Lamentations 3:27

3:21-36 Having stated his distress and temptation, the prophet shows how he was raised above it. Bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy of God that they are not worse. We should observe what makes for us, as well as what is against us. God's compassions fail not; of this we have fresh instances every morning. Portions on earth are perishing things, but God is a portion for ever. It is our duty, and will be our comfort and satisfaction, to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. Afflictions do and will work very much for good: many have found it good to bear this yoke in their youth; it has made many humble and serious, and has weaned them from the world, who otherwise would have been proud and unruly. If tribulation work patience, that patience will work experience, and that experience a hope that makes not ashamed. Due thoughts of the evil of sin, and of our own sinfulness, will convince us that it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed. If we cannot say with unwavering voice, The Lord is my portion; may we not say, I desire to have Him for my portion and salvation, and in his word do I hope? Happy shall we be, if we learn to receive affliction as laid upon us by the hand of God.

Lamentations 3:27-30 . It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth — That he be inured betimes to bear those useful restraints which may give him a right sense of the duty which he owes to God, and the obedience he ought to pay to his laws. For the prophet’s expression is very applicable to the yoke of God’s commands; it is good for us to take that yoke upon us in our youth; we cannot begin too soon to be religious; it will make our duty the more acceptable to God, and easy to ourselves, if we engage in it when we are young. Here, however, the prophet seems to speak chiefly of the yoke of affliction; many have found it good to bear this yoke in their youth; it has made those humble, and serious, and spiritually minded, who otherwise would have been proud, unruly, and as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. If it be asked, when we bear this yoke so that it is really good for us to bear it? we have the answer in the following verses: 1st, When we are sedate and quiet under our afflictions; when we sit alone and keep silence; retire into privacy that we may converse with God, and commune with our own hearts, silencing all discontented, distrustful thoughts, and laying our hand upon our mouth, as Aaron, who, under a severe trial, held his peace.

When those that are afflicted in their youth accommodate themselves to their afflictions, and study to answer God’s end in afflicting them, then they will find it good for them to bear it; for it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. 2d, When we are humble and patient under affliction; he gets good by the yoke, that not only lays his hand upon his mouth in token of submission to the will of God in the affliction, but puts his mouth in the dust in token of sorrow, shame, and self-loathing at the remembrance of sin, and as one perfectly reduced and reclaimed, and brought, as it were, to lick the dust, Psalm 72:9 . And we must thus humble ourselves, if so be there may be hope. If there be any way to acquire and secure a good hope under our afflictions, as, blessed be God, there is, it is this way, and while we look for it we must own ourselves utterly unworthy of Lamentations 2:3 d, When we are meek and gentle toward those that are the instruments of our trouble, and manifest a forgiving spirit. He gets good by the yoke that gives his cheek to him that smiteth him, and rather turns the other cheek, than returns the second blow.

27 . in his youth ] in the time when his passions are strongest and therefore most need the discipline, which, if established in its seat then, will hold sway throughout his life. The words by no means imply that the writer was young at the time he used them. Rather he is looking back through a long life of trouble and the experience which he has gained in the course of it. Cp. Hebrews 12:7-11 .

Verse 27. - In his youth. The thought of this verse reminds us of Psalm 119:71 . Youth is mentioned as the time when it is easier to adapt one's self to circumstances, and when discipline is most readily accepted. The words do not prove that the writer is young, any more than vers. 9 and 100 of Psalm 119 . prove that the psalmist was an aged man (against this view, see vers. 84-87). There is no occasion, therefore, for the textual alteration (for as such I cannot help regarding it), "from his youth," found in some Hebrew manuscripts in Theodotion, in the Aldine edition of the Septuagint, and in the Vulgate. The reading was probably dictated by the unconscious endeavour to prop up the theory of Jeremiah's authorship. The scribes and translators remembered, inopportunely, that the trials of Jeremiah began in early manhood. Lamentations 3:27

Good here must be expounded in the same sense as in the foregoing verse. It is not pleasant, but it is profitable, it is honourable, what becomes us, and is our duty, quietly and patiently to bear what afflictions God will please to lay upon us, to restrain our wild and wanton spirits when they are most prone to be too brisk and lascivious. Some by yoke understand the law of God, called a yoke, ( because indeed it is so to flesh and blood,) Matthew 11:29 . It is not so easy to bend a neck stiffened with age, or change a heart made hard by custom. Solomon bids us to train up one in their youth in the way we would have them to walk; and whether God will tame us when young by his word or by his rod, it is of advantage to a man. It is also laudable, and what becomes a man, early to bear the yoke of God’s law, or to bear afflictive providences, to have his heart betimes humbled to the will and feet of God.

(27) Bear the yoke in his youth. —The words have been pressed “ with a strange literalism” in favour of the view that the Lamentations were written in the youth of Jeremiah and on the death of Josiah. It may fairly be contended, on the other hand, that the tone of the maxim is that of one who looks back from the experience of age on the passionate complaints of his earlier years ( Jeremiah 15:10 ; Jeremiah 20:7-18 ).

27. yoke—of the Lord's disciplinary teaching (Ps 90:12; 119:71). Calvin interprets it, The Lord's doctrine (Mt 11:29, 30), which is to be received in a docile spirit. The earlier the better; for the old are full of prejudices (Pr 8:17; Ec 12:1). Jeremiah himself received the yoke, both of doctrine and chastisement in his youth (Jer 1:6, 7). Jod.