Lamentations 3:1-21 I AM the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.… Whether we regard it from a literary, a speculative, or a religious point of view, the third and central elegy cannot fall to strike us as by far the best of the five. Like Tennyson, who is most poetic when he is most artistic, as in his lyrics, and like all the great sonneteers, the author of this exquisite Hebrew melody has not found his ideas to be cramped by the rigorous rules of composition. Possibly the artistic refinement of form stimulates thought and rouses the poet to exert his best powers; or perhaps — and this is more probable he selects the richer robe for the purpose of clothing his choicer conceptions. This elegy differs from its sister poems in another respect. It is composed, for the most part, in the first person singular, the writer either speaking of his own experience or dramatically personating another sufferer. Who is this "Man that hath seen affliction"? There is just the possibility that the poet is not describing himself at all; he may be representing somebody well known to his contemporaries — perhaps even Jeremiah, or just a typical character, in the manner of Browning's Dramatis Personae. While some mystery hangs over the personality of this man of sorrows, the power and pathos of the poem are certainly heightened by the concentration of our attention upon one individual. Few persons are moved by general statements. The study of abstract reports is most important to these who are already interested in the subjects of these dreary documents; but it is useless as a means of exciting interest. Philanthropy must visit the office of the statistician if it would act with enlightened judgment, and not permit itself to become the victim of blind enthusiasm; but it was not born there, and the sympathy which is its parent can only be found among individual instances of distress. In the present case the speaker who recounts his own misfortunes is more than a casual witness, more than a mere specimen picked out at random from the heap of misery accumulated in this age of national ruin. He is not simply a man who has seen affliction, one among many similar sufferers; he is the man, the well-known victim, one preeminent in distress even in the midst of a nation full of misery. Yet he is not isolated on a solitary peak of agony. As the supreme sufferer, he is also the representative sufferer. He is not selfishly absorbed in the morbid occupation of brooding over his private grievances. He has gathered into himself the vast and terrible woes of his people. Thus he foreshadows our Lord in His passion. The idea of representative suffering which here emerges, and which becomes more definite in the picture of the servant of Jehovah in Isaiah 53, only finds its full realisation and perfection in Jesus Christ. It is repeated, however, with more or less distinctness wherever the Christ Spirit is revealed. The portrait of himself drawn by the author of this elegy is the more graphic by reason of the fact that the present is linked to the past. The striking commencement, "I am the man," etc., sets the speaker in imagination before our eyes. The addition "who has seen" (or rather, experienced) "affliction" connects him with his present sufferings. His own personality has slowly acquired a depth, a fulness, a ripeness that remove him far from the raw and superficial character he once was. We are silenced into awe before Job, Jeremiah, and Dante, because these men grew great by suffering. Is it not told even of our Lord Jesus Christ that He was made perfect by the things that He suffered? It is to be observed that here in his self-portraiture — just as elsewhere when describing the calamities that have befallen his people — the elegist attributes the whole series of disastrous events to God. So close is the thought of God to the mind of the writer, he does not even think it necessary to mention the Divine name. Like Brother Lawrence, this man has learnt to "practise the presence of God." In amplifying the accounts of his sufferings, after giving a general description of himself as the man who has experienced affliction, and adding a line in which this experience is connected with its cause — the rod of the wrath of Him who is unnamed, though ever in mind — the stricken patriot proceeds to illustrate and enforce his appeal to sympathy by means of a series of vivid metaphors. Let us first glance at the successive pictures in this rapidly moving panorama of similes, and then at the general import and drift o! the whole. The afflicted man was under the Divine guidance; he was not the victim of blind self-will; it was not when straying from the path of right that he fell into this pit of misery. The strange thing is that God led him straight into it — led him into darkness, not into light, as might have been expected with such a Guide. The first image, then, is that of a traveller misled. God, whom he has trusted implicitly, whom he has followed in the simplicity of ignorance, God proves to be his Opponent! He feels like one duped m the past, and at length undeceived as he makes the amazing discovery that his trusted Guide has been turning His hand against him repeatedly all the day of his woeful wanderings. For the moment he drops his metaphors, and reflects on the dreadful consequences of this fatal antagonism. His flesh and skin, his very body is wasted away; he is so crushed and shattered, it is as though God had broken his bones. Then the scene changes. The victim of Divine wrath is a captive languishing in a dungeon, which is as dark as the abodes of the dead, as the dwellings of those who have been long dead. The horror of this metaphor is intensified by the idea of the antiquity of Hades. There the prisoner is bound by a heavy chain (ver. 7). He cries for help; but he is shut down so low that his prayer cannot reach his captor (ver. 8). Again, we see him still hampered, though in altered circumstances. He appears as a traveller whose way is blocked, and that not by some accidental fall of rock, but of set purpose, for he finds the obstruction to be of carefully prepared masonry, "hewn stones" (ver. 9). Therefore he has to turn aside, so that his paths become crooked. Yet more terrible does the Divine enmity grow. When the pilgrim is thus forced to leave the highroad and make his way through the adjoining thickets, his Adversary avails Himself of the cover to assume a new form, that of a lion or a bear lying in ambush (ver. 10). The consequence is that the hapless man is torn as by the claws and fangs of beasts of prey (ver. 11). But now these wild regions, in which the wretched traveller is wandering at the peril of his life, suggest the idea of the chase. The image of the savage animals is defective in this respect, that man is their superior in intelligence, though not in strength. But in the present ease the victim is in every way inferior to his Pursuer. So God appears as the Huntsman, and the unhappy sufferer as the poor hunted game. The bow is bent, and the arrow directed straight for its mark (ver. 12). Nay, arrow after arrow has already been let fly, and the dreadful Huntsman, too skilful ever to miss His mark, has been shooting "the sons of His quiver" into the very vitals of the object of HIS pursuit (ver. 13). Here the poet breaks away from his imagery for a second time, to tell us that he has become an object of derision to all his people, and the theme of their mocking songs. This is a striking statement. It shows that the afflicted man is not simply one member of the smitten nation of Israel, sharing the common hardships of the race whose "badge is servitude." Returning to imagery, the poet pictures himself as a hardily used guest at a feast. He is fed, crammed, sated; but his food is bitterness, the cup has been forced to his lips, and he has been made drunk — not with pleasant wine, however, but with wormwood (ver. 15). Gravel has been mixed with his bread, or perhaps the thought is that when he has asked for bread stones have been given him. He has been compelled to masticate this unnatural diet, so that his teeth have been broken by it. Even that result he ascribes to God, saying, "He hath broken my teeth." It is difficult to think of the interference with personal liberty being carried farther than this. Here we reach the extremity of crushed misery. Reviewing the whole course of his wretched sufferings from the climax of misery, the man who has seen all this affliction declares that God has cast him off from peace (ver. 17). This most precious gift of heaven to suffering souls is denied to the man who here bewails his dismal fate. So, too, it was denied to Jesus in the garden, and again on the Cross. It is possible that the dark day will come when it will be denied to one or another of His people. In the elegy we are now studying, a burst of praise and glad confidence breaks out almost immediately after the lowest depths of misery have been sounded, showing that, as Keats declares in an exquisite line —There is a budding morrow in midnight.When we come to look at the series of pictures or affliction as a whole, we shall notice that one general idea runs through them. This is that the victim is hindered, hampered, restrained. He is led into darkness, besieged, imprisoned, chained, driven out of his way, seized in ambuscade, hunted, even forced to eat unwelcome food. This must all point to a specific character of personal experience. The troubles of the sufferer have mainly assumed the form of a thwarting of his efforts. If the opposition comes from God, may it not be that the severity of the trouble is just caused by the obstinacy of self-will? Certainly it does not appear to be so here; but then we must remember the writer is stating his own case. Two other characteristics of the whole passage may be mentioned. One is the persistence of the Divine antagonism. This is what makes the case look so hard. The pursuer seems to be ruthless; He will not let his victim alone for a moment. One device follows sharply on another. There is no escape. The second of these characteristics of the passage is a gradual aggravation in the severity of the trials. At first God is only represented as a guide who misleads then He appears as a besieging enemy; later like a destroyer. And correspondingly the troubles of the sufferer grow in severity, till at last he is flung into the ashes, crushed and helpless. All this is peculiarly painful reading to us with our Christian thoughts of God. It seems so utterly contrary to the character of our Father revealed in Jesus Christ. But then it was not a part of the Christian revelation, nor was it uttered by a man who had received the benefits of that highest teaching. That, however, is not a complete explanation. The narrator may be perfectly honest and truthful, but it is not in human nature to be impartial under such circumstances. Even when, as in the present instance, we have reason to believe that the speaker is under the influence of a Divine inspiration, we have no right to conclude that this gift would enable him to take an all-round vision of truth. Finally, it would be quite unfair to the elegist, and it would give us a totally false impression of his ideas, if we were to go no further than this. To understand him at all we must hear him out. The triplet of verses 19 to 21 serves as a transition to the picture of the other side of the Divine action. It begins with prayer. Thus a new note is struck. The sufferer knows that God is not at heart his enemy. So he ventures to beseech the very Being concerning whose treatment of him he has been complaining so bitterly, to remember his affliction and the misery it has brought on him, the wormwood, the gall of his hard lot. Hope now dawns on him out of his own recollections. God, too, has a memory, and will remember His suffering servant. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.WEB: I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. |
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