Lamentations 3:1-18--Great Is Your Faithfulness (Part 1)

Lamentations 3:1-18
English Standard Version

Great Is Your Faithfulness
3 I am the man who has seen affliction
    under the rod of his wrath;
2 he has driven and brought me
    into darkness without any light;
3 surely against me he turns his hand
    again and again the whole day long.

4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
    he has broken my bones;
5 he has besieged and enveloped me
    with bitterness and tribulation;
6 he has made me dwell in darkness
    like the dead of long ago.

7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
    he has made my chains heavy;
8 though I call and cry for help,
    he shuts out my prayer;
9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones;
    he has made my paths crooked.

10 He is a bear lying in wait for me,
    a lion in hiding;
11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces;
    he has made me desolate;
12 he bent his bow and set me
    as a target for his arrow.

13 He drove into my kidneys
    the arrows of his quiver;
14 I have become the laughingstock of all my people,
    the object of their taunts all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitterness;
    he has sated me with wormwood.

16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
    and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
    so has my hope from the LORD.”

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I'm going to break this chapter up as there's a pretty clear change in tone towards the middle as Jeremiah starts to quote the Psalms that talks about the never-ending, unfailing covenant love of the LORD and how to find joy in the midst of horrible circumstances.  We'll probably get to that part tomorrow, but for now, we have more lament over how things are really bad.

Jeremiah isn't just a prophets that is talking about the coming wrath of God.  He has seen and experienced the wrath of God all around him.  He is skin and bones and even that isn't holding up too well these days as Jeremiah says some of his bones are broken and his flesh is wasting away.

Jeremiah feels just as besieged and enveloped as the city of Jerusalem.  Only, it is not with siegeworks that He has been surrounded, but with bitterness and tribulation on all sides.  Again, Jeremiah talks about dwelling in darkness as opposed to dwelling in the light.  This is probably literal because of the lack of light sources but probably also because of of the sadness and gloom and depression and agony that all around him.

The LORD gave His people no way of escape.  They were to to surrender and go into exile or they were to die trying to resist.  The sooner they gave up, the better it would be for them.  The LORD is also lying in wait for any who try to escape.  For those who might escape the hand of the Chaldeans and Babylonians, they will not escape the long arm of the LORD.  This is a lesson that the people should have known from back when the LORD set them free from their slavery in Egypt for they worship with a refrain of "with a mighty hand an outstretched arm" and the often mentioned how the arm of the LORD was not too short to save them.  That same power that was mighty to save them is the same power they are foolishly trying to fight against.  They cannot win.

The LORD has delivered the kill-shot (Jeremiah described an arrow to the kidneys).  Just imagine a person who is going to be in the lake of fire and utter judgment they are going to be in if this is the kind of wrath that was poured out on His people here on earth.  We have just a taste here of what the wrath of the LORD looks like, and we don't want to taste it.  This is the cup of the LORD's wrath that Jesus drank to its dregs for us.  Jeremiah feels he is without hope, but He will remember the songs they sang in the Temple and hope will return to him.