Lamentations 3:1-21 I AM the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.… This chapter would seem to be the property of all sorrowful men. Job's lamentation over the day of his birth, and Jeremiah's lamentation over his personal sufferings, are the heritage of sorrow throughout all time. We never know what sorrow is until we feel its personality. Every man must have his own sorrow, must receive sorrow into his nature, so that the whole plan of life may, so to say, be saturated with tears, and be made to know how much weight God can lay upon human life, as if He were heaping it up in cruelty. What would be sorrow to one man would be no sorrow to another; hence the infinite variety of the Divine visitation of our life. God knows where the stroke would hurt us most, and there He delivers the blow, so that we may know ourselves to be but men. Every man having a sorrow of his own is thereby tempted to make a species of idol of it. Are there not persons., who make a luxury of sorrow? Are they not pleased to be the objects of social interest and sympathy, instead of being humbled by their losses, and taught to seek the true riches which are in heaven? Silent sorrow is the most poignant. If sorrow could sometimes shed tears, it would be relieved of its keenest agony. In many cases it is impossible for the sufferer to give expression to his distress, and therefore he is deprived of all the compensation and holy excitement to be derived from earnest and intelligent human sympathy. If a man has not seen affliction, what has he seen? The deepest students of human life assure us that unless joy has in it somewhat of a tinge of melancholy it is not pure gladness. We must look at both sides of the picture; we must allow the light and the shadow to interplay, and judge not by the one nor by the other, but by the result. (J. Parker, D. D.) 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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