Lamentations 3:8

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.

Also when I cry and shout,.... Cry, because of the distress of the enemy within; "shout", or cry aloud for help from others without; as persons in a prison do, to make them hear and pity their case: thus the prophet in his affliction cried aloud to God; was fervent, earnest, and importunate in prayer; and yet not heard: he shutteth out my prayer; shuts the door, that it may not enter; as the door is sometimes shut upon beggars, that their cry may not be heard. The Targum is, "the house of my prayer is shut.'' Jarchi interprets it of the windows of the firmament being shut, so that his prayer could not pass through, or be heard; see Lamentations 3:44. The phrase designs God's disregard, or seeming disregard, of the prayer of the prophet, or of the people; and his shutting his ears against it. Of this, as the Messiah's case, see Psalm 22:2.

Lamentations 3:8 . Also when I cry and shout — When, under a conviction that, in my present distressed condition, I cannot deliver myself, and that no creature can deliver me, I make application to God in prayer for deliverance, and am serious, fervent, and importunate in my addresses to him; he shutteth out my prayer — Refuses to hearken to it, or give me any ease or relief; Hebrew, שׂתם , the same as סתם , he hath obstructed my prayer; “hath barred my prayer from approaching him.” — Blaney. Thus sometimes God seems to be angry even against the prayers of his people, Psalm 80:5 . And their case is deplorable indeed when they are denied, not only the benefit of an answer, but the comfort of acceptance.

In the condition I am in, I cannot help myself, no creatures can help me, I have no hope but in God. I take the ordinary course in that case, which is prayer, I pray fervently and aloud, as those that are serious and importunate for what they desire (for shouting here signifies no more than making a loud noise, not a loud noise of joy and rejoicing, as it mostly signifies); but he deals with me as great persons that have no mind to listen to suitors, and shut their gates against them, he shutteth out my supplications: which made their case wholly desperate and remediless.

This distress presses upon him all the more heavily, because, in addition to this, the Lord does not listen to his prayer and cries, but has rather closed His ear; cf. Jeremiah 7:16 ; Psalm 18:42 , etc. שׂתם for סתם (only written here with שׂ), to stop the prayer; i.e., not to prevent the prayer from issuing out of the breast, to restrain supplication, but to prevent the prayer from reaching His ear; cf. Lamentations 3:44 and Proverbs 1:28 .

[Bible] 2:21. Sin. The child and the old man lie without on the ground: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain them in the day of thy wrath: thou hast killed, and shewn them no pity. 2:22. Thau. Thou hast called as to a festival, those that should terrify me round about, and there was none in the day of the wrath of the Lord that escaped and was left: those that I brought up, and nourished, my enemy hath consumed them. Lamentations Chapter 3 3:1. Aleph. I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of his indignation. 3:2. Aleph. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light. 3:3. Aleph. Only against me he hath turned, and turned again his hand all the day. 3:4. Beth. My skin and my flesh he hath made old, he hath broken my bones. 3:5. Beth. He hath built round about me, and he hath compassed me with gall, and labour. 3:6. Beth. He hath set me in dark places as those that are dead for ever. 3:7. Ghimel. He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out: he hath made my fetters heavy. 3:8. Ghimel. Yea, and when I cry, and entreat, he hath shut out my prayer. 3:9. Ghimel. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, he hath turned my paths upside down. 3:10. Daleth. He is become to me as a bear lying in wait: as a lion in secret places. 3:11. Daleth. He hath turned aside my paths, and hath broken me in pieces, he hath made me desolate. 3:12. Daleth. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for his arrows. 3:13. He. He hath shot into my reins the daughters of his quiver. 3:14. He. I am made a derision to all my people, their song all the day long. 3:15. He. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriated me with wormwood. 3:16. Vau. And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes. 3:17. Vau. And my soul is removed far off from peace, I have forgotten good things. 3:18. Vau. And I said: My end and my hope is perished from the Lord. 3:19. Zain. Remember my poverty, and transgression, the wormwood and the gall.

To keep in those beasts that are within; thus God had now hedged them in, into a barren place where they had no pasture, but were continually pushed at by other beasts with whom they were mixed, and who were stronger than they, and they could not get out. God had dealt with them as with grievous malefactors, who are loaded with heavy chains. He had made their affliction heavy and insupportable. Lamentations 3:8 In the condition I am in, I cannot help myself, no creatures can help me, I have no hope but in God. I take the ordinary course in that case, which is prayer, I pray fervently and aloud, as those that are serious and importunate for what they desire (for shouting here signifies no more than making a loud noise, not a loud noise of joy and rejoicing, as it mostly signifies); but he deals with me as great persons that have no mind to listen to suitors, and shut their gates against them, he shutteth out my supplications: which made their case wholly desperate and remediless. ## Lamentations 3:9 Ways in Scripture ordinarily signifies men’s courses, and methods of counsels, and actions; if the term be taken in that sense here, it signifieth God’s defeating all their methods and counsels taken for their own security, in the pursuit of which they met not with ordinary, but with insuperable difficulties, like walls of hewn stone.