Lamentations 3 Background Information with Maps and Images (Picture Study Bible - Lamentations) Free Bible Online

Lamentations 3

1 - I am the man who has seen afflictionby the rod of his wrath.
2 - He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness,and not in light.
3 - Surely he turns his hand against meagain and again all day long.
4 - He has made my flesh and my skin old.He has broken my bones.
5 - He has built against me,and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
6 - He has made me dwell in dark places,as those who have been long dead.
7 - He has walled me about, so that I can't go out.He has made my chain heavy.
8 - Yes, when I cry, and call for help,he shuts out my prayer.
9 - He has walled up my ways with cut stone.He has made my paths crooked.
10 - He is to me as a bear lying in wait,as a lion in secret places.
11 - He has turned aside my ways,and pulled me in pieces.He has made me desolate.
12 - He has bent his bow,and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 - He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
14 - I have become a derision to all my people,and their song all day long.
15 - He has filled me with bitterness.He has stuffed me with wormwood.
16 - He has also broken my teeth with gravel.He has covered me with ashes.
17 - You have removed my soul far away from peace.I forgot prosperity.
18 - I said, "My strength has perished,along with my expectation from The LORD."
19 - Remember my affliction and my misery,the wormwood and the bitterness.
20 - My soul still remembers them,and is bowed down within me.
21 - This I recall to my mind;therefore I have hope.
22 - It is because of The LORD's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed,because his compassion doesn't fail.
23 - They are new every morning.Great is your faithfulness.
24 - "The LORD is my portion," says my soul."Therefore I will hope in him."
25 - The LORD is good to those who wait for him,to the soul who seeks him.
26 - It is good that a man should hopeand quietly wait for the salvation of The LORD.
27 - It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 - Let him sit alone and keep silence,because he has laid it on him.
29 - Let him put his mouth in the dust,if it is so that there may be hope.
30 - Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him.Let him be filled full of reproach.
31 - For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32 - For though he causes grief,yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
33 - For he does not afflict willingly,nor grieve the children of men.
34 - To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
35 - to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
36 - to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn't approve.
37 - Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,when the Lord doesn't command it?
38 - Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
39 - Why does a living man complain,a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 - Let us search and try our ways,and turn again to The LORD.
41 - Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
42 - "We have transgressed and have rebelled.You have not pardoned.
43 - "You have covered us with anger and pursued us.You have killed.You have not pitied.
44 - You have covered yourself with a cloud,so that no prayer can pass through.
45 - You have made us an off-scouring and refusein the middle of the peoples.
46 - "All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
47 - Terror and the pit have come on us,devastation and destruction."
48 - My eye runs down with streams of water,for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 - My eye pours downand doesn't cease,without any intermission,
50 - until the LORD looks down,and sees from heaven.
51 - My eye affects my soul,because of all the daughters of my city.
52 - They have chased me relentlessly like a bird,those who are my enemies without cause.
53 - They have cut off my life in the dungeon,and have cast a stone on me.
54 - Waters flowed over my head.I said, "I am cut off."
55 - I called on your name, The LORD,out of the lowest dungeon.
56 - You heard my voice:"Don't hide your ear from my sighing,and my cry."
57 - You came near in the day that I called on you.You said, "Don't be afraid."
58 - Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul.You have redeemed my life.
59 - The LORD, you have seen my wrong.Judge my cause.
60 - You have seen all their vengeanceand all their devices against me.
61 - You have heard their reproach, The LORD,and all their devices against me,
62 - the lips of those that rose up against me,and their plots against me all day long.
63 - You see their sitting down and their rising up.I am their song.
64 - You will pay them back, The LORD,according to the work of their hands.
65 - You will give them hardness of heart,your curse to them.
66 - You will pursue them in anger,and destroy them from under the heavens of The LORD.

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Lamentations Images and Notes

The Book of Lamentations

Lamentations 2:5 - The Lord was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Lamentations 5:19-22 - Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, [and] forsake us so long time? Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

The Old Testament - A Brief Overview

Bible Survey - Lamentations
Hebrew Name - Eikah "How"
Greek Name - Threnos "Lament"
Author - Jeremiah (According to Tradition)
Date - 588 BC Approximately
Theme - 5 Poetic laments over the destruction of Jerusalem
Types and Shadows - In Lamentations Jesus is the weeping prophet

The First Day. Light.

Summary of The Book of Lamentations

In the Hebrew the word for the name of the book of Lamentations is "Eikah" which means "How." The book of  Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah according to Jewish tradition. The book contains five poems that depict the condition of the forsaken city of Jerusalem which had been burnt to the ground and utterly demolished by the Babylonians on the ninth of Av in the Jewish calendar in 586 BC, in contrast to the magnificent splendor that it once possessed. The reason for God's chastisement on the people of Judah and on the city of Jerusalem are spelled out in the form of an appeal made to God to remember the great suffering of his people and to take vengeance upon the conquerors of His city and the people of Judah.

The first four poems are arranged in an acrostic form with each containing 22 verses which correspond with the 22 consonants of the Hebrew alphabet. In chapter 3 each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is allotted 3 of the 66 verses which comprise the poem. Some conclude that the reason for this was because Israel had sinned from beginning to end (A-Z, or in the Hebrew aleph-tav).

Jeremiah, who wrote the lamentations was an eyewitness of the events, and this brought him great sorrow for he knew the people, he knew the city, he knew the children, and he knew the festivities that existed among the people of Judah.

Interesting note: The Jewish translators of the Septuagint (LXX) attribute Jeremiah as the author of the Lamentations, and so do other ancient translations: The Aramaic Targum, the Latin Vulgate, and the Syriac Peshitta, and the Babylonian Talmud.

Outline of the Book of Lamentations

The five lament poems are outlined here:

Lamentations 1 - Jerusalem's desolation is lamented
Lamentations 2 - God's wrath against the city of Jerusalem
Lamentations 3 - God's faithfulness is acknowledged
Lamentations 4 - God's faithfulness is viewed as chastisement
Lamentations 5 - God's faithfulness is worthy of trust

The First Day. Light.

Lamentations Resources

The Divided Kingdom
The Northern Kingdom of Israel
The Southern Kingdom of Judah
The Assyrian Captivity
The Babylonian Captivity
The Return From Babylon
The Prophets
The Messiah

The Book of Lamentations

More About the Book of Lamentations
Lamentations in the Picture Study Bible
Timeline of the Ancient World
Back to the Old Testament
Back to Bible History Online
 

Bibliography Information

Free Bible Online - Picture Study Bible, King James Version. New York: American Bible Society: www.free-bible.com, 1995-2013. Bible History Picture Study Bible. Nov 18, 2024.

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