Lamentations 3:42 - Meaning and Application

It is easier to rebuke ourselves for complaining than to stop complaining altogether. The prophet had already admitted that a living man has no reason to complain, as if he had checked himself earlier in the chapter. Yet the grief comes back, like rain after rain, and the wound starts bleeding again. A troubled heart needs careful work before it can be brought back to peace.

First, they confess that God is right to afflict them (Lamentations 3:42). “We have sinned and rebelled.” When we are in trouble, we should defend God by admitting our own sin and taking the blame on ourselves. Call sin a transgression, call it rebellion, and you are calling it what it truly is. This confession came from searching their own ways more and more closely. The more they examined themselves, the worse they found their case.

Second, they complain about the troubles they are suffering, and at points they speak in ways we should not copy. In hard trials, we must always think and speak well of God. They say his anger is still against them. Their sins were repented of, and yet they say, “You have not forgiven us” (Lamentations 3:42). They had not yet felt the comfort and assurance of pardon. The judgments for their sins had not been lifted, so they wrongly thought the sin itself was not forgiven. This is a common mistake among God’s people when their hearts are crushed and restless.

Their condition was truly miserable, and they say, “You have not had pity” (Lamentations 3:43). Their enemies were the ones who hunted them down and killed them, but they saw God’s hand above all. “You have persecuted us and killed us,” they say, meaning, “We had expected you to protect and deliver us.” They felt there was a barrier between them and God. Because of that barrier, God’s blessings did not come down to them. The beauty and honor that once marked Israel had been hidden by his anger. Or, as they also mean, they were covered like the dead, forgotten and buried.

That same barrier also seemed to keep their prayers from rising to God (Lamentations 3:44). “You have covered yourself with a cloud,” they say. This was not the bright cloud that once filled the temple and drew worshipers near, but the dark cloud that came over Mount Sinai and forced the people to keep their distance. The cloud felt so thick that their prayers seemed lost in it. They could not pass through. Delay in trouble can tempt even praying people to wonder whether God is truly the prayer-hearing God they have always believed him to be.

Third, they complain about the contempt of their neighbors and the shame they suffer (Lamentations 3:45). “You have made us like refuse and scraps.” Paul refers to this when he says the apostles were treated as “the filth of the world” and “the offscouring of all things” (1 Corinthians 4:13). They were treated like waste, trampled by everyone, and regarded as worthless. Their enemies opened their mouths against them, like roaring lions ready to swallow them, or they mocked them freely and said whatever they pleased about them (Lamentations 3:46). This same kind of complaint appears earlier in the book (Lamentations 2:15-16).

It is common for cruel, base people to attack those who have fallen from honor into deep distress. Yet the people had brought much of this on themselves by their sin. If they had not made themselves vile, their enemies could not have made them appear so. That is why people call them rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them for rejecting him.

Fourth, they complain about the terrible destruction their enemies brought on them (Lamentations 3:47). Fear and a trap came upon them. The enemy not only frightened them with alarms, but also overpowered them by clever traps and sudden attacks. After that came only ruin and destruction, the destruction of the daughter of my people, and of the daughters of my city (Lamentations 3:48, 3:51).

Some were caught like birds in a snare. Others were chased like harmless birds hunted by a bird of prey (Lamentations 3:52). “My enemies chased me hard like a bird,” the prophet says, as Saul once hunted David like a partridge. Their persecutors were restless, and their hatred was without cause. God was right, but they were not. David often speaks of those who hated him without cause, and that is true of Christ and his church as well (John 15:25).

The enemy pursued them until he seemed to have fully prevailed (Lamentations 3:53). “They cut off my life in the dungeon.” Their captives were shut in dark prisons, cut off from the land of the living (Lamentations 3:6). Or the nation itself was treated as if it were dead and ruined, buried under a stone, like a body sealed in a tomb. The conquerors looked at the Jewish nation as dead and buried, with no hope of rising again. Ezekiel saw this same condition in vision, as a valley full of dry bones.

Their ruin is compared not only to burying a dead man, but also to a living man sinking in deep water, unable to live long there (Lamentations 3:54). “Waters flowed over my head.” The flood rose high and overwhelmed them. The Chaldean army broke in like waters bursting out, rising so high that they went over the people’s heads. They could not wade through it, and they could not swim. They had no way to keep from sinking.

Finally, they complain about their own deep grief and fear because of all this. The suffering church is drowned in tears, and the prophet weeps for her (Lamentations 3:48, 3:49). “My eyes flow down with rivers of water.” Their tears were abundant, and they kept falling without stopping. Their misery gave them no break, and the trouble stayed at full strength. He adds, “My eyes affect my heart” (Lamentations 3:51). What he sees with his eyes deeply moves his heart. The more he looks at the ruin of the city and the land, the more he grieves.

Wherever I look, I find something that renews my sorrow, even the daughters of my city, the towns around Jerusalem that belonged to it like daughters to a mother city. Or this may mean, my weeping eye affects my heart, so that letting out grief does not ease it, but only makes it stronger and sharper. It may also mean, my eye melts my soul, I have wept away my strength. Not only my eye is worn out with sorrow, but my soul and my life are spent with it (Psalm 31:9-10).

Deep grief that lasts a long time drains a person’s strength and can bring even the young to the grave. “I weep,” says the prophet, “more than all the daughters of my city,” if we follow the margin. He says he has shown more tears than even the tender sex, meaning women, were thought to show in grief. This is no shame for anyone who mourns deeply over the sins of sinners and the sufferings of God’s people. Our Lord Jesus did this too, for when he came near Jerusalem, he looked at the city and wept over it, and the daughters of Jerusalem did not do so.

She is also overwhelmed with fear. She does not only grieve over what has happened, but she fears worse troubles and gives up all hope. “Then I said, I am cut off, ruined, and see no hope of recovery; I am as one dead” (Lamentations 3:54). Those who are cast down are often tempted to think that they are cast off by God too (Psalm 31:22; Jonah 2:4).

In the middle of these sad complaints, there is one word of comfort, which shows that their condition was not as hopeless as they felt it was. We keep weeping until the Lord looks down and sees from heaven. This means, first, that they were sure God’s kind attention to them in their troubles would bring real help to all their problems. If God, who now seems to hide behind a cloud as though he does not notice our troubles (Job 22:13), would only shine on us, everything would be well. If he looks on us, we will be saved (Psalm 80:19; Daniel 9:17).

Second, they hoped that he would at last look on them with favor and bring relief. In fact, they treat it as sure: though he may contend with them for a long time, he will not contend forever, even though they deserve that he should. Third, while they keep weeping, they also keep waiting. They do not expect help from any other hand. Nothing will comfort them except his gracious return, and nothing will wipe away their tears until he looks down. Their eyes, which now flow with tears, must keep watching for the Lord their God until he has mercy on them (Psalm 123:2).