tones, that sorrow for the first time, and imperceptibly, has passed into true prayer." This remark contains both the deepest truth and the key to the proper understanding of the contents of this poem, and its position in the middle of the Lamentations. Both of these points have been mistaken by expositors, who (e.g., C. B. Michaelis, Pareau, Maurer, Kalkschmidt, and Bleek in his Introduction) are of opinion that the writer here makes his personal sufferings the subject of complaint. This cannot be made out, either from Lamentations 3:14 or from the description given in Lamentations 3:53.: the reverse rather is shown by the fact that, in Lamentations 3:22 and Lamentations 3:40-47, we is used instead of I; from which it is evident that the prophet, in the remainder of the poem, is not speaking of himself, or bewailing his own personal sufferings. The confession found in Lamentations 3:42, "We have transgressed and rebelled, Thou hast not pardoned," etc., necessarily presupposes not only that the dealing of God towards the sinful and apostate nation, as described in Lamentations 3:42., stands in the closest connection with the sufferings of which the prophet complains in vv. 1-18, but also that the chastisement, by means of God's wrath, which was experienced by the man who utters his complaint in vv. 1-18, is identical with the anger which, according to Lamentations 3:43, discharged itself on the people; hence the suffering of the individual, which is described in vv. 1-18, is to be regarded as the reflex of but a special instance of the suffering endured by the whole community. Perhaps this was the view of Aben Ezra, when he says that, in this lamentation, it is individual Israelites who speak; and most expositors acknowledge that the prophet pours forth his lamentations and his prayers in the name of the godly.
The poem begins by setting forth the grievous soul-sufferings of the godly in their cheerless and hopeless misery (vv. 1-18); then it ascends, through meditation upon the compassion and almighty providence of God, to hope (vv. 19-39), and thus attains to the recognition of God's justice in sending the punishment, which, however, is so intensified through the malice of enemies, that the Lord cannot pass by the attempt to crush His people (Lamentations 3:40-54). This reliance on the justice of God impels to prayer, in which there is manifested confidence that God will send help, and take vengeance on the enemy (Lamentations 3:55-66).