Lamentations 3:10

3:1-20 The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. It was an affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. The struggle between unbelief and faith is often very severe. But the weakest believer is wrong, if he thinks that his strength and hope are perished from the Lord.

He was unto me as a bear lying in wait,.... For its prey, which seizes on it at once, and tears it in pieces; such were the Chaldeans to the Jews by divine permission: and as a lion in secret places; lurking there, in order to take every opportunity and advantage, and fall upon any creature that comes that way. The same thing is signified here as before; see Hosea 5:14.

Verse 10. - Was; rather, is. As a bear ...as a lion . The comparison of the enemy to a lion is not uncommon; see e.g. Jeremiah 4:7 ; Jeremiah 5:6 (see note); 49:19; 1:44; Psalm 10:9 ; Psalm 17:12 ; Job 10:16 . The bear is only once mentioned in such a context ( Hosea 13:8 ). The two latter passages may possibly have been in the mind of the writer, as Jehovah is in both the subject of the comparison. Lamentations 3:10

Not merely, however, has God cut off every way of escape for him who here utters the complaint, but He pursues him in every possible way, that He may utterly destroy him. On the figure of a bear lying in wait, cf. Hosea 13:8 ; Amos 5:19 . It is more usual to find enemies compared to lions in ambush; cf. Psalm 10:19 ; Psalm 17:12 . The last-named passage seems to have been present to the writer's mind. The prophets frequently compare enemies to lions, e.g., Jeremiah 5:6 ; Jeremiah 4:7 ; Jeremiah 49:19 ; Jeremiah 50:44 . - In Lamentations 3:11 the figure of the lion is discontinued; for cowreer דּרכי cannot be said of a beast. The verb here is not to be derived from סרר, to be refractory, but is the Pilel of סוּר, to go aside, deviate, make to draw back. To "make ways turn aside" may signify to make a person lose the right road, but not to drag back from the road (Thenius); it rather means to mislead, or even facere ut deficiant viae, to take away the road, so that one cannot escape. פּשּׁח is ἅπ. λεγ. in Hebrew; in Aramean it means to cut or tear in pieces: cf. [the Targum on] 1 Samuel 15:33 , "Samuel פּשּׁח Agag," hewed him in pieces; and on Psalm 7:3 , where the word is used for the Heb. פּרק, to tear in pieces (of a lion); here it signifies to tear away (limbs from the body, boughs from trees).

Nay, God had not only defeated their counsels, but had made them prove more fatal and pernicious to themselves, which seemeth to be intended, by making their ways crooked, which should have led right on to the end intended. Lamentations 3:10 That is, he hath taken all advantages against me to destroy me. Lamentations 3:11 The same thing is repeated in other phrases which was before said, viz. that God had pleased by his providence to frustrate all the designs and counsels of the Jews, and miserably to destroy them, as a lion or a bear (the wild beasts mentioned before) tear in pieces the beasts they prey upon. Lamentations 3:12 He hath prepared himself for acts of vindicative justice, and he hath made me the object of it. Lamentations 3:13 That is, he hath made his judgments to pierce the most inward parts of the nation; or, he hath mortally wounded me. In the Hebrew it is, the daughters of his quiver, a way of speaking very usual in Hebrew, to express any thing that comes from another as the effect either of a natural or moral cause; so sparks are called the sons of the quick coal, Job_5:7, and corn the son of the floor, &c. Lamentations 3:14 Though some think the prophet speaks this of himself, yet, considering he hath all along spoken in the name of the people, it is not probable, which makes a difficulty, how the people could be a derision to themselves?