EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(כ) Lamentations 3:31. For this silent waiting on the Lord, amid humiliations and scorn, there is all-sufficient strength. It is in the Lord Himself, in the belief that He is at work; that, whatever our tribulations are, however bitter ingredients we must drain out of our cup, whatever the moral conflicts and self-condemnations we must pass through, He will not put us away. The Lord will not cast off for ever; there will be an end of tears and isolation on account of the absent Friend.
Lamentations 3:32. His providences may distress us. Physical pains, social straits, national demoralisation, and inward unrest, blame, forebodings, may overwhelm us. These are goads by which He is thrusting us from a wrong way into a right, but “it is love that bruises us.” Yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
Lamentations 3:33. He would rather not produce suffering. His heart is not in doing so. He has a distinct end in view to be reached through tribulation. For he afflicts not willingly, nor grieves the children of men. Child and adult, Israelite and heathen, will meet trouble, but not one is outside the sympathy of God. We can supplement this from a later teacher, who tells us that our Father chastises for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
HOMILETICS
THE TENDERNESS OF GOD
I. Seen in the limitation of punishment. “For the Lord will not cast off for ever” (Lamentations 3:31). God has no delight in inflicting punishment. His righteousness imposes on Him the necessity of punishing sin. But punishment has its limits; and when those limits are exceeded, justice degenerates into cruelty. The tenderness of God is a universal safeguard against unduly prolonged punishment (Psalms 77:7-9).
II. Seen in the abundant manifestation of mercy. “But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies” (Lamentations 3:32). Even in chastisement mercy triumphs over justice. Mercy provides a means of escape, not from justice, but from the worst consequences of transgression. “All the souls that were, were forfeit once; and He that might the vantage best have took found out the remedy.” “God be merciful to me a sinner,” is the leading idea of inscriptions on thousands of gravestones in the stately cathedral and the village churchyard, and bear silent testimony to the deepest convictions of mankind. The mercy of God will be conspicuous to the universe, and the theme of endless adoration.
III. Seen in the reluctance with which He inflicts chastisement. “For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33). God never afflicts willingly—lit., from his heart. The heart of God is love, and love has no pleasure in the sufferings of others, and is not eager to impose suffering. That God afflicts at all, and that He does it with so much reluctance, should intensify the conviction that, not only is chastisement necessary, but that it is evidently intended to lead to a greater good. The prophet dwells on the tenderness of God to enforce complete resignation to the Divine arrangements.
LESSONS.—
1. God never punishes beyond the absolute necessity of the case.
2. He sympathises with the sufferer His justice compels Him to chastise.
3. He is ever slow to wrath.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lamentations 3:31-36. Comfort for the sorrowful. I. A cheering assurance given.
1. That God’s abandonment of His people is only temporary. “For the Lord will not cast off for ever.”
2. That the favour with which He will visit them will be signal and abundant. “But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.” II. An important reason adduced. “For He doth not afflict willingly.” This may be inferred:
1. From His character. He is a God of love.
2. From the relationship He sustains to His people. He is their father. An earthly parent has to chastise his offspring, but He does it with reluctance.
3. Their sufferings are attended with many alleviations. Had He any pleasure in punishing us, so much mercy would not be mingled with judgment.
4. The object He has in view in afflicting His children: it is for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness.
5. His readiness to remove His chastening hand when the visitation has answered the end intended. III. A gracious limitation subjoined. Whenever God afflicts, it is:
1. Within the bounds of moderation. To “crush” expresses what is extreme and destructive (Isaiah 27:8; Jeremiah 10:24; Jeremiah 46:28).
2. Never in violation of the principles of equity. “To subvert a man in his cause the Lord approveth not.” He is the righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness, and all He doeth is in accordance therewith.—Expository Outlines.
Lamentations 3:31-33. Afflictions not accidental. This apparent contradiction between the Divine compassion and our human griefs, between what we desire and need and what we feel to be real, is to-day what it has been from the beginning, the standing problem, the bitter tragedy of human life. It has but one solution. There is a mischief in man’s nature producing discord in his condition, begetting the necessity and the mercy of a Divine chastening; and this, both in the end it contemplates and in the methods it employs, is a providence of compassion. I. The fact that grief is the heritage of man. Life is still the natural history of sorrow—man’s life the bitterest of all. There are troubles that belong to the lot of individual man, and in this form they are the impartial inheritance of the race. There are troubles which afflict the community, which fall upon the mass in its aggregation of families, neighbourhoods, communities, and nations. The great and good, the beautiful and the wise, the aged and the young, all races and all conditions of men, have gone down under this terrible Euroclydon of grief. These facts are a difficulty to the Christian philosopher, but they are equally so to the sceptic. II. Divine compassion in its relation to suffering.
1. All human suffering comes within the foreknowledge and is under the control of God.
2. Many of our troubles, probably most of them, have their causes in ourselves.
3. There are troubles and afflictions, and these not few, which we must consider only as the punishment of sin. Strife is the essence of sin. It is self-will pitted in avowed antagonism to God. God will not vacate His sovereignty because man rebels. He cannot be defeated or bribed, or bought off from His purpose, even by prayer. The bitter, bitter cup must be drunk; the chastisement must come. But with all this, there comes also the presence of an infinite compassion. He succours His children while the law oppresses them. He delivers them speedily when its mission is accomplished.—J. Burton.
Lamentations 3:32-33. God the consolation of the afflicted. I. A revealed fact. “God doth not willingly afflict the children of men.” This fact rests upon another fact—the teaching of Scripture regarding the providence of God. A particular and special providence is the sole ground of prayer; prayer being the basis of all true religion. When the mind dwells upon the special providence of God, it learns the more difficult task of submitting to all afflictive dispensations with thanksgiving. II. The passage appears to stand opposed to the omnipotence of God. God is Almighty, but He has willed to set limits to the exercise of His omnipotence. He abides by the laws He has himself enacted. The law connects life and happiness with obedience. But the law would cease to exist if life and happiness were dispensed also to the disobedient. The law was magnified when God Himself, in the person of His Son, yielded obedience to it. God will not by His omnipotence overrule or supersede the freedom of the human will. If we be not true to ourselves, He will at length, after trial, leave us to our own devices. It is an awful thought that a man may outlive the day of grace. He may remain a thing upon earth to subserve some purpose in the providence of God, but as a person his trial may have ceased. If one of the purposes of affliction is to correct and amend us, one of the means of avoiding affliction must be to endeavour to shape our lives according to the law of God. When afflictions do come, it is an ineffable consolation to be assured all things are ordered by God for our good. III. The histories of good men illustrate the truth of the text. We learn why afflictions were imposed upon them. Study the lives of Jacob, Joseph, David, Job, and Christ.—W. F. Hook, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Chastisement a proof of God’s tenderness. It is true to be struck once in anger is fearful. God’s displeasure is more than His blow. Fear not; these stripes are the tokens of His love. He is no son that is not beaten, yea, till he smart and cry, if not till he bleed. No parent corrects another’s child; and he is no good parent that corrects not his own. O rod worthy to be kissed, that assures us of His love, of our adoption!—Bp. Hall.
“Heaven is not always angry when He strikes,
But most chastises those whom most He likes.”—Pomfret.
Affliction God’s messenger. Luther used to say there were many of the Psalms he could never understand till he had been afflicted. Rutherford declared he had got a new Bible through the furnace. Hard weather tries what health we have; afflictions try what sap we have, what grace we have. Withered leaves soon fall off in windy weather; rotten boughs quickly break with heavy weights.
Afflictions overruled. Artists and composers have often been helped in their studies by their physical infirmities. Bach’s blindness, Beethoven’s deafness, making society and social distractions almost impossible, drove them in upon their own genius, and compelled them to listen to the voice of God within them. Some beauties of character and achievement can only be secured by retirement and solitude, and affliction often compels to this.