Charles Spurgeon Commentary Lamentations 3:9-13

"He hath walled up my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked. He is unto me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my reins." — Lamentations 3:9-13 (ASV)

He hath made my paths crooked. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins. (Lamentations 3:9–13)

The King's arrows had wounded him to the very quick. Perhaps some of you may know what it is to go to the Bible, and yet to find no comfort in it, for the precious promises have seemed to be too good to be true to you, and you seem to have hunted out every dark and threatening passage at once, and you have said, "Ah, that belongs to me!" You have written bitter things against yourself, and have thought that surely you were the target at which God was shooting his sharpest arrows.