Lamentations 3 - Bible Study, Explanation, and Application
Lamentations 3 Bible Study
TIMELINE:
Lamentation was written by someone who experienced the downfall, destruction, and aftermath of the Babylonian conquest of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BC.
AUTHOR:
Although not stated directly in the text, the Book of Lamentations has been attributed to Jeremiah since ancient days.
WAS GOD HARSH?
If you start reading the Book of Lamentations without knowing the context behind the book, God may seem harsh.
What has to be remembered is that God was patient with the people of Judah and Jerusalem for centuries before this punishment was set into motion.
God sent them prophets persistently, but the people abused them.
God displayed supernatural patience with them, but they refused, decade after decade, to heed His instructions.
OUTLINE:
THE STEADFAST LOVE OF THE LORD (3:1-66):
In contrast to chapter 1, Lamentations 3 opens with a man’s voice representing the people.
This was a man who knew the discipline of God and had suffered under it.
This man was withering away, he was surrounded by bitterness, and God showed him no mercy.
The man was shackled with heavy chains and His prayers were ignored.
He was torn apart by God like a traveler attacked by a lion.
He said, “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is” (3:17).
This man was suffering through the punishments for his sins, but even in his wretched state, he held on to a truth about God, a truth that gave him hope.
He knew that God was just and kind, and that God would extend mercy to Him when the period of punishment was past.
He said, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’ It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (3:21-24, 26).
He knew that the middle of his crisis was not the time to abandon God. In that moment, hope in God was all he had.
The man’s crisis was from the Lord, that he knew, but he also knew God wouldn’t let it last forever.
God punished for a purpose, and when the purpose was complete, He would show compassion.
God didn’t punish for the joy of it. He punished for the sake of justice.
The man called on the citizens of Jerusalem to “test and examine” their ways, to repent, and return their hearts to God.
Judah had been thrown down into a pit of despair, but when they lifted their voices to God, He heard them and told them not to fear (3:57).
God would redeem them from their suffering and from their adversaries.
The chapter ends with Judah asking the Lord to repay their enemies for the violence done to them.
APPLICATION:
It’s in their hour of trial, struggle, or pain that many people choose to abandon God.
But Lamentations teaches us that that is the exact opposite of what we ought to be doing.
We can always be sure that God’s steadfast love (3:22) awaits us on the other side of our pain, and that our struggle is not meaningless or due to the neglect of God’s attention.
Suffering should direct our eyes to the importance and necessity of God, the only real hope that anyone has to escape sadness, pain, suffering, evil, and difficulty.
In the midst of suffering, we should lift our eyes to God. Perhaps that is why this important and optimistic section appears almost exactly in the middle of the book.
