Charles Ellicott Commentary Lamentations 3

I am the man. —The lamentation is one of more intense personality. For that very reason it has been the true inheritance of all mourners, however widely different in time, country, or circumstance, whose sorrows have approximated that intensity.

The rod of his wrath. —The “wrath” is obviously that of Jehovah (Isaiah 10:5), but there is something significant in the fact that He is not named.

Into darkness. —The moral darkness of perplexity as well as misery. The cry of the mourner was like that of Ajax (Hom. Il. xvii. 647), “Slay me if you will, but slay me in the light.”

Against me is he turned. —Better, against me He turns His hand again and again, the first verb being one of frequentative action, and giving that significance to the second.

Hath he made old. —Better, He has wasted, the verb describing the wear and tear of life rather than the effects of age. “Flesh,” “skin,” “bones,” are grouped together as representing the whole being of the mourner.

He has built. —The attack of sorrow is presented under the figure of a siege. In the next clause the figure is dropped. “Gall” stands, as in Jeremiah 8:14, for bitterest sorrow. “Travel” is the old English form of “travail,” the two forms, originally identical, being now used with different meanings.