--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 5 of 769 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/5/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation, section 5. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/5/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 2: Lamentations to Revelation *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 2 of 2. ## 5. Lamentations · 5 of 9 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/5/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-2-lamentations-to-revelation/5/#p-N [¶0] Rowe. ### Introduction [¶2] The prophet, by enumerating his own severe trials, vv. 1-20, and showing his trust in God, [Lam 3:21], encourages his people to the like resignation and trust in the Divine and never-failing mercy, [Lam 3:22-27]. He vindicates the goodness of God in all his dispensations, and the unreasonableness of murmuring under them, [Lam 3:28-39]. He recommends self-examination and repentance; and then, from their experience of former deliverances from God, encourages them to look for pardon for their sins, and retribution to their enemies, vv. 40-66. ### Verse 1 [¶4] I am the man that hath seen affliction - Either the prophet speaks here of himself, or he is personating his miserable countrymen. This and other passages in this poem have been applied to Jesus Christ's passion; but, in my opinion, without any foundation. ### Verse 2 [¶6] He hath - brought me into darkness - In the sacred writings, darkness is often taken for calamity, light, for prosperity. ### Verse 5 [¶8] He hath builded against me - Perhaps there is a reference here to the mounds and ramparts raised by the Chaldeans in order to take the city. ### Verse 7 [¶10] He hath hedged me about - This also may refer to the lines drawn round the city during the siege. But these and similar expressions in the following verses may be merely metaphorical, to point out their straitened, oppressed, and distressed state. ### Verse 9 [¶12] He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone - He has put insuperable obstacles in my way; and confounded all my projects of deliverance and all my expectations of prosperity. ### Verse 12 [¶14] He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow - One might conjecture that the following thought in the Toozek i Teemour was borrowed from this: - "One addressed the caliph Aaly, and said, 'If the heavens were a bow, and the earth the cord thereof; if calamities were arrows, man the butt for those arrows; and the holy blessed God the unerring marksman; where could the sons of Adam flee for succor?' The caliph replied, 'The children of Adam must flee unto the Lord.'" This was the state of poor Jerusalem. It seemed as a butt for all God's arrows; and each arrow of calamity entered into the soul, for God was the unerring marksman. ### Verse 13 [¶16] The arrows of his quiver - בני אשפתו beney ashpatho, "The sons of his quiver." The issue or effect; the subject, adjunct, or accident, or produce of a thing, is frequently denominated its son or child. So arrows that issue from a quiver are here termed the sons of the quiver. ### Verse 15 [¶18] He hath filled me with bitterness - במרורים bimrorim, with bitternesses, bitter upon bitter. [¶19] He hath made me drunken with wormwood - I have drunk the cup of misery till I am intoxicated with it. Almost in all countries, and in all languages, bitterness is a metaphor to express trouble and affliction. The reason is, there is nothing more disagreeable to the taste than the one; and nothing more distressing to the mind than the other. An Arabic poet. Amralkeis, one of the writers of the Moallakat, terms a man grievously afflicted a pounder of wormwood. ### Verse 16 [¶21] He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones - What a figure to express disgust, pain, and the consequent incapacity of taking food for the support of life; a man, instead of bread, being obliged to eat small pebbles till all his teeth are broken to pieces by endeavoring to grind them. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. The next figure is not less expressive. [¶22] He hath covered me with ashes - הכפישני באפר hichphishani beepher, "he hath plunged me into the dust." To be thrown into a mass or bed of perfect dust, where the eyes are blinded by it, the ears stopped, and the mouth and lungs filled at the very first attempt to respire after having been thrown into it - what a horrible idea of suffocation and drowning! One can scarcely read this without feeling a suppression of breath, or a stricture upon the lungs! Did ever man paint sorrow like this man? ### Verse 17 [¶24] Those hast removed my soul - Prosperity is at such an utter distance from me, that it is impossible I should ever reach it; and as to happiness, I have forgotten whether I have ever tasted of it. ### Verse 18 [¶26] And my hope - That first, that last support of the miserable - it is gone! it is perished! The sovereign God alone can revive it. ### Verse 20 [¶28] By soul - is humbled in me - It is evident that in the preceding verses there is a bitterness of complaint against the bitterness of adversity, that is not becoming to man when under the chastising hand of God; and, while indulging this feeling, all hope fled. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives, [Lam 3:21]. ### Verse 22 [¶30] It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed - Being thus humbled, and seeing himself and his sinfulness in a proper point of view, he finds that God, instead of dealing with him in judgment, has dealt with him in mercy; and that though the affliction was excessive, yet it seas less than his iniquity deserved. If, indeed, any sinner be kept out of hell, it is because God's compassion faileth not. ### Verse 23 [¶32] They are new every morning - Day and night proclaim the mercy and compassion of God. Who could exist throughout the day, if there were not a continual superintending Providence? Who could be preserved in the night, if the Watchman of Israel ever slumbered or slept? ### Verse 24 [¶34] The Lord is my portion - See on [Psa 119:67] (note). ### Verse 26 [¶36] It is good that a man should both hope - Hope is essentially necessary to faith; he that hopes not, cannot believe; if there be no expectation, there can be no confidence. When a man hopes for salvation, he should not only waft for it, but use every means that may lead to it; for hope cannot live, if there be no exercise. If hope become impatient, faith will be impossible: for who can believe for his salvation when his mind is agitated? He must therefore quietly wait. He must expect, and yet be dumb, as the words imply; ever feeling his utter unworthiness; and, without murmuring, struggle into life. ### Verse 27 [¶38] That he bear the yoke in his youth - Early habits, when good, are invaluable. Early discipline is equally so. He who has not got under wholesome restraint in youth will never make a useful man, a good man, nor a happy man. ### Verse 28 [¶40] He sitteth alone - He has learned that necessary lesson of independence, that shows him how he is to serve himself; to give no trouble to others; and keep his troubles, as far as possible, in his own bosom. ### Verse 29 [¶42] He putteth his mouth in the dust - Lives in a state of deep humility. [¶43] If so be there may be hope - Because there is room for hope.