The Pulpit Commentary — Lamentations — Section 32

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER m (comp. Job iii. 23; Hos. ii. 6). A prisoner with a heavy chain. Age.in, a. traveller Vel'I!. 1-21.-MONOLOGUE SPOKEN BY AN suddenly shut up by solid stone we.Us hallnDUAL BELIEVER WHOSE FATE IS (comp. Hos. ii. 8). llOuND UP WITH THAT 01" THE NATION; Ver. 7.-My ohe.in; literally, my bra88 Oil l'ERIIAPS BY TRE NATION PERSONil"IED (comp. Judg. xvi. 21; 2 Kings xxv. 7). ;see Introduction). Ver. 8.-He ahutteth out my prayer. Yer. 1.--Seen. "To see" in Hebrew often There is a kind of barrier through which means•· t-0 experience;" e.g. Jer. v. 12; Ps. these futile prayers cannot penetrate ( comp. :ni. 10; Eccles. viii 16. By the rod of hill on ver. 44). wrath. The idea is, not that Babylon has Ver. 9. - Inolosed; or, walled up ; the humbled Israel as Jehovah's instrument, participle of this verb is rendered •• me.sons" but that God himself he.a brought these in the Authorized Version of 2 Kings xii. 12. troubles upon his people. "He ha.th led Me.de my paths crooked; i.e. he.th compelled me, bath hedged me about," etc. me to wa.lk in byways (comp. margin of the Ver. 3.-lshetumed; he turneth; rather, Authorized Version, Judg. v. 6). But this he turneth again and again. hardly seems appropriate to the context. Ver. 4.-lte.de old; more 'literally, worn The semitas meas subvertit of the Vulge.te is away, a.s a garment (comp. Isa. l. 9; Ii. 6). preferable. Render, therefore, turned my Broken my bones. So Job complains, "His path upside down (comp. Ise.. :x.xiv. 1). An wrath tee.reth e.nd persecuteth me" (Job e.no.logous expression in Job :x.xx. 13 is xvi. 9); e.ud, e. still closer parallel, Hezekiah, rendered in the Authorized Version, "they " As a lion, so will he break all my bones" me.r my path.'' Thenius thinks that the de- (Isa. mviii. 13). Comp. Ps. Ii. 8, "The struction of a. raised causeway is the figure bones which thou ha.et broken." intended; hut the word is quite correctly Ver. 5.-He he.th builded e.ga.in5t me, and rendered " po.the ; " see the note of Dalitzsch oomp&Blled me. A figure from the siege of on Ise.. lix. 8. a town. Ga.ll. For the trne meaning of the Ver. 10.-Wa.s; rather, is. As a bear word, see on Jer. viii 14. We need not . . . as e. lion. The comparison of the trouble ourselves about it here, for the word enemy to a lion is not uncommon ; see e.g. is evidently used e.s a. kind of "ideograph" Jer. iv. 7; v. 6 (see note); xli.x. 19; 1. 44; for bitterness. Travel; literally, weariness. Ps. x. 9; xvii. 12; Job x. 16. The bear is Ver. 6.-This verse is verbally reproduced only once mentioned in such e. context in Ps. cxliii 3. In dark ple.ces; i.e. in (Hos. xiii. 8). The two latter passages Hades ( comp. Ps. lmviii. 7). As they tliat may possibly have been in the mind of the be dead of old. A strange comparison ; for writer, e.s Jehovah is in both the subject of wLut difference ce.n it make whether the the comparison. dead lil'e men of the ancient or the modern Ver. 11.-He.th turned aside my ways; world ? The rende1ing, however, though i.e. bath caused me to go astray. Comp. perfectly admissible, is less suitable to the Ps. cxlvi. 9, "The way of the ungodly he context than as they that are /or ever maketh crooked," i.e. he leadeth them to dead; who have entered "the land from destruction. Made me desola.te; or, made which there is no return" (an Assyrian me stunned (" astonied," Ezra. ix. 3 in our tiile of He.des). Comp. " the everlasting Bible). So eh. i. 13, 16. house," i.e. the grave (Eccles. xii. 5), •• the Ver. 12.-Bet me e.s a. mark. Precisely everlasting sleep" (Jer. Ii. 39, 57). e.s Job complains of Jel,ovah, "He he.th se& Vers. 7-9.-Three figures, interrupted me up for his mark" (Job xvi. 13). by e. literal statement of the ill success of Ver. 13.-This verse seems strangely prayer. A traveller who findd himself short-it coneiste of only four words in the suddenly caged up by ll higli thorn hedge Hebrew. frobijbly something like '' hie cm. lll. 1-66.J THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.