John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 3:44

"Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through." — Lamentations 3:44 (ASV)

The Prophet confirms the same thing, but the words are different. He again repeats the word "to cover"; but, so that the metaphor might be clearer and more fully explained, he says, with a cloud. He simply suggests that a cloud interposed, so that God might more unrestrainedly punish the Jews, as they had deserved. Isaiah speaks somewhat differently, but for the same purpose:

“The hand of God,” he says, “is not shortened, nor are his ears more deaf; but your sins have interposed a distance between you and God” (Isaiah 59:1–2).

There is no doubt that Isaiah meant the same thing as our Prophet, namely, that God’s nature never changes; and, therefore, when He seems to rage against His people, the cause should be ascribed to their sins, because God always remains like Himself. We know what is said in the Psalms:

“Thou art God who hearest prayer” (Psalms 65:3).

God, then, is always ready to hear His people, and He also possesses power sufficient to help them; but the distance arises from our sins. And so the Prophet now says that a cloud interposed.

Nearly the same sentence is found in the third chapter, as we have seen; for there the Prophet said, in the name of the whole people, that they had become separated from God, but that it was a separation, not because God had changed His purpose, but because the people had, in a manner, rejected His favor. Thou hast, then, he says, covered thyself with a cloud, that is, you have made for yourself a covering, so that prayer may not pass through.

This seems, indeed, very strange, because God advances to meet all the miserable and promises to hear their prayers: what, then, can this mean, that a cloud interposed so that prayer might not go through to Him? Namely, that the Jews did not pray properly, and that they had closed off for themselves every access by which God could admit them.

In short, the faithful do not here contend with God, as though they had been deceived by His promises, but confess that they were unworthy to pray to God, and they also acknowledge that they did not pray properly. And in this sense they say that they were hindered, as though a cloud interposed, so that their prayer could not ascend to God.