Charles Ellicott Commentary Lamentations 3:34-36

"To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not." — Lamentations 3:34-36 (ASV)

To crush ... — The triplet of verses forms one sentence dependent upon the final clause, The Lord approveth not, literally, does not look on. By some critics, the literal meaning is kept in the form of a question: Does not the Lord look on this?

The fact that the righteous judgment of God is against those who, unlike Him, cause willful and needless suffering is another ground of hope to the sufferer.

The three forms of evil specified are:

1. the cruel treatment of prisoners of war, such as Jeremiah had witnessed daily at the hands of the Chaldeans;
2. the perversion of justice in a public tribunal acting in the name of God (Exodus 23:6);
3. every form even of private injustice.