Lamentations 3:53

of what the Prophet says: he amplifies the indignity of their calamity by this comparison, — that the Chaldeans at their pleasure plundered the miserable people, who were not able to resist them, who were indeed without any power to defend themselves. It follows, -- The words literally are, — Hunting hunted me like a bird have mine enemies without a cause. — Ed Lamentations 3:53 53. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me. 53. Succiderunt (vel potius, constrinxerunt) in puteo vitam meam, et projecerunt lapidem super me. He now employs other comparisons. Some improperly confine this to Jeremiah himself, as though he explained here before God the wrongs done to himself: but there is no doubt but that he undertakes the cause of the whole people; and his object was to encourage by his own example the faithful to lament their state so that they might obtain pardon from God. He then compares himself to a man half-dead, cast into a pit, and there left for lost. Then some improperly interpret the words, "they cast stones;" for stoning was not in the mind of the Prophet; but having said that he was fast bound in a pit or dungeon, he adds that a stone was laid over him, that lie might not come forth, as we know was the case with Daniel. (Daniel 6:16, 17.) Daniel was cast into the den of lions, and then a stone was put on the mouth of the den. So also the Prophet says,

They have cut off my life in the dungeon,.... Jarchi interprets it, "they bound me in the prison.'' Jeremiah was both in a prison and in a dungeon, where he was deprived of the society of men, as if he had been dead; and he was in danger of losing his life; but whether any respect is had to it here is not certain: it seems rather to respect the people of the Jews in captivity, who were deprived of their rights and liberties, and of the comforts of life; and were like dead men in their graves, to whom they are compared, Ezekiel 37:11; but since Jeremiah was not dead, nor did he die in the dungeon, Jarchi's sense seems best, and agrees with what follows; and is confirmed by the version of others, who render it, "they shut up my life in the dungeon" (q); or himself there: and cast a stone upon me; to see if he was dead, or to prevent him from rising. The allusion is to the putting of stones at the mouths of dens and dungeons, caves and graves, to keep in those there put: or they stoned me, as the Targum; that is, they endeavoured to do it: or the Jews in captivity were like persons stoned to death, or like dead men covered with a heap of stones; for that Jeremiah was stoned to death there is no reason to believe. (q) "concluserunt in fovea vitam meam", Noldius, Concord. Ebr. Part. p. 141, "manciparunt fovea vitam meam", Cocceius.

Dungeon seemeth not to be here taken literally, for the lowest and nastiest place in prisons, which probably was the portion but of a few of the Jews; but metaphorically, for the lowest and saddest condition of misery. Their enemies had brought them into the deepest miseries, to the cutting off of their lives; and as men use to roll great stones upon the mouths of dens and pits, where they have shut up persons, to make them sure from escaping out, so their enemies had dealt with them, doing what lay in them to make their condition remediless and desperate.

צמתוּ is here used transitively in Kal, as the Piel is elsewhere, Psalm 119:139 , and the Pilpel, Psalm 88:17 . צמתוּ בבּור, "they were destroying (cutting off) my life down into the pit," is a pregnant construction, and must be understood de conatu: "they sought to destroy my life when they hurled me down into the pit, and cast stones on me," i.e., not "they covered the pit with a stone" (Pareau, De Wette, Neumann). The verb ידה construed with בּ does not take this meaning, for ידה merely signifies to cast, e.g., lots ( Joshua 4:3 , etc.), arrows ( Jeremiah 50:14 ), or to throw down equals destroy, annihilate, Zechariah 2:4 ; and בּי does not mean "in the pit in which I was," but "upon (or against) me." The sing. אבן is to be understood in accordance with the expression רגם אבן, to cast stones equals stone ( 1 Kings 12:18 ; Leviticus 20:2 , Leviticus 20:27 ). As to ויּדּוּ for ויידּוּ, see on ויּגּה in Lamentations 3:33 . "Waters flowed over my head" is a figurative expression, denoting such misery and distress as endanger life; cf. Psalm 59:2-3 , Psalm 59:15 ., Psalm 124:4 ., Psalm 42:8 . 'I said (thought), I am cut off (from God's eyes or hand)," Psalm 31:23 ; Psalm 88:6 , is a reminiscence from these Psalms, and does not essentially differ from "cut off out of the land of the living," Isaiah 43:8 . For, that we must thereby think of death, or sinking down into Sheol, is shown by מבּור תּחתּיּות, Lamentations 3:55 .

The complaint in these verses (52-54) is regarded by some expositors as a description of the personal sufferings of Jeremiah; and the casting into the pit is referred to the incident mentioned in Jeremiah 38:6 . Such is the view, for instance, taken by Vaihinger and Ngelsbach, who point for proof to these considerations especially: (1) That the Chaldeans certainly could not, without good cause ( Lamentations 3:53 ), be understood as the "enemies;" (2) that Jeremiah could not represent the people, speaking as if they were righteous and innocent; and (3) that the writer already speaks of his deliverance from their power, and contents himself with merely calling down on them the vengeance of God ( Lamentations 3:55-66 ). But not one of these reasons is decisive. For, in the first place, the contents of Lamentations 3:52 do not harmonize with the known hostility which Jeremiah had to endure from his personal enemies. That is to say, there is nothing mentioned or known of his enemies having stoned him, or having covered him over with a stone, after they had cast him into the miry pit ( Jeremiah 38:6 .), The figurative character of the whole account thus shows itself in the very fact that the separate portions of it are taken from reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, whose figurative character is universally acknowledged.