Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. Render unto them a recompence - (Jeremiah 11:20; 2 Timothy 4:14, "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works").
Verse 65. Give them sorrow of heart - rather, blindness or hardness of heart; literally, 'a veil' [mªginat] covering their heart, so that they may rush on their own ruin (Isaiah 6:10; 2 Corinthians 3:14-15).
Verse 66. Persecute ... them ... from under the heavens of the Lord - destroy them, so that it may he seen everywhere under heaven that thou sittest above as Judge of the world.
Remarks:
(1) It is a true remark of Luther, 'Prayer, affliction, and temptation form the minister.' Jeremiah's personal experience of 'the rod of affliction' enabled him to minister counsel and comfort to his countrymen in their affliction (Lamentations 3:1). The minister who knows experimentally what it is to be in "darkness," and to have the "hand of God" laid heavily upon him again and again (Lamentations 3:2-3), is best suited for speaking a word in season to those who have darkness and no light. Hence, almost all the prophets and apostles were men tried in the same furnace of affliction as many of the people to whom they ministered.
(2) But, above all these, Jesus was pre-eminently the "man of sorrows," that He might be "able to succour them that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:18). Ingenuity was, as it were, taxed, in order to heap on His one head, and to pour into His one heart, every kind of misery, cruelty, and insult which the divine justice could, in the short term of his ministry, concentrate upon the one and only Sin-bearer for the whole world. No sorrow, not even that of Jerusalem the type, was like unto His sorrow, wherewith the Lord afflicted him in the day of His fierce. anger (Lamentations 1:12). God hedged His own Son about, compassed Him with gall and travail, and made Him the mark for all His arrows (Lamentations 3:5; Lamentations 3:7; Lamentations 3:12). But worse than all was the hiding of the Father's countenance (Lamentations 3:8; Lamentations 3:44), and the shutting out of the Holy Son's prayer, when He cried, under that strange and hitherto unknown sensation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent" (Psalms 22:1-2). What is any "derision" to which we are exposed through our religion to what the Holy Saviour endured, who was "the song of the very drunkards?" Let the thought of His great suffering and shame sustain us under our lighter burdens. Let the wormwood and the gall (Lamentations 3:19) which were His cup to drink take away the bitterness of whatever cup of suffering is appointed to us. And, like Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:19-21) and Paul, when God hath comforted us in all our tribulation, let us draw from thence the power "to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (2 Corinthians 1:4).
(3) Jeremiah states, for the comfort of His people, how, in his distress, after the long and sore struggle between unbelief and faith, he was at last delivered from the temptation to despair. He had in his haste said, "My hope from the Lord is perished" (Lamentations 3:18); but he was brought to a better frame of feeling by calling to mind (Lamentations 3:21) the never-failing mercies of the Lord (Lamentations 3:22). There is no better remedy against despondency than to remember the gracious character of the Lord. Every morning as it dawns gives fresh proof that His compassions are ever new, and that His faithfulness to His people is truly great (Lamentations 3:22-23). That we are alive at all, and have not been consumed for our sins, as we justly might have been, is in itself a cause for unfeigned gratitude.
(4) The prophet, therefore, came to this conclusion, which is that to which every child of God is brought at last, "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him" (Lamentations 3:24). The drying up of the streams of earthly comforts only sends the believer with the greater zest to the never-failing spring, God Himself. To the soul that thus waits for and waits upon Him, the Lord is indeed "good" (Lamentations 3:25). To such "the yoke" of affliction borne meekly, and in unmurmuring silence (Lamentations 3:27-28), as being put upon them by the Lord, proves to be a real blessing; for it weans them from the world, and teaches them humility and patience. Instead of fretfully saying, "There is no hope," and therefore "we all walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart" (Jeremiah 18:12), those chastened by sanctified affliction "put their mouth" in the dust, in humble submission to God's trying dealings, looking to God as their hope; because they still believe, "The Lord will not cast off His. people, neither will He forsake His inheritance" (Lamentations 3:31; Psalms 94:14).
(5) The griefs of the people of God are but for a time (Lamentations 3:32). Unbelief tempts us to think hardly of God, when He sorely tries us, as though He had pleasure in our pain (Lamentations 3:33). But, so far from this, judgment is God's "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21) - a work which His justice alone constrains Him to, but which His mercy would gladly avert. Nothing can be further from His mind than "to crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth," or to do any wrong to the creatures of His own hand (Lamentations 3:33-36).
(6) Since God is by His word, and the mere fiat of His will (Lamentations 3:37), the source alike of calamity and prosperity, we ought not to complain against Him because of some bitter things in our cup, considering how many sweets He has put in it (Lamentations 3:38; Job 2:10). Let us not renounce hope, but wait on Him, that so as He now sends evil He may in His own time send good again to us. Instead of complaining as though we were wronged, because we receive the just punishment of our sins, we ought to bless God that we are still spared to be among the "living" (Lamentations 3:39). What we complain of is far less than what our sins deserve. Instead of complaining of God, let us complain to Him. Instead of calling His ways to account, let us search and try our own (Lamentations 3:40); and, as the result of our self-examination, "turn again to the Lord," lifting up, not only our hands, but also "our hearts to God in the heavens" (Lamentations 3:41). The thought of the heavenly height in which God sits above us, creatures of this fallen earth, should lead us to abase ourselves very low before Him (Lamentations 3:20; Lamentations 3:29), confessing our transgression and rebellion, which have justly provoked His displeasure (Lamentations 3:42).
(7) God may far a time seem to cover Himself with a cloud, so that His people's prayer cannot pass through (Lamentations 3:44). But the time will come at last when "the Lord will behold from heaven" (Lamentations 3:50), and look down on his people who call upon His name as Jeremiah did out of the low dungeon (Lamentations 3:55). God hears alike the silently-breathed sigh of prayer and the loud cry (Lamentations 3:56). God draws near to them who draw nigh to Him, and quells their fears (Lamentations 3:57), and pleads their cause against every enemy (Lamentations 3:58-59). Let us, then, widen sorely tried, cast all our cares on Him who careth for us. So faith shall triumph over doubts, and the Lord will save His people with an everlasting salvation, and shall, in just recompence, "destroy their enemies in anger from under the heavens of the Lord" (Lamentations 3:66).