Lamentations 3:53

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(53) Cast a stone upon me.—The words admit of two meanings: (1) that they cast stones at him; (2) that they placed a stone over the opening of his dungeon so as to prevent escape.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:42-54 The more the prophet looked on the desolations, the more he was grieved. Here is one word of comfort. While they continued weeping, they continued waiting; and neither did nor would expect relief and succour from any but the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They have cut off my life in the dungeon - Or, "They destroyed my life in the pit," i. e. tried to destroy it by casting me into the cistern, and covering the month with a stone. See the margin reference.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

53. in … dungeon—(Jer 37:16).

stone—usually put at the mouth of a dungeon to secure the prisoners (Jos 10:18; Da 6:17; Mt 27:60).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Dungeon seemeth not to be here taken literally, for the lowest and nastiest place in prisons, which probably was the portion but of a few of the Jews; but metaphorically, for the lowest and saddest condition of misery. Their enemies had brought them into the deepest miseries, to the cutting off of their lives; and as men use to roll great stones upon the mouths of dens and pits, where they have shut up persons, to make them sure from escaping out, so their enemies had dealt with them, doing what lay in them to make their condition remediless and desperate.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They have cut off my life in the dungeon,.... Jarchi interprets it,

"they bound me in the prison.''

Jeremiah was both in a prison and in a dungeon, where he was deprived of the society of men, as if he had been dead; and he was in danger of losing his life; but whether any respect is had to it here is not certain: it seems rather to respect the people of the Jews in captivity, who were deprived of their rights and liberties, and of the comforts of life; and were like dead men in their graves, to whom they are compared, Ezekiel 37:11; but since Jeremiah was not dead, nor did he die in the dungeon, Jarchi's sense seems best, and agrees with what follows; and is confirmed by the version of others, who render it, "they shut up my life in the dungeon" (q); or himself there:

and cast a stone upon me; to see if he was dead, or to prevent him from rising. The allusion is to the putting of stones at the mouths of dens and dungeons, caves and graves, to keep in those there put: or they stoned me, as the Targum; that is, they endeavoured to do it: or the Jews in captivity were like persons stoned to death, or like dead men covered with a heap of stones; for that Jeremiah was stoned to death there is no reason to believe.

(q) "concluserunt in fovea vitam meam", Noldius, Concord. Ebr. Part. p. 141, "manciparunt fovea vitam meam", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

They have cut off my life {y} in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.

(y) Read Jer 37:16 how he was in the miry dungeon.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Lamentations 3:53

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

צמתוּ is here used transitively in Kal, as the Piel is elsewhere, Psalm 119:139, and the Pilpel, Psalm 88:17. צמתוּ בבּור, "they were destroying (cutting off) my life down into the pit," is a pregnant construction, and must be understood de conatu: "they sought to destroy my life when they hurled me down into the pit, and cast stones on me," i.e., not "they covered the pit with a stone" (Pareau, De Wette, Neumann). The verb ידה construed with בּ does not take this meaning, for ידה merely signifies to cast, e.g., lots (Joshua 4:3, etc.), arrows (Jeremiah 50:14), or to throw down equals destroy, annihilate, Zechariah 2:4; and בּי does not mean "in the pit in which I was," but "upon (or against) me." The sing. אבן is to be understood in accordance with the expression רגם אבן, to cast stones equals stone (1 Kings 12:18; Leviticus 20:2, Leviticus 20:27). As to ויּדּוּ for ויידּוּ, see on ויּגּה in Lamentations 3:33. "Waters flowed over my head" is a figurative expression, denoting such misery and distress as endanger life; cf. Psalm 59:2-3, Psalm 59:15., Psalm 124:4., Psalm 42:8. 'I said (thought), I am cut off (from God's eyes or hand)," Psalm 31:23; Psalm 88:6, is a reminiscence from these Psalms, and does not essentially differ from "cut off out of the land of the living," Isaiah 43:8. For, that we must thereby think of death, or sinking down into Sheol, is shown by מבּור תּחתּיּות, Lamentations 3:55. The complaint in these verses (52-54) is regarded by some expositors as a description of the personal sufferings of Jeremiah; and the casting into the pit is referred to the incident mentioned in Jeremiah 38:6. Such is the view, for instance, taken by Vaihinger and Ngelsbach, who point for proof to these considerations especially: (1) That the Chaldeans certainly could not, without good cause (Lamentations 3:53), be understood as the "enemies;" (2) that Jeremiah could not represent the people, speaking as if they were righteous and innocent; and (3) that the writer already speaks of his deliverance from their power, and contents himself with merely calling down on them the vengeance of God (Lamentations 3:55-66). But not one of these reasons is decisive. For, in the first place, the contents of Lamentations 3:52 do not harmonize with the known hostility which Jeremiah had to endure from his personal enemies. That is to say, there is nothing mentioned or known of his enemies having stoned him, or having covered him over with a stone, after they had cast him into the miry pit (Jeremiah 38:6.), The figurative character of the whole account thus shows itself in the very fact that the separate portions of it are taken from reminiscences of passages in the Psalms, whose figurative character is universally acknowledged. Moreover, in the expression איבי חנּם, even when we understand thereby the Chaldeans, it is not at all implied that he who complains of these enemies considers himself righteous and innocent, but simply that he has not given them any good ground for their hostile conduct towards him. And the assertion, that the writer is already speaking of his deliverance from their power, rests on the erroneous notion that, in Lamentations 3:55-66, he is treating of past events; whereas, the interchange of the perfects with imperatives of itself shows that the deliverance of which he there speaks is not an accomplished or bygone fact, but rather the object of that assured faith which contemplates the non-existent as existent. Lastly, the contrast between personal suffering ad the suffering of the people, on which the whole reasoning rests, is quite beside the mark. Moreover, if we take the lamentations to be merely symbolical, then the sufferings and persecutions of which the prophet here complains are not those of the people generally, but of the godly Israelites, on whom they were inflicted when the kingdom was destroyed, not merely by the Chaldeans, but also by their godless fellow-countrymen. Hence we cannot, of course, say that Jeremiah here speaks from personal experience; however, he complains not merely of the persecutions that befall him personally, but also of the sufferings that had come on him and all godly ones. The same remark applies to the conclusion of this lamentation, - the prayer, Lamentations 3:55-66, in which he entreats the Lord for deliverance, and in the spirit of faith views this deliverance as already accomplished.