Lamentations 3:32

Lamentations mourns the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BC, when the city and its Temple were destroyed and the people of Judah were carried into exile (2 Kings 25). The book is traditionally ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah. Its first two chapters grieve over the ruined city (Lamentations 1, Lamentations 2), and they say plainly why it fell: “the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions” (Lamentations 1:5). Judah had broken the covenant, and the curses that the law set out for disobedience had come upon her (Deuteronomy 28). For the survivors this was a crisis of faith as well as a disaster. They had to ask whether God had set aside his promises and rejected his people for good.

Lamentations 3 is an alphabetic acrostic, and it speaks in the voice of one man, “the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath”, who suffers with his people and speaks for them. He tells at length what God’s hand has done to him (Lamentations 3:1–18).

Then he calls something to mind and takes hope: “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23). He goes on to say that the LORD is good to those who wait for him, and that it is good to hope and quietly wait for his salvation. Our passage carries straight on from those words. A man who bears the yoke well sits silent under it and takes the blow (verses 27–30). He can do this because of who the Lord is, merciful in his heart and just in all he sees (verses 31–36). And since all that happens comes at the Lord’s command, the man who suffers for his sins is called to lay down his complaint (verses 37–39) and, as the next verse says, to “search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD” (Lamentations 3:39–40).

“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Coming just after “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him” and “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD”, this is the third thing in a row that the chapter calls good. The Hebrew word, ṭôwb, is a broad one that covers what is pleasant, beneficial, excellent and right, and here it means that the yoke does the man who bears it real good.

The yoke, ʻôl, is the bar or frame that joins draft animals at the neck so that they can pull a load, and Scripture uses it as a picture of burden, hard service and bondage. In Lamentations that picture lay close to hand. Judah was under the yoke of Babylon, and behind Babylon stood the hand of God in judgment. To bear it, nâsâʼ, is to lift and carry, and the word can also mean to endure. Youth, nâʻûwr, comes from the word for a boy and means the early years of life, before a man is fully grown.

The verse puts the yoke in youth because what is learned early shapes the whole of a life. A man who learns young to carry responsibility, take correction and endure hardship grows in patience, humility and wisdom, and he is ready for the weight of later years. Proverbs gives the same counsel to those who raise the young: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). The psalmist says it of his own trouble: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalm 119:71).

The yoke here includes discipline from God himself. Proverbs urges, “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:11–12), and the letter to the Hebrews takes up those words to explain why God disciplines his children (Hebrews 12:5–11). For Judah the yoke had come as the consequence of disobedience, and even so God meant it to teach, refine and bring his people back to himself.

“He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.” The verb yâshab means to sit, and also to dwell or remain, so the man settles where he has been put and stays there. bâdâd means alone, separate or solitary, the solitude of a grief that is his own to carry. To keep silence, dâmam, is to be still, to cease, even to be struck dumb, and here it is the silence of a man who has stopped protesting. In Israel, to sit alone and silent was a posture of mourning and of submission.

The reason is “because he hath borne it upon him.” The verb nâṭal means to lift, to lay on, or to bear, and the phrase can be read in two ways that lead to the same silence. On one reading the Lord has laid the load upon him, and he recognises whose hand it is. On the other he has taken it up himself and accepted it. Either way the load has a source and a purpose, and so he can be quiet under it. Peter gives the same counsel: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6–7). James adds that the trying of faith works patience (James 1:2–4).

“He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.” “Putteth” is nâthan, the very common verb to give, put or set. The mouth, peh, is also the organ of speech, and the dust, ʻâphâr, is the dry, loose earth of the ground. A man with his mouth in the dust is lying face down, the lowest posture a person can take. It was the gesture of a defeated man before a conqueror and of a suppliant before a king or before God, and it confessed helplessness, guilt and the justice of what had come, along with a plea for mercy. The mouth that could have argued its case is pressed to the ground.

Dust in Scripture belongs to the low places and to our mortality. A psalm of Israel’s distress says, “our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth” (Psalm 44:25), and Job, when the LORD had spoken to him, said, “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). God meets such lowliness with favour, for “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6).

“If so be” means perhaps, it may be. The hope is humble and modest in what it asks, yet it is real hope. The word tiqvâh means expectation, the thing a person waits for, and the same word can mean a cord. This man’s hope rests on the God whose compassions he has just said “fail not”, and Scripture holds out a hope that reaches the dust itself: “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust” (Isaiah 26:19).

“He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.” The verb “giveth” is nâthan again, the same verb as “putteth” in verse 29. The cheek, lᵉchîy, is the side of the face or the jaw. In Israel honour and shame carried great weight, and a blow on the cheek was an insult as well as an injury. To turn the cheek toward the smiter is to take the blow and the insult and leave them unanswered. Reproach, cherpâh, is disgrace, scorn and shame, the contempt heaped on a conquered people, and “filled full” comes from sâbaʻ, to be filled or sated. He has had his fill of it.

The Servant of the LORD speaks in the same way in Isaiah: “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isaiah 50:6). Jesus made this posture part of his teaching: “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). The man of verse 30 can take the blow because of what verse 31 goes on to say.

The hope the man first voiced in verse 21 now gives its reasons (Lamentations 3:21–33). Verse 31 opens with “For”: “For the Lord will not cast off for ever.” The word for the Lord here is ʼĂdônây, an emphatic form of the word for master, used as a name of God, which is why the KJV prints “Lord” here in place of “LORD”. It speaks of his authority and his right over his people. To cast off, zânach, is to push aside or reject. For ever, ʻôwlâm, means time out of mind, as far as anyone can see, whether back or forward.

The verse admits what Judah felt. God had indeed pushed his people aside in judgment, and their suffering was real and deserved. The promise sets a limit to it. “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Through Isaiah God says to his people, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer” (Isaiah 54:7–8). Paul says of the same people, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29).

“But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.” The verb yâgâh means to grieve, to afflict, to cause sorrow, and the verse plainly names God as the one who causes it. Beside the grief stands his compassion. râcham means to love tenderly and to pity, and it is related to the Hebrew word for the womb, so it carries the tenderness of a parent for a child. The measure of that compassion is “the multitude of his mercies”. rôb means multitude, abundance or greatness, and the mercies are cheçed, God’s steadfast love, his covenant loyalty and kindness, here in the plural for its many acts. “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 103:8). The grief has an end, and the compassion that follows it answers to the many mercies of a faithful God.

“For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” The word “willingly” stands for a Hebrew phrase that means “from his heart”, using lêb, the heart. To afflict, ʻânâh, is to humble, bring low or oppress, and “grieve” is yâgâh, the same verb as “cause grief” in verse 32. So God does cause grief, and it comes from his hand while his heart desires his people’s good. He brings it with purpose, for correction and repentance, and what he delights in is their turning back to live. “The children of men” is literally sons, bên, of man, ʼîysh, a common phrase for people in general, and here for the suffering people of Judah.

God says the same through Ezekiel: “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11), and again, “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezekiel 18:32). A psalm puts it in the language of a family: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13–14). Jonah knew this of God even when he resented it: “thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil” (Jonah 4:2).

Verses 34 to 36 belong together, and the closing words of verse 36, “the Lord approveth not”, apply to all three wrongs they name.

“To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth.” To crush, dâkâʼ, is to crumble, bruise, beat to pieces or break. The foot, regel, set on a captive was the sign of complete conquest, and to be under someone’s feet was to be wholly in his power. Prisoners, ʼâçîyr, are those who are bound. Conquering armies of that day shamed and abused their captives, and Judah’s exiles had known this at Babylon’s hands. “Of the earth” (ʼerets) can mean the land of Judah or the whole earth, taking in all who suffer in bondage anywhere. The LORD is “a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble” (Psalm 9:9), and his Servant is sent “to bring out the prisoners from the prison” (Isaiah 42:7).

“To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High.” To turn aside, nâṭâh, is to stretch out or bend, and so to bend something away from its proper course. The right, mishpâṭ, is a verdict, a judgment, justice, and the due a person is owed. In Israel cases were heard by the elders at the city gate, and the law required them to judge fairly, yet the prophets often rebuked those who twisted justice: “Ye who turn judgment to wormwood” (Amos 5:7), and princes who loved gifts and left the fatherless and the widow without a hearing (Isaiah 1:23).

All this happens “before the face” (pânîym) of the Most High, in his very sight. ʻelyôwn means high or lofty and is a title of God, the Most High. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). A psalm asks, “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psalm 94:7–9), and another says that from his throne “his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men” (Psalm 11:4–5).

“To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.” To subvert, ʻâvath, is to wrest, make crooked or pervert, and his cause, rîyb, is his contest or dispute, the case he brings. “A man” here is ʼâdâm, any human being. The phrase covers false witness, bribery, a biased judge, or any twisting of the truth to rob a person of his due. “Approveth” is the ordinary verb for seeing, râʼâh, with the negative lō, so the Lord looks on such things without favour. The verse holds two truths at once: the Lord sees every such wrong, and he disapproves of it. “A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment” (Proverbs 17:23), while of God it is written, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment” (Deuteronomy 32:4). He calls his people to “let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24), and to “do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8).

“Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?” The question answers itself: only what the Lord commands comes to pass. To say, ʼâmar, covers speaking and also telling, commanding and even thinking, so it takes in every plan and decree a person makes. To command, tsâvâh, is to charge, appoint or give an order, and the Lord who commands is ʼĂdônây again, the Master of all. Babylon’s king gave his orders and Jerusalem fell, yet his word came to pass only because the Lord had commanded it or allowed it.

“There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21). “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). In Daniel it is said of God that “he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand” (Daniel 4:35), and God says, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). Men’s choices are real and they answer for them, and they are made within the rule of God. For the sufferer this is a comfort, because his trouble is held inside God’s purpose.

“Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?” They both come from him: the calamities of life and its blessings alike go out at God’s word, and the evil spoken of here is calamity and trouble. The mouth, peh, is the same word as in verse 29, so the man who lays his mouth in the dust is waiting on the mouth of the Most High, ʻelyôwn, from which everything that befalls him comes. To proceed, yâtsâʼ, is to go or come out. The word for evil, raʻ, can mean moral wickedness, and it also means calamity, disaster and distress, which is its sense when God is the one it comes from. Evil and good together name the whole of what can happen to a person, from the worst to the best.

Scripture says this in other places. “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). “Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6). Job answered his wife, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10), and he had already blessed God in his losses: “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). For Judah the calamity was the very thing the covenant had warned of.

This verse does not make God the author of sin. “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man”, and sin comes from a man’s own desire (James 1:13–15). The ruin of Jerusalem was God’s righteous judgment, and the sin that brought it was Judah’s.

A man who is still alive has already received mercy, and when he suffers for his own sins, confession suits him better than complaint. chay means living, alive. Even in the ruins the man still has life, and the chapter has just said, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed.” Life itself is mercy, and it is a door still open to repentance. The second “man” is geber, a word often used of a strong or mighty man, perhaps chosen here to show how even the strongest stands before God. To complain, ʼânan, is to mourn or murmur against one’s lot. Sins, chêṭᵉʼ, means sin, the guilt a person bears for a wrong, and also its penalty. The punishment is for his own sins.

Judah had been warned. Through Jeremiah God had said that for their disobedience the land would serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jeremiah 25:8–11), and “the way of transgressors is hard” (Proverbs 13:15). The right answer to God’s hand in punishment is confession: “For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin” (Psalm 38:18). “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). So the next verse turns the complaint into a call to the whole people to search their ways and turn again to the LORD.

These verses describe a sufferer, and the Lord Jesus is the one who carried that suffering in full. He bore the yoke of obedience from his youth: “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). He often went apart to pray, as when “rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35). In Gethsemane “he fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39), and “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Before his accusers “he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

He gave his back to the smiters and his cheeks to those who plucked off the hair, as Isaiah foretold, and Peter says of him, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:22–23). He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7), he became obedient unto death, and God has highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–11). Those who follow him come to know “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10), and to them he offers a yoke of his own: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

The yoke you carry, whatever it is, lies within the reach of God’s mercy. If you are young and the load is heavy, this passage calls the carrying of it good, because God uses it to make you patient, humble and wise. If you are older, you can help the young to carry theirs, telling them what your own yoke taught you and pointing them to the One whose yoke is easy.

When trouble comes, you may pour out your heart to God, as this whole book does, and then there comes a time to sit still before him and wait, humbled and hoping. When others wrong you, you can leave the judging to the Lord who sees every blow and every crooked verdict. That same truth searches us as well. Every cause we touch, at work, in the family or in public life, is handled before the face of the Most High, so we are to deal fairly and to stand with those whose right is turned aside.

And when your trouble is the fruit of your own sin, the way forward is confession. You are still alive, which is mercy already, and the Lord who chastens you “will not cast off for ever”. His compassions “fail not”, and in Christ his promise holds for good.