John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 3:19

"Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall." — Lamentations 3:19 (ASV)

The verb may be considered as an imperative; it is an infinitive mood, but it is often taken in Hebrew as an imperative. Thus, many consider it a prayer: Remember my affliction and my trouble, the gall and the poison. This might be admitted, but I prefer what others teach: that this verse depends on the last.

For the Prophet seems here to express how he had almost fallen away from hope, so that he no longer found strength from God, precisely because he was overwhelmed with evils. Indeed, it is very unreasonable to think that those who have once experienced the mercy of God should cast away hope, so as not to believe that they are to flee to God anymore. The Prophet here, in a way, excuses what then seems entirely unfitting and shows that it was not strange that he succumbed under extreme evils, for he had been so pressed down by afflictions and troubles that his soul became, as it were, filled with poison and gall.

But in the meantime, he shows by the word remember, how such a trial as this, when it comes, takes hold of our minds—that is, when we think too much of our evils. For the faithful should hold a middle course in their afflictions, lest they fall into a torpor. Since indifference and stupidity arise from this state, they should rouse themselves to a proper consideration of their evils. However, moderation should be observed, lest sorrow swallow us up, as Paul also warns us (2 Corinthians 2:7).

Those, then, who fix their minds too much on the remembrance of their evils gradually open the door to Satan, who may fill their hearts and all their thoughts with despair. The Prophet then describes here the fountain of evils when he says that he remembered his affliction and trouble; and consistent with this is what immediately follows—