Thomas Aquinas Commentary Lamentations 3

Here, after listing many punishments, the author guards against the people's despair.

This section is divided into three parts:

1. He presents the causes leading to despair.
2. He provides arguments for finding hope, beginning at remember my poverty (Lamentations 3:19).
3. After gaining confidence, he turns to plead for mercy, beginning at let us search our ways (Lamentations 3:40).

Regarding the first part, he does three things:

1. He describes their affliction.
2. He addresses the condemnation, at and my soul is removed (Lamentations 3:17).
3. He concludes with despair, at I said: I am cut off (Lamentations 3:54).

Regarding the first of these points, he does two things:

1. He presents the affliction they endured from the blows of the hand that struck them.
2. He describes the way these blows were inflicted, at a bear lying in wait (Lamentations 3:10).

Regarding the first of these, he does three things:

1. He presents the scourge of divine wrath (Lamentations 3:1).
2. He shows the effect of the flogging, at my skin he has made old (Lamentations 3:4).
3. He rules out any means of escape, at he has built against me round about (Lamentations 3:7).

Regarding the first of these, he does three things:

1. He presents the indignation of the one striking: I am the man that sees my poverty. Jeremiah speaks in his own person, because he also was afflicted along with the others, or he speaks in the name of the people, whose misery he considered his own. And know not, that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind (Revelation 3:17). In the allegorical sense, this represents Christ and the Church; in the moral sense, it represents the soul.
2. He presents the withdrawal of comfort: he has led me, and brought me into darkness, meaning the darkness of tribulation, and not into light, meaning the light of comfort, because after the scourging, God did not apply comfort as he usually does. God has surrounded me with darkness (Job 3:23).
3. He describes the nature of the lashes: only against me—here he follows the tendency of the afflicted, who focus only on their own wounds—he has turned, and turned again, striking and striking again. He has taught me, with a strong arm (Isaiah 8:11).

In this chapter, each set of three consecutive verses begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, proceeding in order.

Here the author presents the effect of the divine scourging, just as a bruise is the effect of a rod. Concerning this, he explains three things.

1. The wasting away of the entire nation. The skin signifies the people as a whole, the flesh signifies the delicate and frail, and the bones signify the strong men and warriors. All of these, representing the whole nation, waste away as if from old age. How does it happen, O Israel, that you are in your enemies’ land? You have grown old in a strange country .
2. The siege of an already weakened people. He has built round about me refers to a besieging army, and gall refers to an army that has brought hardship and bitterness. Am I a sea, or a whale, that you have enclosed me in a prison? (Job 7:12).
3. The captivity of those already imprisoned. He has set me in dark places means to be imprisoned, and as those that are dead refers to those who have been sentenced to death. He has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old (Psalms 142:3).

These things can also be understood to refer to Jeremiah himself, whose body was wasting away from many hardships and who was locked up in prison.

Here he excludes any means of escape.

1. Because of the enemy's siege. The text says, he has built against me all around, which refers to an army of besiegers. The word fetters signifies the same thing, just as those thrown into prison are unable to flee. As it is written, I was delivered up and could not get out (Psalms 87:9), and, You have put my feet in the stocks and have observed all my paths (Job 13:27).
2. Because their prayer is shut out: Yes, and when I cry and plead, he has shut out my prayer. As the psalmist says, I will cry by day, and you will not hear (Psalms 21:3).
3. Because their plans are obstructed. The text says, He has shut up my ways—their plans for escape—with hewn stones, which are serious obstacles. As God says elsewhere, I will hedge up your way with thorns (Hosea 2:6).

Here, the prophet describes the nature of their affliction:

1. That it is done deceitfully.
2. That it is done openly, as in the words he has bent his bow (Lamentations 3:12).
3. That it is done abundantly, as in the words he has filled me (Lamentations 3:15).

Regarding the first point, deceit, he makes two observations.

1. First, he presents the deceit of their enemies. The pronoun he—that is, Nebuchadnezzar, who fights against me with ambushes—has become to me as a bear, which signifies his cruelty, and as a lion, which designates his power. As it is written, And I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians (Hosea 13:7).
2. Second, he describes how God prevents their plans to repel the enemy’s ambushes: he has turned aside my paths. As written above: he has made me forsaken, wasted with sorrow all the day long (Lamentations 1:13).

Next, concerning the phrase He has bent his bow, the prophet shows that God afflicted him publicly and openly. Regarding this, he makes a few points.

1. First, he presents the proposition: the bow signifies judgment or the army of their enemies, and he has been set up as a mark toward which everyone publicly shoots arrows. As the psalmist says, He has bent his bow (Psalms 7:13). And as Job says, He has broken me, and has set me up to be his mark (Job 16:13).

Second, he describes the affliction of the punishment. The phrase into my reins signifies the wantonness of the people. The term the daughters refers to arrows, or the various punishments coming from His providence. He has opened his quiver, and has afflicted me (Job 30:11).

Third, he describes the mockery of the one being punished with the words I am made a derision to all my people. This is fulfilled in Jeremiah’s experience: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, all scoff at me (Jeremiah 20:7). Likewise, the people were also derided by others.

The phrase He has filled me shows that the punishment was abundant. First, regarding the multitude of pains, he has filled me with bitterness means with various anxieties. Likewise, he has inebriated me means that suffering was brought upon him abundantly (Jeremiah 41:3–10).

Second, the phrase and he has broken (Lamentations 3:16) refers to the number of people punished.