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Lamentations
Chapter Five
Lamentations 5
Chapter Contents
The Jewish nation supplicating the Divine favour.
Commentary on Lamentations 5:1-16
(Read Lamentations 5:1-16)
Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer
pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not
of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we
suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will
return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All
our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just
displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his
sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life
will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him
who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.
Commentary on Lamentations 5:17-22
(Read Lamentations 5:17-22)
The people of God express deep concern for the ruins of
the temple, more than for any other of their calamities. But whatever changes
there are on earth, God is still the same, and remains for ever wise and holy,
just and good; with Him there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. They
earnestly pray to God for mercy and grace; Turn us to thee, O Lord. God never
leaves any till they first leave him; if he turns them to him in a way of duty,
no doubt he will quickly return to them in a way of mercy. If God by his grace
renew our hearts, he will by his favour renew our days. Troubles may cause our
hearts to be faint, and our eyes to be dim, but the way to the mercy-seat of
our reconciled God is open. Let us, in all our trials, put our whole trust and
confidence in his mercy; let us confess our sins, and pour out our hearts
before him. Let us watch against repinings and despondency; for we surely know,
that it shall be well in the end with all that trust in, fear, love, and serve
the Lord. Are not the Lord's judgments in the earth the same as in Jeremiah's
days? Let Zion then be remembered by us in our prayers, and her welfare be
sought above every earthly joy. Spare, Lord, spare thy people, and give not
thine heritage to reproach, for the heathen to rule over them.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Lamentations》
Lamentations 5
Verse 3
[3] We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as
widows.
We — We are all of us without a king, (our common father)
we are deprived of thy fatherly protection, and many young children among us
are left without an earthly parent.
Verse 4
[4] We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold
unto us.
Sold — Whereas at other times there was abundance of wood and
water throughout Judea.
Verse 6
[6] We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the
Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
We — The ten tribes were all carried captives into Assyria,
and many of the kingdom of Judah fled into Egypt. Giving the hand may signify
labouring for them: or, yielding up themselves to their power.
Verse 7
[7] Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne
their iniquities.
Their iniquities — The punishment of
them.
Verse 9
[9] We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of
the sword of the wilderness.
The sword — The enemies lay encamped in all
the plains, so that they could stir out no way but the sword of the Chaldeans
was upon them.
Verse 13
[13] They took the young men to grind, and the children fell
under the wood.
Fell — Not being able to stand under the burdens laid upon
them.
Verse 16
[16] The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we
have sinned!
The crown — All our honour, splendor and
dignity.
Verse 19
[19] Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from
generation to generation.
Thy throne — Altho' for our sins thou
sufferest our throne to be cast down, yet thou art the same, thy power is not
diminished, nor thy goodness abated.
Verse 21
[21] Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned;
renew our days as of old.
Renew — Restore us to our former estate.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Lamentations》
05 Chapter 5
Verses 1-10
Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us.
An appeal for God’s compassion
The prayer opens with a striking phrase--“Remember, O Lord,” etc.
It cannot be supposed that the elegist conceived of his God as Elijah mockingly
described their silent, unresponsive divinity to the frantic priests of Baal,
or that he imagined that Jehovah was really indifferent, after the manner of
the denizens of the Epicurean Olympus. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor
even theology wholly determines the form of an earnest man’s prayers. In
practice it is impossible not to speak according to appearances. Though not to
the reason, still to the feelings, it is as though God had indeed forgotten His
children in their deep distress. Under such circumstances the first requisite
is the assurance that God should remember the sufferers whom He appears to be neglecting.
The poet is thinking of external actions. Evidently the aim of his prayer is to
secure the attention of God as a sure preliminary to a Divine interposition.
But even with this end in view the fact that God remembers is enough. In
appealing for God’s attention the elegist first makes mention of the reproach
that has come upon Israel. This reference to humiliation rather than to
suffering as the primary ground of complaint may be accounted for by the fact
that the glory of God is frequently taken as a reason for the blessing of His
people. That is done for His “name’s sake.” Then the ruin of the Jews is
derogatory to the honour of their Divine Protector. The peculiar relation of
Israel to God also underlies the complaint of the second verse, in which the
land is described as “our inheritance,” with an evident allusion to the idea
that it was received as a donation from God, not acquired in any ordinary human
fashion. A great wrong has been done, apparently in contravention of the
ordinance of Heaven. The Divine inheritance has been turned over to strangers.
From their property the poet passes on to the condition of the persons of the
sufferers. The Jews are orphans; they have lost their fathers, and their
mothers are widows. The series of illustrations of the degradation of Israel
seems to be arranged somewhat in the order of time and in accordance with the
movement of the people. Thus, after describing the state of the Jews in their
own land, the poet next follows the fortunes of his people in exile. There is
no mercy for them in their flight. The words in which the miseries of this time
are referred to are somewhat obscure. The phrase in the Authorised Version,
“Our necks are under persecution” (Lamentations 5:5), is rendered by the
Revisers, “Our pursuers are upon our necks.” It would seem to mean that the
hunt is so close that fugitives are on the point of being captured; or perhaps
that they are made to bow their heads in defeat as their captors seize them.
But a proposed emendation substitutes the word “yoke” for “pursuers.” The next
line favours this idea, since it dwells on the utter weariness of the miserable
fugitives. There is no rest for them. The yoke of shame and servitude is more
crushing than any amount of physical labour. Finally, in their exile the Jews
are not flee from molestation. In order to obtain bread they must abase
themselves before the people of the land. The fugitives in the south must do
homage to the Egyptians; the captives in the east to the Assyrians. Here, then,
at the very last stage of the series of miseries, shame and humiliation are the
principal grievances deplored. At every point there is a reproach, and to this
feature of the whole situation God’s attention is especially directed. Now the
elegist turns aside to a reflection on the cause of all this evil. It is
attributed to the sins of previous generations. The present sufferers are
bearing the iniquities of their fathers. Here several points call for a brief
notice. In the first place, the very form of the language is significant. What
is meant by the phrase to “bear iniquity”? It is clear that the poet had no
mystical ideas in mind. When he said that the children bore the sins of their
fathers he simply meant that they reaped the consequences of those sins. But if
the language is perfectly unambiguous the doctrine it implies is far from being
easy to accept. On the face of it, it seems to be glaringly unjust. We are
frequently confronted with evidences of the fact that the vices of parents
inflict poverty, dishonour, and disease on their families. This is just what
the elegist means when he writes of children hearing the iniquities of their
fathers. The fact cannot be disputed. Often as the problem that here starts up
afresh has been discussed, no really satisfactory solution of it has ever been
forthcoming. We must admit that we are face to face with one of the most
profound mysteries of providence. But we may detect some glints of light in the
darkness. The law of heredity and the various influences that go to make up the
evil results in the case before us work powerfully for good under other
circumstances; and that the balance is certainly on the side of good, is proved
by the fact that the world is moving forward, not backward, as would be the
case if the balance of hereditary influence was on the side of evil. The great
unit Man is far more than the sum of the little units men. We must endure the
disadvantages of a system which is so essential to the good of man. But another
consideration may shed a ray of light on the problem. The bearing of the sins
of others is for the highest advantage of the sufferers. It is difficult to
think of any more truly elevating sorrows. They resemble our Lord’s passion;
and of Him it was said that He was made perfect through suffering. (W. F.
Adeney, M. A.)
Zion’s sufferings
I. Her entreaties.
1. Remember.
2. Consider.
3. Behold.
II. Her miseries.
1. What is befallen her, captivity; it is not coming, it is already
come upon her.
2. Her bright Sun gives not out its rays. Ignominy, like a black
cloud, now covers its face.
Lessons:
1. God hath thoughts of His people, when they cannot apprehend His
purposes. He thinks upon their souls.
2. God’s thoughts are affectionate, and hold out help unto His
saints. Men many times think of their friends in the day of their distress, yet
endeavour not to make their help their comfort, the product of their thoughts,
but whom God remembers He relieves (Leviticus 26:44-45).
3. God’s forgetting is an aggravation of the soul’s affliction.
Questionless, it is the great, yea one of the greatest aggravations of trouble
to an afflicted soul, to apprehend itself not to be in the thoughts of God (Psalms 42:9-11; Psalms 43:1-5; Psalms 44:1-24).
Lessons:
1. God’s remembrance ever speaks a Christian’s advantage. Whosoever
forgets you, let your prayers demonstrate your desires to be in the heart, in
the thoughts of God. This was Nehemiah’s request, and he made it the very
upshot of his prayers (Nehemiah 13:31). Do you likewise. For men
may fail us though they think of us, but God will help us if He but have us in
His mind (Jeremiah 2:2-3).
2. They that put us in mind of our friends in misery, are many times
instrumental for the alleviating of their sorrow; their excitements may stir up
earnest resolves for their freedom, they may become messengers to proclaim
their peace, to publish tidings of their salvation. O let us be God’s
remembrancers, let us expostulate the Church’s case with His sacred self, this
is our duty (Isaiah 43:26). Let us beseech the Lord--
Israel’s freedom from thraldom hath been the product of God’s
remembering (Exodus 6:5-6). O let us rather beseech
Him to think of--
3. Fervency must accompany our prayers. This interjective particle
denotes the vehemency, the earnestness of her desire (Genesis 17:18; Deuteronomy 5:29; 2 Samuel 23:15; Job 6:8). Want of mercy with sense of misery
will make the soul cry O unto its God. Christians, be not like glowworms, fiery
in appearance and cold when you come to the touch; take heed of lukewarmness,
Laodicea’s temper; remember that as prayer is set out by wrestling, which is
the best way for prevailing (Genesis 32:26; Hosea 12:4), so under the law the sweet
perfumes in the censers were burnt before they ascended; for believers’ prayers
go up in pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh, to the throne of God (Song of Solomon 4:6). Therefore get
spiritual fire into your hearts, as fast as you can kindle and inflame your
affections, that they may flame up in devout and religious ascents to the Lord
Himself. Sometimes “Lord” will not serve your turn, you must go with “O Lord”
unto your God.
4. We must only have recourse to God in distress. The Church’s
affliction is now become to her the school of devotion. Where should we make
our addresses, but where we may find relief?
5. Heavy sorrows make Christians moderate in their desires. She doth
not desire the Lord forthwith to cause the fulgent and glorious beams of
prosperity to shine upon her, or immediately by some heavy judgment upon her
enemy, to complete her own delivery, she only calls for a memento, a
remembrance, some thoughts of her unto her God. That great sufferings make
Christians modest and moderate in their demands. Beggars in their extremest
exigence cry not for pounds but pence. A little relief goes far in the
apprehension of a distressed soul.
6. Grievous miseries may fall upon God’s precious saints.
7. God eyes our particular exigence. The original denotes such a
consideration as is conjoined with seeing and looking upon. The eye presenting
the object to the thoughts, makes the deeper impress upon the spirit. When God
takes the Church’s sorrows into His thoughts, He looks down from heaven to see
the particulars of her distress.
8. Prayer the means to get a reflex from God.
9. As reproach is heavy so it quickens the prayers of saints. The
saints are not hopeless under the greatest evils, they sing not the doleful
ditty of accursed Cain, they despair not of Divine hope, and therefore because
they conceive hope of favour, they betake themselves unto fervent prayer (Job 13:15; Proverbs 14:32; Psalms 27:12-13).
10. Sense of misery would have God to make present supply. Equity in
the Lord’s administration of justice, hath ever been their encouragement, as
for appeal, so for this request unto Himself (Jeremiah 12:1-3). Learn what to do when
the wicked with the most violent evils are stinging and piercing your very
souls.
Sin’s garden
1. Probably there is nothing like this chapter in all the elegies of
the world. For what is there here more than elegy? There is a death deeper than
death. Here is a prayer that never got itself into heaven. Blessed be God,
there are some prayers that never get higher than the clouds. Look at it.
Behold how internally rotten it is. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us” (Lamentations 5:1). No man can pray who
begins in that tone. There is not one particle of devotion in such an
utterance. “What is come upon us.” It is a falsehood. It is putting the
suppliant into a wrong position at the very first. So long as men talk in that
tone they are a long way from the only tone that prevails in heaven.
“God
be merciful to me a sinner.” “Consider, and behold our reproach” (Lamentations 5:1). How possible it is for
penitence to have a lie in the heart of it; how possible it is for petitions
addressed to heaven to be inspired by the meanest selfishness! Note well the
inventory which is particularised by these persons, who are very careful to
note all that they have lost. Read the bill; it is a bill of particulars: “Our
inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens” (Lamentations 5:2). Here is material
dispossession. If the inheritance had been retained, would the prayer have been
offered? Probably not. “We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as
widows” (Lamentations 5:8). Here is personal
desolation. If the fathers had lived, would the prayers have been offered? “We
have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us” (Lamentations 5:4). Here is social
humiliation. The emphasis is upon the pronoun, “Our” water, the water that we
have in our own gardens, water taken out of the wells which our own fathers did
dig. What an awful lot! what a sad doom! If it had been otherwise, where would
the prayer have been? where would the confession, such as it is, have been? “Our
necks are under persecution; we labour, and have no rest” (Lamentations 5:5). Here is a sense of
grievous oppression. “Servants have ruled over us” (Lamentations 5:8). Here is an inversion
of natural position. The greater the man, the greater the ruler, should be the
law in social administration. Let me have a great man to direct me, superintend
me, and revise my doings, and it shall be well with me at eventide. Some kings
have been slaves; some noblemen have been servants. We are only speaking of the
soul that is a slave, and whenever the slave mounts his horse he gallops to the
devil.
2. Read this chapter and look upon it as a garden which sin has
planted. All these black flowers, all these awful trees of poison, sin planted.
God did not plant one of them. It is so with all our pains and penalties. It is
so with that bad luck in business, with that misfortune in the open way of
life. We are reaping what has been sown by ourselves or by our forerunners. It
is quite right to remember our ancestors in this particular. It is quite true
that our fathers have sinned, and that we in a sense bear their iniquities, and
cannot help it, for manhood is one; but it is also true that we ourselves have
adopted all they did. To adopt what Adam did is to have sinned in Adam and
through Adam. We need not go behind our own signature; we have signed the
catalogue, we have adopted it, and therefore we have to account for our own
lapse in our own religion.
3. Wondrous it is how men turn to God in their distresses. The Lord
said it would be so--“In their affliction they will seek Me early.” So we have
God in this great plaint, and what position does God occupy in it? He occupies
the position of the only Helper of man. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon
us.” Then comes the cry for old days: “Renew our days as of old.” There is a
sense in which the old days were better than these. What is that peculiar
religious fascination which acts upon the mind and leads us back again into the
nursery? We cry for the days of childhood, when we were unconscious of sin,
when we played in the wood, when we gathered the primroses, when we came back
from bird nesting and summer joys. Oh, that these days would come back again
all their blueness, in all their simple joyousness! Sometimes the soul says,
“Renew our days as of old”--when our bread was honest. Since then we have
become tradesmen, merchants, adventurers, gamblers, speculators, and now there
is not a loaf in the cupboard that has not poison in the very middle of it. We
are richer at the bank, but we are poorer in heaven. God pity us! “Renew our
days as of old”--when our prayers were unhindered, when we never doubted their
going to heaven and coming back again with blessings; when we used to pray at
our mother’s knee we never thought that the prayer could fail of heaven. Oh,
for the old child days, when God was in every flower and in every bird, and
when all the sky was a great open Bible, written all over in capitals of love!
The old days will not come. Still we can have a new youth; we can be born
again. That is the great cry of Christ’s Gospel “Marvel not that I said unto
thee, Ye must be born again”--and thus get the true childhood. (J. Parker,
D. D.)
Our inheritance is turned
to strangers, our houses to aliens.--
Comfortable directions for such as have been, or may be driven
from their houses, goods, or country
I. It is a sore
affliction and matter of great lamentation for a man to be driven from his
house and habitation. His house and habitation is the meeting place of all his
outward comforts; the seat and centre and receptacle of all those outward
blessings that he doth enjoy in this world. As a man’s house is the nest where
all these eggs are laid, and therefore when a man is driven from thence, the
meeting place of all his outward comforts, surely it must be an exceeding sad
thing and very lamentable. To say nothing of the reproach that doth come thereby,
or of the violence that doth come therewith; it is the judgment threatened,
threatened against the wicked, and those that are most ungodly. The contrary is
often promised unto God’s people (Isaiah 65:21-23). On the contrary, when
God threatens evil to a place and people, this is the evil that He denounceth;
that He will drive them from their houses and habitations, and that others
shall be brought into them (Deuteronomy 15:28-30). Now is it nothing
for a man to go up and down under the wounds of a threatening? Again, a man
loseth many, if not most of his opportunities of doing good and receiving. So
long as a man is at home, and hath a habitation to resort unto, he may pray,
read, meditate, sing, and have a little church and heaven on earth. He may
there receive strangers, for which many have been blest. There he may exercise
good duties, the only way unto heaven and happiness. When he is thrust out, and
strangers brought in, he doth therefore lose many of these opportunities; and
therefore how justly may he take up this lamentation and say, Have pity, have
pity upon me, oh, all my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.
II. God suffers His
own people and dear children many times to fall into this condition. Our
Saviour Christ Himself, who bare our sins, had not whereon to lay His head. The
apostle tells us (Hebrews 11:1-40) that many saints
wandered up and down the world in woods and caves, of whom the world was not
worthy. They did not only wander, and were removed from their own houses; but,
as Chrysostom observes, they were not quiet even in the woods: they did not
only want their own house in the city, but they wanted a quiet seat in the
wilderness. Four especial causes there are, or occasions, as Musculus observes,
whereby men have been driven from their houses and habitations. First, war.
Secondly, famine. Thirdly, inhumanity, cruelty, exaction of evil men and
magistrates. Fourthly, want of liberty in the matter of religion: and in all
these respects God’s people have been driven from their houses.
III. Why doth god
suffer this to befall His own people; that His own servants and dearest
children should be driven out of their houses and habitations? In general it is
for their good. Hereby first a man may be, and is, if godly, emptied of that
slime and filth that did lie within him. The sea water, though it be exceeding
salt, and very brackish, yet if it run through several earths, the brackishness
is lost thereby, as we find in all sweetest springs which, as philosophers say,
come from the sea, and lose the saltness of the sea water by running through
the earths: and in experience if you take water, though it be salt in your
hand, yet if you cause it to pass through divers earths it will lose that
saltness: so that though there may be much saltness and brackishness in the
spirits of men, yet if the Lord by His providence cause them to pass through
divers earths, it is a special means to lose that brackish, brinish
disposition, and to grow more quiet, sweet, and savoury. Again, thereby
sometimes the saints, though unwillingly, are carried from greater judgments
that are coming upon the places where they dwell and live. Thereby also truth
and knowledge is carried and scattered into other places, many shall run to and
fro, “and knowledge shall be increased,” etc: Thereby a man is fitted and
prepared for God’s own house, and those revelations and manifestations that God
hath to communicate to him concerning the house of God. A man is never more fit
to see the beauty of God’s house, than when he is driven from his own.
IV. What shall we
do, that if it shall please the Lord to drive us out of our houses and
habitations as well as our brethren, we may both prepare for it, and so carry
the matter, as we may be patiently and sweetly supported in that estate? By way
of preparation, for the present, before that condition come, and the Lord grant
it may never come, be sure of this, that you make good your interest in God
Himself, clear up your evidence for heaven, your assurance of God in Christ.
Learn now before the rainy day come to be dead unto all the world. The man that
is dying is senseless, not affected with the cries of his children, wife, and
friends that stand round about him; though they weep and wring their hands, he
is not stirred, why? because being a dying man he is dead to them; and if you
be dead to your houses, liberties, and estates aforehand, you will be able to
buckle and grapple with that condition: so it was with Paul who died daily. Be
sure of this also, that you take heed now of all those things that may make your
condition uncomfortable then. There are three things that will make that
condition very uncomfortable: pride, wanton abuse of your creature comforts,
and unwillingness to lay them out in the case of God. But in case this evil
feared should come, and who knows how soon it may? then some things are to be
practised, and some things considered. By way of practice. If it pleased the
Lord to bring you or me or any of us into this sad condition, first humble
yourselves, accept of the punishment of your iniquity, kiss the rod, and say,
the Lord is righteous in all that is come upon you; so did Daniel (Daniel 9:6). Then be sure you bless and
praise the Lord for that little that you have left; and if nothing be left,
praise God for others that are free from your condition. Again, by way of
consideration. Though such a condition as this be exceeding sad and very
lamentable, yet consider this, that it is not any new thing that doth befall
you, but such as befalls the saints and best of God’s servants. Consider the
way that God takes ordinarily to bring His people to mercy. He seldom brings
them to any mercy but He brings them about by the way of the contrary misery.
Consider seriously with yourselves what that is which you leave, what the cause
is that you do leave it for, and who it is you do leave it with: you leave your
house, your habitation, your land, your riches, which shortly would leave you,
whose wings are like the wings of an eagle, strong to fly again; you leave it
for your God, your country, your religion. And is that lost which you do lose
for truth? Is there any loss in losing for Jesus Christ? If you would have
comfort and supportance in that condition, consider seriously and much how God
hath dealt with His people that have been thus served and used. And if you look
into Scripture, you shall find that He still hath provided for them, given them
favour in the places where they have come, and brought them back again from
those places into which they have been scattered. He hath provided for them. (W.
Bridge, M. A.)
Verses 1-10
Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us.
An appeal for God’s compassion
The prayer opens with a striking phrase--“Remember, O Lord,” etc.
It cannot be supposed that the elegist conceived of his God as Elijah mockingly
described their silent, unresponsive divinity to the frantic priests of Baal,
or that he imagined that Jehovah was really indifferent, after the manner of
the denizens of the Epicurean Olympus. Nevertheless, neither philosophy nor
even theology wholly determines the form of an earnest man’s prayers. In
practice it is impossible not to speak according to appearances. Though not to
the reason, still to the feelings, it is as though God had indeed forgotten His
children in their deep distress. Under such circumstances the first requisite
is the assurance that God should remember the sufferers whom He appears to be neglecting.
The poet is thinking of external actions. Evidently the aim of his prayer is to
secure the attention of God as a sure preliminary to a Divine interposition.
But even with this end in view the fact that God remembers is enough. In
appealing for God’s attention the elegist first makes mention of the reproach
that has come upon Israel. This reference to humiliation rather than to
suffering as the primary ground of complaint may be accounted for by the fact
that the glory of God is frequently taken as a reason for the blessing of His
people. That is done for His “name’s sake.” Then the ruin of the Jews is
derogatory to the honour of their Divine Protector. The peculiar relation of
Israel to God also underlies the complaint of the second verse, in which the
land is described as “our inheritance,” with an evident allusion to the idea
that it was received as a donation from God, not acquired in any ordinary human
fashion. A great wrong has been done, apparently in contravention of the
ordinance of Heaven. The Divine inheritance has been turned over to strangers.
From their property the poet passes on to the condition of the persons of the
sufferers. The Jews are orphans; they have lost their fathers, and their
mothers are widows. The series of illustrations of the degradation of Israel
seems to be arranged somewhat in the order of time and in accordance with the
movement of the people. Thus, after describing the state of the Jews in their
own land, the poet next follows the fortunes of his people in exile. There is
no mercy for them in their flight. The words in which the miseries of this time
are referred to are somewhat obscure. The phrase in the Authorised Version,
“Our necks are under persecution” (Lamentations 5:5), is rendered by the
Revisers, “Our pursuers are upon our necks.” It would seem to mean that the
hunt is so close that fugitives are on the point of being captured; or perhaps
that they are made to bow their heads in defeat as their captors seize them.
But a proposed emendation substitutes the word “yoke” for “pursuers.” The next
line favours this idea, since it dwells on the utter weariness of the miserable
fugitives. There is no rest for them. The yoke of shame and servitude is more
crushing than any amount of physical labour. Finally, in their exile the Jews
are not flee from molestation. In order to obtain bread they must abase
themselves before the people of the land. The fugitives in the south must do
homage to the Egyptians; the captives in the east to the Assyrians. Here, then,
at the very last stage of the series of miseries, shame and humiliation are the
principal grievances deplored. At every point there is a reproach, and to this
feature of the whole situation God’s attention is especially directed. Now the
elegist turns aside to a reflection on the cause of all this evil. It is
attributed to the sins of previous generations. The present sufferers are
bearing the iniquities of their fathers. Here several points call for a brief
notice. In the first place, the very form of the language is significant. What
is meant by the phrase to “bear iniquity”? It is clear that the poet had no
mystical ideas in mind. When he said that the children bore the sins of their
fathers he simply meant that they reaped the consequences of those sins. But if
the language is perfectly unambiguous the doctrine it implies is far from being
easy to accept. On the face of it, it seems to be glaringly unjust. We are
frequently confronted with evidences of the fact that the vices of parents
inflict poverty, dishonour, and disease on their families. This is just what
the elegist means when he writes of children hearing the iniquities of their
fathers. The fact cannot be disputed. Often as the problem that here starts up
afresh has been discussed, no really satisfactory solution of it has ever been
forthcoming. We must admit that we are face to face with one of the most
profound mysteries of providence. But we may detect some glints of light in the
darkness. The law of heredity and the various influences that go to make up the
evil results in the case before us work powerfully for good under other
circumstances; and that the balance is certainly on the side of good, is proved
by the fact that the world is moving forward, not backward, as would be the
case if the balance of hereditary influence was on the side of evil. The great
unit Man is far more than the sum of the little units men. We must endure the
disadvantages of a system which is so essential to the good of man. But another
consideration may shed a ray of light on the problem. The bearing of the sins
of others is for the highest advantage of the sufferers. It is difficult to
think of any more truly elevating sorrows. They resemble our Lord’s passion;
and of Him it was said that He was made perfect through suffering. (W. F.
Adeney, M. A.)
Zion’s sufferings
I. Her entreaties.
1. Remember.
2. Consider.
3. Behold.
II. Her miseries.
1. What is befallen her, captivity; it is not coming, it is already
come upon her.
2. Her bright Sun gives not out its rays. Ignominy, like a black
cloud, now covers its face.
Lessons:
1. God hath thoughts of His people, when they cannot apprehend His
purposes. He thinks upon their souls.
2. God’s thoughts are affectionate, and hold out help unto His
saints. Men many times think of their friends in the day of their distress, yet
endeavour not to make their help their comfort, the product of their thoughts,
but whom God remembers He relieves (Leviticus 26:44-45).
3. God’s forgetting is an aggravation of the soul’s affliction.
Questionless, it is the great, yea one of the greatest aggravations of trouble
to an afflicted soul, to apprehend itself not to be in the thoughts of God (Psalms 42:9-11; Psalms 43:1-5; Psalms 44:1-24).
Lessons:
1. God’s remembrance ever speaks a Christian’s advantage. Whosoever
forgets you, let your prayers demonstrate your desires to be in the heart, in
the thoughts of God. This was Nehemiah’s request, and he made it the very
upshot of his prayers (Nehemiah 13:31). Do you likewise. For men
may fail us though they think of us, but God will help us if He but have us in
His mind (Jeremiah 2:2-3).
2. They that put us in mind of our friends in misery, are many times
instrumental for the alleviating of their sorrow; their excitements may stir up
earnest resolves for their freedom, they may become messengers to proclaim
their peace, to publish tidings of their salvation. O let us be God’s
remembrancers, let us expostulate the Church’s case with His sacred self, this
is our duty (Isaiah 43:26). Let us beseech the Lord--
Israel’s freedom from thraldom hath been the product of God’s
remembering (Exodus 6:5-6). O let us rather beseech
Him to think of--
3. Fervency must accompany our prayers. This interjective particle
denotes the vehemency, the earnestness of her desire (Genesis 17:18; Deuteronomy 5:29; 2 Samuel 23:15; Job 6:8). Want of mercy with sense of misery
will make the soul cry O unto its God. Christians, be not like glowworms, fiery
in appearance and cold when you come to the touch; take heed of lukewarmness,
Laodicea’s temper; remember that as prayer is set out by wrestling, which is
the best way for prevailing (Genesis 32:26; Hosea 12:4), so under the law the sweet
perfumes in the censers were burnt before they ascended; for believers’ prayers
go up in pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh, to the throne of God (Song of Solomon 4:6). Therefore get
spiritual fire into your hearts, as fast as you can kindle and inflame your
affections, that they may flame up in devout and religious ascents to the Lord
Himself. Sometimes “Lord” will not serve your turn, you must go with “O Lord”
unto your God.
4. We must only have recourse to God in distress. The Church’s
affliction is now become to her the school of devotion. Where should we make
our addresses, but where we may find relief?
5. Heavy sorrows make Christians moderate in their desires. She doth
not desire the Lord forthwith to cause the fulgent and glorious beams of
prosperity to shine upon her, or immediately by some heavy judgment upon her
enemy, to complete her own delivery, she only calls for a memento, a
remembrance, some thoughts of her unto her God. That great sufferings make
Christians modest and moderate in their demands. Beggars in their extremest
exigence cry not for pounds but pence. A little relief goes far in the
apprehension of a distressed soul.
6. Grievous miseries may fall upon God’s precious saints.
7. God eyes our particular exigence. The original denotes such a
consideration as is conjoined with seeing and looking upon. The eye presenting
the object to the thoughts, makes the deeper impress upon the spirit. When God
takes the Church’s sorrows into His thoughts, He looks down from heaven to see
the particulars of her distress.
8. Prayer the means to get a reflex from God.
9. As reproach is heavy so it quickens the prayers of saints. The
saints are not hopeless under the greatest evils, they sing not the doleful
ditty of accursed Cain, they despair not of Divine hope, and therefore because
they conceive hope of favour, they betake themselves unto fervent prayer (Job 13:15; Proverbs 14:32; Psalms 27:12-13).
10. Sense of misery would have God to make present supply. Equity in
the Lord’s administration of justice, hath ever been their encouragement, as
for appeal, so for this request unto Himself (Jeremiah 12:1-3). Learn what to do when
the wicked with the most violent evils are stinging and piercing your very
souls.
Sin’s garden
1. Probably there is nothing like this chapter in all the elegies of
the world. For what is there here more than elegy? There is a death deeper than
death. Here is a prayer that never got itself into heaven. Blessed be God,
there are some prayers that never get higher than the clouds. Look at it.
Behold how internally rotten it is. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us” (Lamentations 5:1). No man can pray who
begins in that tone. There is not one particle of devotion in such an
utterance. “What is come upon us.” It is a falsehood. It is putting the
suppliant into a wrong position at the very first. So long as men talk in that
tone they are a long way from the only tone that prevails in heaven.
“God
be merciful to me a sinner.” “Consider, and behold our reproach” (Lamentations 5:1). How possible it is for
penitence to have a lie in the heart of it; how possible it is for petitions
addressed to heaven to be inspired by the meanest selfishness! Note well the
inventory which is particularised by these persons, who are very careful to
note all that they have lost. Read the bill; it is a bill of particulars: “Our
inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens” (Lamentations 5:2). Here is material
dispossession. If the inheritance had been retained, would the prayer have been
offered? Probably not. “We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as
widows” (Lamentations 5:8). Here is personal
desolation. If the fathers had lived, would the prayers have been offered? “We
have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us” (Lamentations 5:4). Here is social
humiliation. The emphasis is upon the pronoun, “Our” water, the water that we
have in our own gardens, water taken out of the wells which our own fathers did
dig. What an awful lot! what a sad doom! If it had been otherwise, where would
the prayer have been? where would the confession, such as it is, have been? “Our
necks are under persecution; we labour, and have no rest” (Lamentations 5:5). Here is a sense of
grievous oppression. “Servants have ruled over us” (Lamentations 5:8). Here is an inversion
of natural position. The greater the man, the greater the ruler, should be the
law in social administration. Let me have a great man to direct me, superintend
me, and revise my doings, and it shall be well with me at eventide. Some kings
have been slaves; some noblemen have been servants. We are only speaking of the
soul that is a slave, and whenever the slave mounts his horse he gallops to the
devil.
2. Read this chapter and look upon it as a garden which sin has
planted. All these black flowers, all these awful trees of poison, sin planted.
God did not plant one of them. It is so with all our pains and penalties. It is
so with that bad luck in business, with that misfortune in the open way of
life. We are reaping what has been sown by ourselves or by our forerunners. It
is quite right to remember our ancestors in this particular. It is quite true
that our fathers have sinned, and that we in a sense bear their iniquities, and
cannot help it, for manhood is one; but it is also true that we ourselves have
adopted all they did. To adopt what Adam did is to have sinned in Adam and
through Adam. We need not go behind our own signature; we have signed the
catalogue, we have adopted it, and therefore we have to account for our own
lapse in our own religion.
3. Wondrous it is how men turn to God in their distresses. The Lord
said it would be so--“In their affliction they will seek Me early.” So we have
God in this great plaint, and what position does God occupy in it? He occupies
the position of the only Helper of man. “Remember, O Lord, what is come upon
us.” Then comes the cry for old days: “Renew our days as of old.” There is a
sense in which the old days were better than these. What is that peculiar
religious fascination which acts upon the mind and leads us back again into the
nursery? We cry for the days of childhood, when we were unconscious of sin,
when we played in the wood, when we gathered the primroses, when we came back
from bird nesting and summer joys. Oh, that these days would come back again
all their blueness, in all their simple joyousness! Sometimes the soul says,
“Renew our days as of old”--when our bread was honest. Since then we have
become tradesmen, merchants, adventurers, gamblers, speculators, and now there
is not a loaf in the cupboard that has not poison in the very middle of it. We
are richer at the bank, but we are poorer in heaven. God pity us! “Renew our
days as of old”--when our prayers were unhindered, when we never doubted their
going to heaven and coming back again with blessings; when we used to pray at
our mother’s knee we never thought that the prayer could fail of heaven. Oh,
for the old child days, when God was in every flower and in every bird, and
when all the sky was a great open Bible, written all over in capitals of love!
The old days will not come. Still we can have a new youth; we can be born
again. That is the great cry of Christ’s Gospel “Marvel not that I said unto
thee, Ye must be born again”--and thus get the true childhood. (J. Parker,
D. D.)
Our inheritance is turned
to strangers, our houses to aliens.--
Comfortable directions for such as have been, or may be driven
from their houses, goods, or country
I. It is a sore
affliction and matter of great lamentation for a man to be driven from his
house and habitation. His house and habitation is the meeting place of all his
outward comforts; the seat and centre and receptacle of all those outward
blessings that he doth enjoy in this world. As a man’s house is the nest where
all these eggs are laid, and therefore when a man is driven from thence, the
meeting place of all his outward comforts, surely it must be an exceeding sad
thing and very lamentable. To say nothing of the reproach that doth come thereby,
or of the violence that doth come therewith; it is the judgment threatened,
threatened against the wicked, and those that are most ungodly. The contrary is
often promised unto God’s people (Isaiah 65:21-23). On the contrary, when
God threatens evil to a place and people, this is the evil that He denounceth;
that He will drive them from their houses and habitations, and that others
shall be brought into them (Deuteronomy 15:28-30). Now is it nothing
for a man to go up and down under the wounds of a threatening? Again, a man
loseth many, if not most of his opportunities of doing good and receiving. So
long as a man is at home, and hath a habitation to resort unto, he may pray,
read, meditate, sing, and have a little church and heaven on earth. He may
there receive strangers, for which many have been blest. There he may exercise
good duties, the only way unto heaven and happiness. When he is thrust out, and
strangers brought in, he doth therefore lose many of these opportunities; and
therefore how justly may he take up this lamentation and say, Have pity, have
pity upon me, oh, all my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.
II. God suffers His
own people and dear children many times to fall into this condition. Our
Saviour Christ Himself, who bare our sins, had not whereon to lay His head. The
apostle tells us (Hebrews 11:1-40) that many saints
wandered up and down the world in woods and caves, of whom the world was not
worthy. They did not only wander, and were removed from their own houses; but,
as Chrysostom observes, they were not quiet even in the woods: they did not
only want their own house in the city, but they wanted a quiet seat in the
wilderness. Four especial causes there are, or occasions, as Musculus observes,
whereby men have been driven from their houses and habitations. First, war.
Secondly, famine. Thirdly, inhumanity, cruelty, exaction of evil men and
magistrates. Fourthly, want of liberty in the matter of religion: and in all
these respects God’s people have been driven from their houses.
III. Why doth god
suffer this to befall His own people; that His own servants and dearest
children should be driven out of their houses and habitations? In general it is
for their good. Hereby first a man may be, and is, if godly, emptied of that
slime and filth that did lie within him. The sea water, though it be exceeding
salt, and very brackish, yet if it run through several earths, the brackishness
is lost thereby, as we find in all sweetest springs which, as philosophers say,
come from the sea, and lose the saltness of the sea water by running through
the earths: and in experience if you take water, though it be salt in your
hand, yet if you cause it to pass through divers earths it will lose that
saltness: so that though there may be much saltness and brackishness in the
spirits of men, yet if the Lord by His providence cause them to pass through
divers earths, it is a special means to lose that brackish, brinish
disposition, and to grow more quiet, sweet, and savoury. Again, thereby
sometimes the saints, though unwillingly, are carried from greater judgments
that are coming upon the places where they dwell and live. Thereby also truth
and knowledge is carried and scattered into other places, many shall run to and
fro, “and knowledge shall be increased,” etc: Thereby a man is fitted and
prepared for God’s own house, and those revelations and manifestations that God
hath to communicate to him concerning the house of God. A man is never more fit
to see the beauty of God’s house, than when he is driven from his own.
IV. What shall we
do, that if it shall please the Lord to drive us out of our houses and
habitations as well as our brethren, we may both prepare for it, and so carry
the matter, as we may be patiently and sweetly supported in that estate? By way
of preparation, for the present, before that condition come, and the Lord grant
it may never come, be sure of this, that you make good your interest in God
Himself, clear up your evidence for heaven, your assurance of God in Christ.
Learn now before the rainy day come to be dead unto all the world. The man that
is dying is senseless, not affected with the cries of his children, wife, and
friends that stand round about him; though they weep and wring their hands, he
is not stirred, why? because being a dying man he is dead to them; and if you
be dead to your houses, liberties, and estates aforehand, you will be able to
buckle and grapple with that condition: so it was with Paul who died daily. Be
sure of this also, that you take heed now of all those things that may make your
condition uncomfortable then. There are three things that will make that
condition very uncomfortable: pride, wanton abuse of your creature comforts,
and unwillingness to lay them out in the case of God. But in case this evil
feared should come, and who knows how soon it may? then some things are to be
practised, and some things considered. By way of practice. If it pleased the
Lord to bring you or me or any of us into this sad condition, first humble
yourselves, accept of the punishment of your iniquity, kiss the rod, and say,
the Lord is righteous in all that is come upon you; so did Daniel (Daniel 9:6). Then be sure you bless and
praise the Lord for that little that you have left; and if nothing be left,
praise God for others that are free from your condition. Again, by way of
consideration. Though such a condition as this be exceeding sad and very
lamentable, yet consider this, that it is not any new thing that doth befall
you, but such as befalls the saints and best of God’s servants. Consider the
way that God takes ordinarily to bring His people to mercy. He seldom brings
them to any mercy but He brings them about by the way of the contrary misery.
Consider seriously with yourselves what that is which you leave, what the cause
is that you do leave it for, and who it is you do leave it with: you leave your
house, your habitation, your land, your riches, which shortly would leave you,
whose wings are like the wings of an eagle, strong to fly again; you leave it
for your God, your country, your religion. And is that lost which you do lose
for truth? Is there any loss in losing for Jesus Christ? If you would have
comfort and supportance in that condition, consider seriously and much how God
hath dealt with His people that have been thus served and used. And if you look
into Scripture, you shall find that He still hath provided for them, given them
favour in the places where they have come, and brought them back again from
those places into which they have been scattered. He hath provided for them. (W.
Bridge, M. A.)
Verse 4
We have drunken our water for money, our wood is sold unto us.
Zion’s sufferings
1. Common necessaries denied by adversaries. Fire and water are two
necessary elements, but though God in nature have given these in common to His
creatures, the Jews being captives are now denied them by their cruel
adversaries. Time was when they could command the fields, the wheat, the
olives, and the wines, hut at this instant, such is their misery, that they
cannot so much as have wood or water without price, unless for money.
It is not water alone, or wood alone that is now defective, it is
both water and wood that they are forced to buy. War seldom deprives us of a
single mercy, it strips us at once of many necessaries (Lamentations 4:1-5). It takes away gold,
silver, possessions, habitations, victuals, wood, and water from its captives.
2. Wood and water sweet mercies.
3. We must not sit fast upon our present enjoyments. Full little did
these Jews in their prosperity think that their water should become their
charge, and that their wood, their fire, should be sold to themselves for
money. From whence we note--That Christians ought to sit loose upon their
enjoyments, and to look upon themselves as strangers and pilgrims in their most
sure possessions. Do not glory, be not proud of what you have now at your own
command (Ecclesiastes 5:13; Jeremiah 9:23). The tide may turn, your
condition may alter and not yourselves, not your friends, but your enemies may
be their possessors Though we may complain we must not murmur, we must in
patience possess our souls, when our very necessaries become a prey to others.
Thus did the primitive Christians in their great afflictions (Hebrews 10:34; Hebrews 11:37-38). (D. Swift.)
Verse 5
Our necks are under persecution, we labour, and have no rest.
Zion’s sufferings
1. The words explained. This is the miserable servitude of a
conquered people, this is the insulting and domineering pride of a potent and
victorious enemy. When enemies come in power, menaces and insultations speak
the pride, the venom, and bitterness of their hearts, whilst the Egyptians are
Israel’s masters, they will make their lives bitter with hard bondage in
mortar, and cause them to serve with rigour (Exodus 1:13-14).
2. Insultations, aggravations of the Church’s miseries. You may see
by the deportment of these Assyrians to the Jews, what was their disposition,
what was their nature. If you open the vessel you may taste the liquor. You may
judge of wicked men’s hearts by their speeches, by their usage of the saints (Matthew 12:34).
3. Wicked men care not what they do to augment the troubles of the
saints.
4. The reason why their necks are under persecution. But why do they
complain of the yoke, the burden, the persecution upon their necks; what, were
not the rest of their members sensible of the pressure? though the rest were
affected, yet now the principal weight lies upon their necks, because
themselves had ever been a stiff-necked people before the Lord (Isaiah 48:4; Jeremiah 7:25-26; Ezekiel 22:29). You may sometimes read of
people’s sin in the punishments that are laid upon them by the Lord (Hosea 4:6; Hosea 4:14; Zechariah 7:12-13).
5. Sorrow without intermission very grievous. Intermissions are
mercies, but pressures continued are very tedious; hop? deferred breaketh the
heart, and misery daily augmented cannot but be crushing to the spirit. Wicked
men, when they get God’s people under their commands, are very insatiable in
their exactions (Exodus 5:7-8; Lamentations 1:3). But what have this
people done that they can have no laxation, no ease, no rest, in the land of
Babylon? There be two sins in special for which God brings this evil upon a
people, violence to others (Jeremiah 51:34-35; Jeremiah 51:38), and insatiableness or
restlessness in the ways of sin. It is very likely God now pays her home with
her own coin. She hath been exacting, and grating upon her servants; she is now
a servant, and her masters do the like unto herself. She would not cease or
rest from sin, now God hath laid restlessness upon her as a punishment for sin.
(D. Swift.)
Verse 7
Our fathers have sinned, and are not, and we have borne their
iniquities.
Zion’s sufferings
The terms unfolded, When in the depths of our distress the iniquities
of our forefathers come to our remembrance, at once they aggravate our sins and
augment our sorrows (2 Kings 22:13; Daniel 9:16; Jeremiah 14:19-20). When God comes to
find sin successive in generations, the last shall be sure to drink deep of the
cup of Divine vengeance (Nehemiah 9:34-35; Nehemiah 9:38; Jeremiah 4:24-25). When ancestors’ sins
are not our cautions (Ezekiel 18:14), it deeply aggravates the
guilt of our souls (Nehemiah 13:18; Ezra 9:7; Jeremiah 16:11-13; Zechariah 1:4-6). The longer heaven’s
patience is abused, the greater and more dreadful is the wrath of God that is
deserved (Romans 2:4-5; Romans 1:18; Jeremiah 49:9-11). If we promote sin by
indulgence, or by example in our posterities, we shall be sure to entail
judgment upon our issue (1 Samuel 2:29; 1 Samuel 2:34; 1 Samuel 2:36). Children are many
times executors, they enter upon their father’s sins, and you know that in
justice the executor may be sued, the debtor being dead. God may punish the
sins of the parents upon the children, and yet the cause of the punishment may
be in themselves (Hosea 4:12-13). As if any being sick of
the plague infect others, every one that dies, is said to die, not of others’,
but of his own plague. Had their parents been good, had they been pious and
zealous for God, there would have been no ground, no cause for this complaint;
they could not then have said, “Our fathers’ iniquity is laid as a burden upon
our shoulders.” It is good to be good parents, parental holiness is
advantageous to posterity (Psalms 102:28; Psalms 112:1-2; Proverbs 14:26; Jeremiah 32:39).
1. Exemplary piety in the fathers makes an impression upon the
children’s hearts (Zechariah 10:7).
2. Heaven’s benediction descends from the parents to the children (Acts 2:39).
3. Wicked fathers infelicitate their posterity (Job 5:3-4). The Jews were very unhappy
parents (Matthew 27:25). Children, plead if you
can your ancestors’ integrity before the Lord. The father’s piety is the
child’s privilege (Psalms 116:16; Psalms 86:16; 1 Kings 8:23-25). Let us labour to
be good ourselves, and to plant holiness in our families, that so we may have
God’s blessings estated upon our children (Genesis 18:19). (D. Swift.)
Verses 11-18
Verses 12-18
The elders have ceased from the gate.
The seat of justice overthrown
1. It is a grievous plague unto a people when the seat of justice is
overthrown from among them.
(a) It bringeth in all confusion and disorder.
(b) No man can enjoy anything as his own.
(c) Every one lieth open to the violence of spoilers, and hath no
succour nor redress.
(a) Better have tyrants govern us, than be void of all government.
(b) Pray unto God for the government under which we live, that in the
prosperity thereof we may have peace.
(c) Acknowledge all lawful magistrates to be the special ordinances of
God, appointed for our good, and therefore to be obeyed and reverenced.
2. The overthrow of magistracy among a people taketh all occasions of
rejoicing from all sorts of people. “The young men from their music.”
(a) Many great blessings are lost, and many griefs come upon them
which will make the heart heavy.
(b) They have no safety, but have cause every one to fear another, and
to stand upon his own guard, as though he were in the midst of his enemies.
3. Honest recreations and delights are to be esteemed among the good
blessings that God giveth His people in this life.
The joy of our heart is
ceased, our dance is turned into mourning.
God’s people may apprehend themselves stripped of all cause of joy
This is the condition of these distressed creatures in the land of
Babylon; whilst they were in Judea, they used to rejoice in their harvest, and
to shout at their vintage (Isaiah 16:10). They had the mirth of
tabrets and their harps melodiously sounding in their streets (Isaiah 24:8). But now there is a crying
for wine in all quarters, their joy is darkened, and the mirth of the land is
gone (Isaiah 24:11). All causes of joy are
sometimes taken from God’s: precious saints; thus it fared with Israel upon the
pursuit of Pharaoh, when she was passing out of Egypt into the land of Canaan (Exodus 14:10). Neither was it better with
Job in the time of his affliction (Job 30:17-18; Job 30:31). Do but look upon the sweet
singer of Israel, and you shall find him in as bad a condition; for the sorrows
of death encompassed him, the pains of hell got hold upon him, and he found
nothing but trouble and sorrow (Psalms 116:1-19). The Lord takes away all
cause of rejoicing from, that He may the more deeply humble them for the evil
of their ways. Great afflictions effect the like submissions, with strong cries
to the God of heaven ( 6:6; 10:13-15). God’s great design in thus
dealing with them, is to purge them from their dross (Isaiah 27:9), to make them cast off the
sin of their souls; you know gold, that it may be refined, must as it were be
encompassed with flames (Zechariah 13:8-9). The best are prone to
rest upon the reeds of Egypt, to rely too much upon worldly vanities, therefore
God makes the joy of their hearts to cease, that He may take them off from
dependency upon creature comforts (Jeremiah 3:22-23; Hosea 14:2-3). Beware of sin, it will
cause both sad looks and heavy hearts (Genesis 4:7; Amos 8:8-10). Keep your eye upon heaven (2 Chronicles 20:12), it is only a
ray of His favour that can cheer your hearts (Psalms 9:9-10). Disclaim help from
others, trust not to yourselves (Isaiah 30:1-3; Isaiah 31:1; Psalms 20:7; 2 Corinthians 1:9). Created
substances are but vanities.
I. The precious
sons of Zion may be much discouraged in their sufferings. And when Zion was in
affliction, did she not as one in despair cry out, My strength and my hope is
perished from the Lord (Lamentations 3:17-18)?
Now that you may come near them in the same spirit, consider--
2. Keep up your heads, your hearts above the waters of sorrow, let
them not sink your spirits, but under the worst of evils, retain your joy, and
in patience possess your souls (Lamentations 3:26; Psalms 27:13-14). (D. Swift.)
The crown is fallen from
our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!--
Man’s fall from love into selfishness
The secret of man’s perfection may be summed up in these short
words, Love to God. The secret of man’s sin may be stated as shortly, Defect of
love to God. As the former implied truth and holiness, and purity of motive,
and unity of wilt with His will, so this latter implies the departure of all
these graces. But not only this. The heart allows no vacuum: sin is not a
negative only, but a positive condition; where love has departed, there the
opposite of love enters, namely, selfishness, with all its baneful
consequences. And the essence of selfishness is, that a man lives not for and
in another, be that other his neighbour, or his God, hut for and in himself.
Now notice, that this selfishness, arising out of defect of love to God, and in
God to others, is not an act, or a series of acts in man, but a state, out of
which spring, as the symptoms out of a disease, those sinful acts of
selfishness, which we call sins. Selfishness has turned love into lust, dignity
into pride, humility into meanness, zeal into ambition, charity into
ostentation; has made the strong man into a tyrant, the womanly into the
womanish character, the childlike into the childish; has turned family and
friendly love into partisanship, patriotism into faction, religion itself into
bigotry. It penetrates into, and infiltrates every thought, every desire, every
word, every act; so that whatsoever is of it, and not of faith, is sin. And its
seat is in the noblest, the godlike, the immortal and responsible spirit of
man. So that it is no longer worthy of that noble title of the Spirit,
reminding us of God; but they who are thus, are named in Scripture unspiritual,
and their whole state is called “the flesh”; not that it springs from the
flesh, but because it sinks them into the flesh. Another degrading consequence
results from this usurpation by self of the place of God within us. Man placed
under love, though in bond and covenant to God and his neighbour, was really
and essentially free; a child of God’s family; his will and God’s will being
one, law became to him liberty. But under selfishness, though he has broken
loose from covenant with God and his neighbour, he is to all intents and
purposes, a slave; in bondage to his own desires and passions, which he ought
to be, and wishes to be, ruling. “The truth,” declares our Lord, “shall make
you free”; but all sin is a lie, It practically denies God,--whose being, and
whose power, and whose love constitute the great truth of this universe: this
is the negative side of its falsehood; and it sets up self and other creatures
in God’s place as lord and guide of man’s being: this is its positive side. It
apes the perfections and attributes of God, and makes man into a miserable
counterfeit, betraying, by that which he wishes to appear, that which he really
ought to be. Well then, it now comes before us as a solemn question, seeing
that our whole nature, the nature of each man, is thus gone astray, and that
every one of us has an abiding tendency to selfishness and to evil--Whence came
this tendency? How had it its beginning? This tendency is a departure from God
who made us; and cannot therefore have been God’s work. And this departure can
only have begun by an act of the will of man. God created us free, gave our
first parents a command to keep, which very fact implied that they had power to
break it. Now there was no reasonable ground for breaking it, but every
imaginable reason against such conduct; the departure was not an act of the
convinced reason, but an act of that which we know as self-will--a leaning to
self in spite of reason and conscience. So that sin had its practical beginning
in the will of man. And this beginning we read of in Scripture in the history
of the Fall. At once man’s personality, the inner soul of his nature, passes
into a different relation to God: it is torn out of the covenant of His love;
stands over against Him as His enemy; trembles at His approach. All peace, all
innocence, is gone. The body, God’s beautiful and wonderful work, becomes the
seat of shame. Man, knowing that he is naked, flies from God and hides himself.
And as the spirit of man has renounced its allegiance to God, so have now the
animal soul and the body thrown off their allegiance to the spirit. Anarchy
enters into his being, and holds wild misrule. The gravitation of the spiritual
world is overthrown, its laws of attraction are suspended; the lower revolts
against the higher, the lowest against the lower. And as in man, so in man’s
world. In a moment the poison spreads, electric, over the kingdom which he
should have ruled; the elements disown him, the beasts of the forest glare upon
him, the ground is cursed for his sake. The king of nature is
self-deposed,--his palace is broken up, his delights are scattered, his sweet
fellowship with his helpmate is marred,--and he is driven out a wanderer. Then
first sprung forth the bitter fountains of tears, destined to furrow the cheeks
of untold generations; then first the hands were clenched, and the brow
grasped, and the breast beaten,--and the vastness of inward woe sought relief
in outward gesture. Verily, the crown had fallen from his head; woe unto him,
that he had sinned. (Dean Alford.)
Verse 17-18
For this our heart is faint, for these things our eyes are dim.
Zion’s sufferings
1. The best are exposed to sorrow. That the best are not out of the
reach of misery, or that there is no outward calamity, but it may fall upon the
godly as well as others (Ecclesiastes 9:1). Ahab’s and Josiah’s
ends concur in their circumstances, and Saul and Jonathan, though different in
their deportments yet in their deaths they were not divided (2 Samuel 1:23). No man knows either
love or hatred by that, that is before them. The snow and hail of adversity
lights upon the best gardens, as well as the barren wastes. The best of saints
have the same nature with others (1 Corinthians 10:13). The most
eminent Christians sometimes as well as others sin against their God. Here we
are soldiers and must look for hot skirmishes, mariners and must not think to
sail without tedious storms. Be not discouraged, O ye poor souls, though the
world be a sea, a rough, a raging, and a dangerous sea unto yourselves, yea be
not dejected and altogether cast down, though a heavy weight of grief by reason
of sin and troubles, the effects of sin come to lie pressing upon your spirits;
though your hearts be faint, let them not die.
2. Christians have bowels for others in afflictions. The Chaldee
paraphrase will have these first words to relate to the ruins of Zion in the
next verse, and therefore it renders them, for this house of the Sanctuary
which is desolate our heart is faint, and indeed it shows us as the affections,
so the Christian’s deportment in the Church’s troubles. Zion’s sufferings, like
darts, penetrate the souls of God’s precious saints. And no marvel if they have
been thus affected with the Church’s miseries.
3. We must not stand at a distance each from other in the day of
sorrow.
4. Sad sufferings cause sad, yea, fainting spirits.
5. Extremity of sorrow brings dimness into our eyes. That dimness of
sight is the effect of sorrow. This was the condition of Job, when his face was
foul with weeping, and on his eyelids was the shadow of death (Job 16:16). When his eye was dim by
reason of grief, and all his thoughts as a very shadow (Job 17:7). And in the like case you may
see the kingly prophet, having his heart panting, his strength failing, and the
light of his eyes departing from him (Psalms 38:9-11; Psalms 6:7). (D. Swift.)
Because of the mountain of
Zion, which is desolate.
Zion’s desolations contemplated and improved
I. A distressing
experience. The spectacle which Mount Zion exhibited was necessarily fitted
both to agitate and afflict pious and patriotic soul. God had visited His own
holy habitation in anger. Because of the transgressions of His people, He had
afflicted them; because of their forgetfulness of His mercies, He had forsaken
them; because of their abuse of His ordinances, He had carried them away
captive. If such a state of things occasioned to the prophet a feeling of the
deepest distress, similar must be the experience of the Lord’s people, when any
portion of the Church is visited with tokens of the Divine displeasure. Sins,
by us unrepented of--sins, forgotten it may be by us, but not forgotten by
God--these, undoubtedly, as affording cause of humiliation, grief, and
bitterness, are to be considered in connection with the removal of the light of
the Divine countenance; and if we cast our eyes abroad on any portion of the
visible Church, if we look either at its past history or present condition,
where can we take our station, and say that difficulties, or trials, or
threatenings of judgment are being made manifest, without being constrained to
acknowledge that there are sins to be accounted for, and for which a fearful
reckoning may be demanded?
II. A reviving
sentiment. The prophet, amidst the very tears that were shed by him over the
fallen fortunes of Jerusalem, could fix his thoughts upon One who is ever the
same; and his spirit was revived in consequence. And thus have God’s people in
all ages been sustained. The Lord, as it regards His own cause, may hide His
face; but it will only be for a season. He may remove His candle from one
corner of the earth; but it will be to plant it in another--He will not suffer
it to be extinguished. As His own existence and purposes are eternal and
unchangeable, so is that provision which He has made for His Church, and for a
continued succession of believers, who shall know His name, and rejoice in His
salvation.
III. A holy
expostulation. Animated with a holy zeal for the glory of God as associated
with the prosperity of His Church, the prophet asks whether it could be that
God would afford no sign of His returning favour, which might reanimate the
hopes of His afflicted people, and keep them from fainting under the reproach
of their enemies? It is more than prayer; it is expostulation. Yet the
sentiments which he breathed were not those of unhallowed presumption; for he
bowed with the deepest reverence before God when he addressed Him. It was that
enlargement of soul, which they only know, who, in the strength of a living
faith, have long walked with the Most High as their Father and their Friend. And
similar, accordingly, at times has been the experience of the saints in after
ages. Thus, for instance, it was with Luther in that most eventful of all
passages in his history, when his enemies who had gathered around him on every
side, thought they had swallowed him up; when the proudest of earth’s
potentates sat in judgment over him; when the papacy had written out the
sentence which doomed him to death, and which doomed the Reformation to
destruction along with him. In these distressing circumstances, when to the eye
of man, the cause of truth seemed on the eve of perishing, he was overheard in
an agony of soul to exclaim, “O God, Almighty God everlasting! if I am to
depend on any strength of this world, all is over; the knell is struck;
sentence is gone forth. O God! O God! O Thou my God, help me against the wisdom
of this world: the work is not mine, but Thine. I have no business here. I
would gladly spend my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is Thine; and
it is righteous and everlasting. O Lord, help me. O faithful and unchangeable
God, I lean not upon man. My God, my God, dost Thou not hear: my God, art Thou
no longer living? Nay, Thou canst not die: Thou dost but hide Thyself. My God,
where art Thou? The cause is holy; it is Thine own. I win not let Thee go; no,
nor yet for all eternity.” (T. Doig, M. A.)
The foxes walk upon it.--
Zion’s sufferings
1. The Church’s miseries make deep impressions in the hearts of
saints. Time was when God chose this place, and desired it for His habitation (Psalms 132:13), when it was a principal
object of His affection (Psalms 87:2); when the people from all
quarters of Judea resorted to it for Divine instruction (Isaiah 2:3); when of all other places it
was the most precious in the repute of the saints (Psalms 137:1). But now this mountain,
this stately mountain is divested of all her glory, her ordinances are
polluted, her inhabitants are driven into exile, her princes are carried away
captive, and all her ornaments, all her jewels, all her riches, are the spoils
of Babylon, now she is as a desert, she sits solitary, she hath none to visit
her but the foxes that walk about her, she is laid waste like a wilderness, and
even brought to utter destruction. So that by this we are taught--That Zion may
become like Shilo, the choicest places notwithstanding their more than ordinary
privileges may come to ruin (Jeremiah 7:12-14; Isaiah 64:10-11; Lamentations 1:17-18). But why must Zion
become a desolation?
2. The Assyrians like crafty foxes.
Verses 19-22
Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; Thy throne from generation to
generation.
The everlasting throne
Thus at last our attention is turned from earth to heaven, from
man to God. In this change of vision the mood which gave rise to the
Lamentations disappears. Since earthly things lose their value in view of the
treasures in heaven, the ruin of them also becomes of less account. For the
moment the poet forgets himself and his surroundings in a rapt contemplation of
God. This is the glory of adoration, the very highest form of prayer, that
prayer in which a man comes nearest to the condition ascribed to angels and the
spirits of the blessed who surround the throne and gaze on the eternal light.
The continuance of the throne of God is the idea that now lays hold of the
elegist as he turns his thoughts from the miserable scenes of the ruined city
to the glory above. This is brought home to his consciousness by the fleeting
nature of all things earthly. God only remains, eternal, unchangeable. His is
the only throne that stands secure above every revolution. The unwavering faith
of our poet is apparent at this point after it has been tried by the most
severe tests. Jerusalem has been destroyed, her king has fallen into the hands
of the enemy, her people have been scattered; and yet the elegist has not the
faintest doubt that her God remains and that His throne is steadfast,
immovable, everlasting. The fall of Israel in no way affects the throne of God;
it is even brought about by His will; it could not have occurred if He had been
pleased to hinder it. This idea of the elegist is in line with a familiar
stream of Hebrew thought, and his very words have many an echo in the language
of prophet and psalmist, as, for example, in the forty-fifth Psalm, where we
read, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” The grand Messianic hope is
founded on the conviction that the ultimate establishment of God’s reign
throughout the world will be the best blessing imaginable for all mankind.
Sometimes this is associated with the advent of a Divinely anointed earthly
monarch of the line of David. At other times God’s direct sovereignty is
expected to be manifested in the “day of the Lord.” For Christians, at least as
much as for Jews, the eternal sovereignty of God should be a source of profound
confidence, inspiring hope and joy. Now the elegist ventures to expostulate
with God on the ground of the eternity of His throne. A long time had passed
since the siege, and still the Jews were in distress. It was as though God had
forgotten them or voluntarily forsaken them. This is a dilemma to which we are
often driven. If God is almighty can He be also all-merciful? If what we knew
furnished all the possible data of the problem this would be indeed a serious
position. But our ignorance silences us. Some hint of an explanation is given
in the next phrase of the poet’s prayer. God is besought to turn the people to
Himself. The language of the elegy here points to a personal and spiritual
change. We cannot water it down to the expression of a desire to be restored to
Palestine. Nor is it enough to take it as a prayer to be restored to God’s
favour. The double expression, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be
turned,” points to a deeper longing, a longing for real conversion, the turning
round of the heart and life to God, the return of the prodigal to his Father.
In the next place, it is to be observed that the turning here contemplated is
positive in its aims, not merely a flight from the wrong way. To turn from sin
to blank vacancy and nothingness is an impossibility. The great motive must be
the attraction of a better course rather than revulsion from the old life. This
is the reason why the preaching of the Gospel of Christ succeeds where pure
appeals to conscience fail. Then we may notice, further, that the particular
aim of the change here indicated is to turn back to God. As sin is forsaking
God, so the commencement of a better life must consist in a return to Him. But
this is not to be regarded as a means towards some other end. We must not have
the homecoming made use of as a mere convenience. It must be an end in itself,
and the chief end of the prayer and effort of the soul, or it can be nothing at
all. The poet is perfectly confident that when God takes His people in hand to
lead them round to Himself He will surely do so. If He turns them they will be
turned. The words suggest that previous efforts had been made from other
quarters, and had failed. The prophets, speaking from God, had urged
repentance, but their words had been ineffectual. It is only when God
undertakes the work that there is any chance of success. Next, we see that the
return is to be a renewal of a previous condition. The poet prays, “Renew our
days as of old”--a phrase which suggests the recovery of apostates. Possibly
here we have some reference to more external conditions. There is a hope that
the prosperity of the former times may be brought back. And yet the previous
line, which is concerned with the spiritual return to God, should lead us to
take this one also in a spiritual sense. The memory of a lost blessing makes
the prayer for restoration the more intense. In some respects restoration is
more difficult than a new beginning. The past will not come back. The innocence
of childhood, when once it is lost, can never be restored. That first, fresh
bloom of youth is irrecoverable. On the other hand, what the restoration lacks
in one respect may be more than made up in other directions. Though the old
paradise will not be regained, though it has withered long since, and the site
of it has become a desert, God will create new heavens and a new earth which
shall be better than the lost past. In our English Bible the last verse of the
chapter reads like a final outburst of the language of despair. It seems to say
that the prayer is all in vain, for God has utterly forsaken His people. But
another rendering is now generally accepted, though our revisers have only
placed it in the margin. According to this we read, “Unless Thou hast utterly
rejected us,” etc. There is still a melancholy tone in the sentence, as there
is throughout the book that it concludes; but this is softened, and now it by
no means breathes the spirit of despair. Turn it round, and the phrase will
even contain an encouragement. If God has not utterly rejected His people
assuredly He will attend to their prayer to be restored to Him. But it cannot
be that He has quite cast them off. Then it must be that He will respond and
turn them back to Himself. Thus we are led even by this most melancholy book in
the Bible to see, as with eyes purged by tears, that the love of God is greater
than the sorrow of man, and His redeeming power more mighty than the sin which
lies at the root of the worst of that sorrow, the eternity of His throne, in
spite of the present havoc of evil in the universe, assuring us that the end of
all will be not a mournful elegy, but a paean of victory. (W. F. Adeney, M.
A.)
Thou, O Lord, remainest forever, Thy throne from generation to
generation
1. God’s unchangeableness a support in troubles.
2. God is eternal as well as immutable.
Wherefore dost Thou forget
us forever, and forsake us so long time?--
Helps for time of desertion
For the ship doth not more naturally arise with the flowing in of
the waters, than doubts in the soul with the coming in of troubles. For all
this while God is but either trying thy disposition, and the frame and temper
of thy spirit towards Himself, He is but seeing whether thou wilt love Him
frowning as well as smiling upon thy soul (Isaiah 8:17), or ransacking of thine
heart, and making discovery to thee of the filth and guilt of sin that is
within thee, for man feels his sins with most hatred and sorrow in the times of
God’s withdrawings (1 Samuel 21:1-2), or He is but
putting thee into that most excellent life of His most precious saints. Thou
wouldest live by sense, but He will now teach thee with David to live by faith
(Psalms 27:13), or else the Lord is
preparing thee for greater apprehensions of His love and favour for the time to
come. Yet still, for all that hath been spoken, methinks I see you, O ye
captived Jews, like Rachel, weeping and refusing consolation; what, are you
like the marigold, which opens and shuts with the sun? are you as court favourites,
whose comforts and discomforts depend upon the countenance or discountenance of
their prince? I must needs acknowledge, that heaven’s frowning, God’s
neglecting, or the Lord’s deserting, wounds deep, and pierceth through a
Christian’s heart. And this hath been the cause why in an expostulatory way
they have breathed out these, or the like complaints; if the Lord be with us,
why is all this befallen us? Will the Lord cast off forever, will He not again
show favour? hath He forgotten to be gracious, and doth His promise fail for
evermore (Psalms 77:7-9)? Neither do I marvel if,
in this pang those have been the expresses of their souls. For where is a
believer’s love concentrate, as it were, and gathered together, but in the Lord
its God? and therefore it languisheth in His absence, and is ill at ease, until
it enjoy His presence (Song of Solomon 5:8). Hath not the saints’
rejoicing ever been principally in Divine communion (Psalms 4:7)? Is not the assurance of His
love the very day and joy of a Christian heart? (D. Swift.)
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O
Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
Genuine conversion
I. It is a turning
of the soul to the Lord. Not to creeds, not to churches, but to the Lord
Himself, as the object of supreme love. The centreing of the whole soul upon
Him. If the Lord is loved supremely, He will be the dominant subject of
thought, the leading theme of conversation, the paramount sovereign of life.
II. It is a turning
of the soul to the Lord by the Lord. No one can turn the human soul to God but
Himself. A man may as well endeavour to roll back the Mississippi to its
mountain springs as to turn back the soul to the Lord; He alone can do it, and
He does it by the influence of nature, historic events, Gospel truths, and
Christly ministries. (Homilist.)
Zion’s sufferings
1. Afflictions send the saints unto their God. O happy sorrows, O
blessed troubles that thus bring poor souls nearer to their God. Now, having
been thus doctrinated in the school of the Cross, thou mayest experimentally
say with the sweet singer of Israel, it is good for me that I have been
afflicted, thereby I have learned to know Thy statutes.
2. Troubles no discouragements to God’s precious servants.
3. Repentance the work of the great God.
4. Pressures put not God’s children besides their prayers.
5. Deliverances are only perfected by the Lord. (D. Swift.)
Verses 19-22
Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; Thy throne from generation to
generation.
The everlasting throne
Thus at last our attention is turned from earth to heaven, from
man to God. In this change of vision the mood which gave rise to the
Lamentations disappears. Since earthly things lose their value in view of the
treasures in heaven, the ruin of them also becomes of less account. For the
moment the poet forgets himself and his surroundings in a rapt contemplation of
God. This is the glory of adoration, the very highest form of prayer, that
prayer in which a man comes nearest to the condition ascribed to angels and the
spirits of the blessed who surround the throne and gaze on the eternal light.
The continuance of the throne of God is the idea that now lays hold of the
elegist as he turns his thoughts from the miserable scenes of the ruined city to
the glory above. This is brought home to his consciousness by the fleeting
nature of all things earthly. God only remains, eternal, unchangeable. His is
the only throne that stands secure above every revolution. The unwavering faith
of our poet is apparent at this point after it has been tried by the most
severe tests. Jerusalem has been destroyed, her king has fallen into the hands
of the enemy, her people have been scattered; and yet the elegist has not the
faintest doubt that her God remains and that His throne is steadfast,
immovable, everlasting. The fall of Israel in no way affects the throne of God;
it is even brought about by His will; it could not have occurred if He had been
pleased to hinder it. This idea of the elegist is in line with a familiar stream
of Hebrew thought, and his very words have many an echo in the language of
prophet and psalmist, as, for example, in the forty-fifth Psalm, where we read,
“Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” The grand Messianic hope is founded
on the conviction that the ultimate establishment of God’s reign throughout the
world will be the best blessing imaginable for all mankind. Sometimes this is
associated with the advent of a Divinely anointed earthly monarch of the line
of David. At other times God’s direct sovereignty is expected to be manifested
in the “day of the Lord.” For Christians, at least as much as for Jews, the
eternal sovereignty of God should be a source of profound confidence, inspiring
hope and joy. Now the elegist ventures to expostulate with God on the ground of
the eternity of His throne. A long time had passed since the siege, and still
the Jews were in distress. It was as though God had forgotten them or
voluntarily forsaken them. This is a dilemma to which we are often driven. If
God is almighty can He be also all-merciful? If what we knew furnished all the
possible data of the problem this would be indeed a serious position. But our
ignorance silences us. Some hint of an explanation is given in the next phrase
of the poet’s prayer. God is besought to turn the people to Himself. The
language of the elegy here points to a personal and spiritual change. We cannot
water it down to the expression of a desire to be restored to Palestine. Nor is
it enough to take it as a prayer to be restored to God’s favour. The double
expression, “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,” points to
a deeper longing, a longing for real conversion, the turning round of the heart
and life to God, the return of the prodigal to his Father. In the next place,
it is to be observed that the turning here contemplated is positive in its
aims, not merely a flight from the wrong way. To turn from sin to blank vacancy
and nothingness is an impossibility. The great motive must be the attraction of
a better course rather than revulsion from the old life. This is the reason why
the preaching of the Gospel of Christ succeeds where pure appeals to conscience
fail. Then we may notice, further, that the particular aim of the change here
indicated is to turn back to God. As sin is forsaking God, so the commencement
of a better life must consist in a return to Him. But this is not to be
regarded as a means towards some other end. We must not have the homecoming
made use of as a mere convenience. It must be an end in itself, and the chief
end of the prayer and effort of the soul, or it can be nothing at all. The poet
is perfectly confident that when God takes His people in hand to lead them
round to Himself He will surely do so. If He turns them they will be turned.
The words suggest that previous efforts had been made from other quarters, and
had failed. The prophets, speaking from God, had urged repentance, but their
words had been ineffectual. It is only when God undertakes the work that there
is any chance of success. Next, we see that the return is to be a renewal of a
previous condition. The poet prays, “Renew our days as of old”--a phrase which
suggests the recovery of apostates. Possibly here we have some reference to
more external conditions. There is a hope that the prosperity of the former
times may be brought back. And yet the previous line, which is concerned with
the spiritual return to God, should lead us to take this one also in a
spiritual sense. The memory of a lost blessing makes the prayer for restoration
the more intense. In some respects restoration is more difficult than a new
beginning. The past will not come back. The innocence of childhood, when once
it is lost, can never be restored. That first, fresh bloom of youth is
irrecoverable. On the other hand, what the restoration lacks in one respect may
be more than made up in other directions. Though the old paradise will not be
regained, though it has withered long since, and the site of it has become a
desert, God will create new heavens and a new earth which shall be better than
the lost past. In our English Bible the last verse of the chapter reads like a
final outburst of the language of despair. It seems to say that the prayer is
all in vain, for God has utterly forsaken His people. But another rendering is
now generally accepted, though our revisers have only placed it in the margin.
According to this we read, “Unless Thou hast utterly rejected us,” etc. There
is still a melancholy tone in the sentence, as there is throughout the book
that it concludes; but this is softened, and now it by no means breathes the
spirit of despair. Turn it round, and the phrase will even contain an
encouragement. If God has not utterly rejected His people assuredly He will
attend to their prayer to be restored to Him. But it cannot be that He has
quite cast them off. Then it must be that He will respond and turn them back to
Himself. Thus we are led even by this most melancholy book in the Bible to see,
as with eyes purged by tears, that the love of God is greater than the sorrow
of man, and His redeeming power more mighty than the sin which lies at the root
of the worst of that sorrow, the eternity of His throne, in spite of the
present havoc of evil in the universe, assuring us that the end of all will be
not a mournful elegy, but a paean of victory. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)
Thou, O Lord, remainest forever, Thy throne from generation to
generation
1. God’s unchangeableness a support in troubles.
2. God is eternal as well as immutable.
Wherefore dost Thou forget
us forever, and forsake us so long time?--
Helps for time of desertion
For the ship doth not more naturally arise with the flowing in of
the waters, than doubts in the soul with the coming in of troubles. For all
this while God is but either trying thy disposition, and the frame and temper
of thy spirit towards Himself, He is but seeing whether thou wilt love Him
frowning as well as smiling upon thy soul (Isaiah 8:17), or ransacking of thine
heart, and making discovery to thee of the filth and guilt of sin that is
within thee, for man feels his sins with most hatred and sorrow in the times of
God’s withdrawings (1 Samuel 21:1-2), or He is but
putting thee into that most excellent life of His most precious saints. Thou
wouldest live by sense, but He will now teach thee with David to live by faith
(Psalms 27:13), or else the Lord is
preparing thee for greater apprehensions of His love and favour for the time to
come. Yet still, for all that hath been spoken, methinks I see you, O ye
captived Jews, like Rachel, weeping and refusing consolation; what, are you like
the marigold, which opens and shuts with the sun? are you as court favourites,
whose comforts and discomforts depend upon the countenance or discountenance of
their prince? I must needs acknowledge, that heaven’s frowning, God’s
neglecting, or the Lord’s deserting, wounds deep, and pierceth through a
Christian’s heart. And this hath been the cause why in an expostulatory way
they have breathed out these, or the like complaints; if the Lord be with us,
why is all this befallen us? Will the Lord cast off forever, will He not again
show favour? hath He forgotten to be gracious, and doth His promise fail for
evermore (Psalms 77:7-9)? Neither do I marvel if,
in this pang those have been the expresses of their souls. For where is a
believer’s love concentrate, as it were, and gathered together, but in the Lord
its God? and therefore it languisheth in His absence, and is ill at ease, until
it enjoy His presence (Song of Solomon 5:8). Hath not the
saints’ rejoicing ever been principally in Divine communion (Psalms 4:7)? Is not the assurance of His
love the very day and joy of a Christian heart? (D. Swift.)
Turn Thou us unto Thee, O
Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
Genuine conversion
I. It is a turning
of the soul to the Lord. Not to creeds, not to churches, but to the Lord
Himself, as the object of supreme love. The centreing of the whole soul upon
Him. If the Lord is loved supremely, He will be the dominant subject of
thought, the leading theme of conversation, the paramount sovereign of life.
II. It is a turning
of the soul to the Lord by the Lord. No one can turn the human soul to God but
Himself. A man may as well endeavour to roll back the Mississippi to its
mountain springs as to turn back the soul to the Lord; He alone can do it, and
He does it by the influence of nature, historic events, Gospel truths, and
Christly ministries. (Homilist.)
Zion’s sufferings
1. Afflictions send the saints unto their God. O happy sorrows, O
blessed troubles that thus bring poor souls nearer to their God. Now, having
been thus doctrinated in the school of the Cross, thou mayest experimentally
say with the sweet singer of Israel, it is good for me that I have been
afflicted, thereby I have learned to know Thy statutes.
2. Troubles no discouragements to God’s precious servants.
3. Repentance the work of the great God.
4. Pressures put not God’s children besides their prayers.
5. Deliverances are only perfected by the Lord. (D. Swift.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》