Lamentations 3:26

The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. THE LORD IS GOOD ... IT IS GOOD ... IT IS GOOD. The repetition of "good" at the beginning of each of the three verses heightens the effect. WAIT FOR HIM - (, "Blessed are all they that wait for Him"). Verse 26. QUIETLY WAIT - literally, be in silence. Compare and ; - i:e., to be patiently quiet under afflictions, resting in the will of God (). So Aaron "held his peace" when fire from the Lord devoured his sons Nadab and Abihu, because they had offered strange...

It is, indeed, an abrupt phrase when he says, Good and he will wait; for these words are without a subject; but as it is a general statement, there is no ambiguity. The Prophet means that it is _good to hope and to be silent as to the salvation, of God. _Then the verbs in the future tense ought to be rendered its subjunctives, as though it was said, “It is good when any one hopes in the salvation of Jehovah, and is silent, that is, bears patiently all his troubles until God succors him.” (185) But; the Prophet here reminds us, that we are by no means to require that God should always appear to us, and that his paternal favor should always shine forth on our life. This is, indeed, a condition sought for by all; for the flesh inclines us to this, and hence we shun adversities. We, then, naturally desire God’s favor to be manifested to us; how? In reality, so that all things may go on prosp...

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 sinf...

Verse 26. IT IS _GOOD THAT_ A MAN _SHOULD BOTH HOPE_] _Hope_ is essentially necessary to _faith_; he that _hopes not, cannot believe_; if there be no _expectation_, there can be no _confidence_. When a man _hopes_ for salvation, he should not only _wait_ for it, but use every means that may lead to it; for _hope_ cannot live, if there be no _exercise_. If _hope_ become _impatient, faith_ will be impossible: for who can believe for his salvation when his mind is _agitated_? He must therefore _quietly wait_. He must _expect_, and yet be _dumb_, as the words imply; ever feeling his _utter unworthiness_; and, without _murmuring_, struggle into life....

In these three verses, each beginning in the Hebrew with the word good, we have first the fundamental idea that Yahweh Himself is good, and if good to all, then especially is He so to those who being in adversity can yet wait in confidence upon His mercy. Lamentations 3:26 AND QUIETLY WAIT - literally, “and be in silence,” i. e. abstain from all complaining. Lamentations 3:27 THE YOKE - Or, a “yoke.” By bearing a yoke in his youth, i. e. being called upon to suffer in early age, a man learns betimes the lesson of silent endurance, and so finds it more easy to be calm and patient in later years....

EXPOSITION LAMENTATIONS 3:1 MONOLOGUE SPOKEN BY AN INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER WHOSE FATE IS BOUND UP WITH THAT OF THE NATION; OR PERHAPS BY THE NATION PERSONIFIED (see Introduction). LAMENTATIONS 3:1 SEEN. "To see" in Hebrew often means "to experience;" _e.g._...

[IT IS] GOOD THAT [A MAN] SHOULD BOTH HOPE AND QUIETLY WAIT,.... This follows from the former; for if God is good to such, it must be good for them to hope and wait for him; it is both their duty and their interest: and it may be observed, that hope is the ground of patient waiting, and is here promised to it; where there is no hope of a thing, there will be no waiting for it, much less quietly: hope is of things unseen, future, difficult, and yet possible, or there would be no hope; and where there is that, there will be waiting; for "if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it", Romans 8:25; here in the original text it is, "hope, and be silent" z; or, "a good man will both hope" or "wait, and be silent" a; that is, under the present dispensation, though an afflictive one; men should be still, as David exhorts, and be dumb, as he was; and hold their peace, as A...

I am about to read a portion of Holy Scripture which may seem very strange to some of you, but it belongs to a part of the congregation, and I hope it may be the means of giving them comfort. I read it as a picture of the suffering of a soul under a sense of sin. I think it is a most graphic portrait of a heart that is aroused and made to feel its lost estate. If there are any such here, they will be sure to see themselves in the picture. Lamentations 3:1. _I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath._ It is a mistake that most souls make when in trouble, to suppose that no others ever felt as they do. John Bunyan describes Christian as being very much comforted by hearing someone quoting Scripture as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for then he perceived that there were others in like case with his own. Do not think, poor tr

CHAPTER 3 THE PROPHET'S SUFFERING AND DISTRESS This chapter is intensely personal. None but Jeremiah could have written these wonderful expressions of sorrow, the sorrows of the people of God into which he entered so fully, in such a way that they become his own. He shared all their afflictions, bore them himself and then was hated by them. It was the Spirit of Christ who created these feelings in the heart of the prophet. In reading these words of deep distress and the words of faith and waiting for Him, we must look beyond Jeremiah and see a picture of our Lord, “the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” His sorrow and His afflictions, the emotions of His holy soul, as well as the experiences and soul exercise of the believing remnant of Israel in days to come. The prophet speaks of himself as one who is smitten by the rod of God's wrath, the man that hath seen affliction. He had...

LAMENTATIONS 3. THE THIRD LAMENT. Here it is the singer that comes chiefly to the front; whereas in Lamentations 3:1 it had been Zion, and in Lamentations 3:2 it was Yahweh. EV hardly puts Lamentations 3:1 forcibly enough: it should read, It is I, even I the strong man, who know now, alas, what abasement means. The chant is artistically more clever than Lamentations 3:1 and Lamentations 3:2, but its heart is not so great. In form it has a cunning device all its own; for the first stanza has three initial Alephs, the second h