Lamentations 3:21 - Meaning and Application

Here the clouds begin to part and the sky starts to clear. The earlier part of the chapter was full of grief, but now the tone changes, and the mourners in Zion begin to look a little more hopeful. Without hope, the heart would break. So the writer calls something to mind that gives room for hope, and this point belongs with what follows, not what comes before.

“I recall it to mind,” the margin says, “therefore I have hope.” What we once had in our hearts, and even tried to keep there, can seem lost and forgotten. Then God, by his grace, brings it back to us when we need it. When that happens, we remember it again, and hope rises where despair had almost taken over.

Let us see what he brings to mind. First, even though things are very bad, they are only as good as they are because of God’s mercy. We are under the rod of his anger, yet it is by the Lord’s mercies that we are not destroyed (Lamentations 3:22). When we are in trouble, we should notice what is for us as well as what is against us. Things may be bad, but they might have been worse, and that gives reason to hope they may yet improve.

“We are not consumed” is one of the blessings he names. The church of God is like Moses’s burning bush, on fire but not destroyed. Whatever hardships it has faced, or may yet face, it will still remain in the world to the end of time. People may persecute it, but God does not leave it, and so, though it is knocked down, it is not ruined (2 Corinthians 4:9). It is corrected, but not consumed, like silver refined in a furnace, not like waste burned away.

He then traces these streams of mercy back to their source. It is the Lord’s mercies. The word is in the plural, showing their great number and variety. God is an endless fountain of mercy, the Father of mercies. We all owe it to his sparing mercy that we are not consumed. Others have been consumed around us, and we ourselves have been in danger of being consumed, yet here we are. We are not in the grave. We are not in hell. If God had dealt with us only according to our sins, we would have been consumed long ago. Instead, he has dealt with us according to his mercies, and we should praise him for it.

Second, even at the deepest point of suffering, they still know the tenderness of God’s pity and the truth of his promise. They had often complained that God had not shown pity (Lamentations 2:17, 21), but here they correct themselves. God’s compassions do not fail. They do not truly fail, even when, in anger, he seems to have shut up his tender mercies. These streams of mercy run steadily and fully, and they never run dry.

They are new every morning. Every morning brings fresh signs of God’s compassion toward us. He visits us with them every morning (Job 7:18). Every morning he brings his judgment to light (Zephaniah 3:5). When our comforts disappear, God’s compassions do not. Great is his faithfulness. Though it seemed as if the covenant had been broken, they confess that it still stands firm. Even if Jerusalem lies in ruins, the truth of the Lord lasts forever. No matter how hard our sufferings are, we must not think harshly of God. We should still say that he is both kind and faithful.

Third, God is, and always will be, the complete happiness of his people, and they have chosen him and depend on him to be that for them (Lamentations 3:24). “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul. That means, first, “Even if I lose all I have in this world, my freedom, my work, and almost my life, I have not lost my share in God.” Earthly portions are fading things, but God is a portion forever.

It also means, “If I have God, I have enough. He is enough to balance all my troubles and make up for all my losses.” Whatever else we lose, our portion is safe. And it means, “This is what I trust and rest in. Therefore I will hope in him. I will lean on him and encourage myself in him when every other support has failed.” It is our duty to make God the portion of our souls, and then to use him as our portion and take comfort in him, even in our lamenting.

Fourth, those who deal with God will find that trusting him is never wasted. He is good to those who do so (Lamentations 3:25). He is good to all, since his tender mercies cover all he has made. All his creatures taste his goodness. But he is especially good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

When trouble lasts and deliverance is delayed, we must patiently wait for God and for his gracious return. While we wait by faith, we must seek him in prayer. Our souls must seek him, or we are not seeking in a way that truly finds him. Seeking helps us keep waiting. And to those who wait and seek, God will be gracious. He will show them his marvelous lovingkindness.

Those who do this will find it good for them to hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord (Lamentations 3:26). It is good, both as a duty and as a source of deep comfort, to trust that salvation will come, even when the obstacles seem too heavy to bear. It is good to wait until it comes, even if it is delayed for a long time. And while we wait, we should be quiet and not argue with God or make ourselves restless. We should accept his ordering of things and say, “Father, your will be done.” If we keep this in mind, we can hope that all will end well at last.

Fifth, afflictions are truly good for us, and if we bear them rightly, they will work for our good. It is not only good to hope and wait for salvation. It is also good to be under trouble for the time being (Lamentations 3:27). “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Many of the young men had been taken into captivity. To help them endure it, he tells them that it was good for them to bear the yoke of that captivity, if only they would adjust themselves to it and try to answer God’s purposes in laying that heavy burden on them.

This also fits very well with the yoke of God’s commands. It is good for young people to take that yoke on themselves while they are young. We cannot begin too soon to be religious. It makes duty more pleasing to God and easier for us when we begin in youth. But here the meaning seems to be the yoke of affliction. Many people have found it good to bear that yoke while they were young. It has made some humble and serious, and has turned their hearts away from the world, when otherwise they would have been proud and stubborn, like a young bull untrained for the yoke.

But when does bearing the yoke in youth become truly good for us? He answers that in the next verses.

When we sit quietly under our troubles, when we stay alone and keep silent, we are acting wisely. We should not rush around to every group with our complaints, making our misery seem worse and arguing with God’s ordering of our lives. Instead, we should withdraw, so that in a day of trouble we can think clearly, speak with God, and examine our own hearts. We need to silence bitter, doubtful thoughts and, like Aaron, hold our peace under a hard trial.

We must keep silent under God’s yoke, as people who know we did not choose it for ourselves, but have patiently submitted when God laid it on us. When those who are troubled in their youth accept their troubles, fit their necks to the yoke, and seek to answer God’s purpose in afflicting them, they will find that bearing it is good for them. It produces the peaceful fruit of righteousness in those who are trained by it.

We also get good from the yoke when we are humble and patient under affliction. The person who puts his mouth in the dust does more than accept God’s will, he also shows sorrow, shame, and self-hate for remembered sin. He comes low, as one fully conquered and brought down to lick the dust (Psalm 72:9). We must humble ourselves in this way, if there may be hope, or, as the Hebrew can mean, perhaps there is hope.

If there is any way to gain and keep a good hope under trouble, this is the way. Even so, we should be very modest in what we expect. We should look for it with an “it may be,” as people who admit we are completely unworthy of it. Those who are truly humbled for sin will gladly receive a good hope through grace on any terms, even if they must put their mouth in the dust for it. Those who want hope must do the same, and they must credit free grace if they receive any encouragement. That can keep their hearts from sinking while they are humbled.

We also get good from the yoke when we are gentle and forgiving toward those who cause our trouble. The one who gives his cheek to the one who strikes him, and turns the other cheek rather than answering with a second blow (Matthew 5:39), is bearing the yoke well. Our Lord Jesus gave us this example, for he gave his back to those who struck him (Isaiah 50:6). If a person can bear shame and insult without returning insult for insult or bitterness for bitterness, but instead pours out his grief before the Lord, he will find that bearing the yoke is good for him (Psalm 123:4).

The whole matter is this: if trouble produces patience, patience produces experience, and experience produces a hope that does not put us to shame.

God will also graciously return to his people with comforts at the right time, in keeping with how long he has afflicted them (Lamentations 3:31-32). The sufferer is penitent and patient because he believes God is gracious and merciful. That is the great encouragement both for sincere repentance and for Christian patience.

We can hold ourselves up with these thoughts: when we are cast down, we are not cast off. A father’s correction of his child is not the same as disowning him. Even if we seem cast off for a time, while felt comforts are withheld and hoped-for deliverance is delayed, we are not truly cast off, because we are not cast off forever. The dispute with us will not last forever.

Whatever sorrow we are under is what God has assigned to us, and his hand is in it. It is he who causes grief, so we may be sure he orders it wisely and with grace. It is only for a little while, and only when needed, that we are in heaviness (1 Peter 1:6). God also has compassion and comfort stored up even for those whom he has grieved himself. We must not think that, because God causes grief, the world will fix it for us. No, the same hand that caused the wound must bring the healing, or we are lost. “He has torn us, and he will heal us” (Hosea 6:1).

When God returns to deal kindly with us, he will not do it because we deserve it, but according to his mercy, according to the great abundance of his mercies. We are so undeserving that nothing but overflowing mercy can help us, and from that mercy we may expect much. God’s causing our grief should never discourage those hopes.

When God causes grief, he does it for wise and holy purposes, and he does not take delight in our suffering (Lamentations 3:33). He does afflict and grieve people, and all our hardships come from him. But he does not do it gladly, or from his heart. He never afflicts us except when we have given him cause. He does not hand out judgments the way he gives gifts, simply because he chooses to. If he shows kindness, it is because it pleases him. If he writes bitter things against us, it is because we both deserve them and need them.

He does not afflict with pleasure. He does not delight in the death of sinners or the distress of his people, but punishes with a kind of reluctance. He comes out to judge, for his proper place is the mercy seat, the place where atonement, or covering for sin, is made. He does not delight in the misery of any creature. As for his own people, he is so far from delighting in it that in all their afflictions he is afflicted, and his soul is grieved for the misery of Israel.

He keeps his kindness for his people even while he afflicts them. If he does not willingly grieve the children of men, he is even less willing to grieve his own children. Whatever the outward appearance, God is still good to them (Psalm 73:1), and by faith they may see love in his heart even when they see frowns on his face and a rod in his hand.

Though he uses men as his hand, or rather as tools in his hand, to correct his people, he is far from approving the injustice they commit or the wrong they do (Lamentations 3:34-36). God may use the violence of wicked and unreasonable people to carry out his own purposes, but that does not mean he supports their violence. His oppressed people are sometimes tempted to think that he does, but he does not. In two ways, God’s people are injured and oppressed by their enemies, and the prophet assures us that God does not approve of either one. If men harm them by force of arms, God does not approve of that. He does not himself crush the prisoners of the earth under his feet, but he hears the cry of the prisoners. Nor does he approve of men doing it, and he is deeply displeased with it.

It is cruel to crush people who are already down and unable to protect themselves.

If people harm them under the cover of law and a fake show of justice, if they twist a man’s rights so he cannot even know what belongs to him or reach it, if they ruin his case and bring in a false verdict or a wrong judgment, let them know two things. God sees them. This is done before the face of the Most High (Lam 3:35), under his eye, and it strongly displeases him. They cannot honestly claim ignorance, so in doing this they are openly defying him.

He is the Most High, and they are mocking his authority by abusing the authority they have over others. They should remember that the One who is higher than the highest watches everything (Ecc 5:8). God also does not approve of them. More is meant here than is directly said. Twisting justice and crushing the innocent are great insults to God, and although he may allow such people to be used for a time in correcting his people, he will sooner or later call them to account.

The lesson is clear. Even when God lets wrongdoers prosper for a season and uses them for his own purposes, that does not mean he approves of their evil actions. God does not do wrong, and he does not support those who do.