Lamentations 3:40

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. LET US - Jeremiah and his fellow-countrymen in their calamity. SEARCH - as opposed to the torpor wherewith men rest only on their outward sufferings, without attending to the cause of them. God must search us, if we are to be enabled to search ourselves and our ways. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (). Verse 41. LET US LIFT UP OUR HEART WITH OUR HANDS - the antidote to hypocrisy (; ). Verse 42. THOU HAST NOT PARDONED. The Babylonian captivity had not yet ended. [Samech (c)]...

The Prophet now shews more clearly what the reproof meant which we shortly explained yesterday: he said that men act absurdly while they weary themselves in their sins; he now adds that they would do rightly if they inquired into their own life, and faithfully examined themselves. For hence is trouble and weariness, when men feel and deplore their outward evils, but consider not the cause, that is, when they consider not that they are justly chastised by God’s hand. Then the examination now mentioned is set in opposition to the torpor and weariness with which men in vain torment themselves, and in which they pine away, because they reflect not on their vices. Hence it is that they attain nothing but weariness — and that is a sorrow to death, as Paul says; but sorrow to life proceeds from the self-examination to which the Prophet now invites and exhorts us. He then says that the only tru...

37-41 While there is life there is hope; and instead of complaining that things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with the hope they will be better. We are sinful men, and what we complain of, is far less than our sins deserve. We should complain to God, and not of him. We are apt, in times of calamity, to reflect on other people's ways, and blame them; but our duty is to search and try our own ways, that we may turn from evil to God. Our hearts must go with our prayers. If inward impressions do not answer to outward expressions, we mock God, and deceive ourselves....

Verse 40. _LET US SEARCH_] How are we to get the pardon of our sins? The prophet tells us: 1. Let us examine ourselves. 2. "Let us turn again to the Lord." 3. "Let us lift up our heart;" let us make fervent prayer and supplication for mercy. 4. "Let us lift up our hand;" let us solemnly promise to be his, and bind ourselves in a covenant to be the Lord's only: so much _lifting up the hand_ _to God_ implies. Or, let us put our heart on our hand, and offer it to God; so some have translated this clause. 5. "We have transgressed;" let our confession of sin be fervent and sincere. 6. And to us who profess _Christianity_ it may be added, _Believe on_ _the Lord Jesus Christ_ as having _died for thee_; and thou shalt not perish, but have everlasting life. Verses Lamentations 3:46,...

The prophet urges men to search out their faults and amend them. Lamentations 3:40 AND TURN AGAIN TO THE LORD - Or, “and return to Yahweh.” The prep. (to) in the Hebrew implies not half way, but the whole. Lamentations 3:41 Literally, “Let us lift up our heart unto our hands unto God in heaven;” as if the heart first lifted up the hands, and then with them mounted up in prayer to God. In real prayer the outward expression is caused by the emotion stirring within....

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._...

LET US SEARCH AND TRY OUR WAYS,.... stead of murmuring and complaining, let us search for something that may support and comfort, teach and instruct, under afflictive providences; let us search into the love of God, which, though it cannot be fully searched out, it will be found to be from everlasting to everlasting; and that all afflictions spring from it; and that it continues notwithstanding them: let us search into the covenant of grace, in which provision is made for afflictions in case of disobedience, and for supports under them: let us search the Scriptures, which are written for our comfort; and it is much if we do not find some in the instances, examples, and experiences of other saints therein recorded: let us search after a greater degree of the knowledge of Christ, and of his grace; so shall we be more conformable to his sufferings and death, and patient under our troubles:...

We are about to read a chapter which is very full of sorrow; while you are listening to it, some of you may be saying, «We are not in that condition.» Well then, be thankful that you are not, and while you hear of the sorrows of others, bless God for the joys you yourself experience. At the same time, remember that there is a way of sorrow which leads at last to rest and peace. There is truth in the words of the poet Cowper, «The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.» If you have never known the sorrows of the weeping prophet, or anything like them, I am not sure that you should congratulate yourselves, for there is a brokenness of heart that is worth more than the whole world, there is a crushed and bruised spirit in which the Lord delights, and which is a token for good to the one who possesses it. L

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