Lamentations 3:7

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy. HEDGED - (; ). Hosea shows that this hedging up for Israel is not for her eternal ruin, but for good in the end, "I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.)" MY CHAIN - literally, chain of brass. Verse 8. HE SHUTTETH OUT MY PRAYER - image from a door shutting out any entrance (. So the antitype, Christ (). Verse 9....

Here he says, first, that he was held _shut up; _for גדר, _gidar, _is to enclose, and גדרה, _gidare, _means a fence or a mound, or an enclosure of any kind. He then says, that he was shut up as it were by a fence, so that he could not go forth; literally, it is, and _I shall not go forth; _but the conjunction here is to be taken as denoting the end. He has _shut me up, _he says, or he has enclosed me, that I might not get out. It then follows, _He hath made heavy my fetter. _His meaning is, that he was not only bound with fetters, but so bound that he could not raise up his feet, as though he had said, that he not only had fetters, but that they were so heavy that he could not even move his feet....

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....

Verse 7. _HE HATH HEDGED ME ABOUT_] This also may refer to the lines drawn round the city during the siege. But these and similar expressions in the following verses may be merely metaphorical, to point out their _straitened, oppressed_, and _distressed_ state....

The prophet feels as if enclosed within walls, and fettered....

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._...

HE HATH HEDGED ME ABOUT, THAT I CANNOT GO OUT,.... When in prison, or in the dungeon, or during the siege of Jerusalem; though the phrase may only denote in general the greatness of his troubles, with which he was encompassed, and how inextricable they were; like a hedge about a vineyard, or a wall about a city, which could not easily be got over: HE HATH MADE MY CHAIN HEAVY; his affliction intolerable. It is a metaphor taken from malefactors that have heavy chains put upon their legs, that they may not make their escape out of prison: or, "my brass" g; that is, chains, or a chain made of brass; so the Targum, "he hath made heavy upon my feet fetters of brass.'' g נחשתי χαλκον μου Sept. "aes meum, [vel] chalybem meum", Piscator....

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