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3. Judah's Complaint

¹ This chapter is an acrostic poem; the verses of each stanza begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the verses within each stanza begin with the same letter.I am the man who has seen affliction
   by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.
² He has driven me away and made me walk
   in darkness rather than light;
³ indeed, he has turned his hand against me
   again and again, all day long.

    ⁴ He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
   and has broken my bones.
⁵ He has besieged me and surrounded me
   with bitterness and hardship.
⁶ He has made me dwell in darkness
   like those long dead.

    ⁷ He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
   he has weighed me down with chains.
⁸ Even when I call out or cry for help,
   he shuts out my prayer.
⁹ He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
   he has made my paths crooked.

    ¹⁰ Like a bear lying in wait,
   like a lion in hiding,
¹¹ he dragged me from the path and mangled me
   and left me without help.
¹² He drew his bow
   and made me the target for his arrows.

    ¹³ He pierced my heart
   with arrows from his quiver.
¹⁴ I became the laughingstock of all my people;
   they mock me in song all day long.
¹⁵ He has filled me with bitter herbs
   and given me gall to drink.

    ¹⁶ He has broken my teeth with gravel;
   he has trampled me in the dust.
¹⁷ I have been deprived of peace;
   I have forgotten what prosperity is.
¹⁸ So I say, “My splendor is gone
   and all that I had hoped from the LORD.”

    ¹⁹ I remember my affliction and my wandering,
   the bitterness and the gall.
²⁰ I well remember them,
   and my soul is downcast within me.
²¹ Yet this I call to mind
   and therefore I have hope:

    ²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
   therefore I will wait for him.”

    ²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
   to the one who seeks him;
²⁶ it is good to wait quietly
   for the salvation of the LORD.
²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke
   while he is young.

    ²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence,
   for the LORD has laid it on him.
²⁹ Let him bury his face in the dust—
   there may yet be hope.
³⁰ Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
   and let him be filled with disgrace.

    ³¹ For no one is cast off
   by the Lord forever.
³² Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
   so great is his unfailing love.
³³ For he does not willingly bring affliction
   or grief to anyone.

    ³⁴ To crush underfoot
   all prisoners in the land,
³⁵ to deny people their rights
   before the Most High,
³⁶ to deprive them of justice—
   would not the Lord see such things?

    ³⁷ Who can speak and have it happen
   if the Lord has not decreed it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
   that both calamities and good things come?
³⁹ Why should the living complain
   when punished for their sins?

    ⁴⁰ Let us examine our ways and test them,
   and let us return to the LORD.
⁴¹ Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
   to God in heaven, and say:
⁴² “We have sinned and rebelled
   and you have not forgiven.

    ⁴³ “You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us;
   you have slain without pity.
⁴⁴ You have covered yourself with a cloud
   so that no prayer can get through.
⁴⁵ You have made us scum and refuse
   among the nations.

    ⁴⁶ “All our enemies have opened their mouths
   wide against us.
⁴⁷ We have suffered terror and pitfalls,
   ruin and destruction.”
⁴⁸ Streams of tears flow from my eyes
   because my people are destroyed.

    ⁴⁹ My eyes will flow unceasingly,
   without relief,
⁵⁰ until the LORD looks down
   from heaven and sees.
⁵¹ What I see brings grief to my soul
   because of all the women of my city.

    ⁵² Those who were my enemies without cause
   hunted me like a bird.
⁵³ They tried to end my life in a pit
   and threw stones at me;
⁵⁴ the waters closed over my head,
   and I thought I was about to perish.

    ⁵⁵ I called on your name, LORD,
   from the depths of the pit.
⁵⁶ You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears
   to my cry for relief.”
⁵⁷ You came near when I called you,
   and you said, “Do not fear.”

    ⁵⁸ You, Lord, took up my case;
   you redeemed my life.
⁵⁹ LORD, you have seen the wrong done to me.
   Uphold my cause!
⁶⁰ You have seen the depth of their vengeance,
   all their plots against me.

    ⁶¹ LORD, you have heard their insults,
   all their plots against me—
⁶² what my enemies whisper and mutter
   against me all day long.
⁶³ Look at them! Sitting or standing,
   they mock me in their songs.

    ⁶⁴ Pay them back what they deserve, LORD,
   for what their hands have done.
⁶⁵ Put a veil over their hearts,
   and may your curse be on them!
⁶⁶ Pursue them in anger and destroy them
   from under the heavens of the LORD.

This is another confirmation of the same truth, that God takes no delight in the evils or miseries of men. It is indeed a strong mode of speaking which the Prophet adopts, but very suitable. God, we know, puts on, as it were, our form or manner, for he cannot be comprehended in his inconceivable glory by human minds. Hence it is that he transfers to himself what properly can only apply to men. God surely never acts unwillingly nor feignedly: how then is that suitable which Jeremiah declares, — that God does not afflict from his heart? But God, as already said, does here assume the character of man; for though he afflicts us with sorrow as he pleases, yet true it is that he delights not in the miseries of men; for if a father desires to benefit his own children, and deals kindly with them, what ought we to think of our heavenly Father?

“Ye,” says Christ, “who are evil,
know how to do good to your children,” (Matthew 7:11;)

what then are we to expect from the very fountain of goodness? As, then, parents are not willingly angry with their children, nor handle them roughly, there is no doubt but that God never punishes men except when he is constrained. There is, as I have said, an impropriety in the expression, but it is enough to know, that God derives no pleasure from the miseries of men, as profane men say, who utter such blasphemies as these, that we are like balls with which God plays, and that we are exposed to many evils, because God wishes to have as it were, a pleasant and delectable spectacle in looking on the innumerable afflict, ions, and at length on the death of men.

That such thoughts, then, might not tempt us to unbelief, the Prophet here puts a check on us, and declares that God does not afflict from his heart, that is, willingly, as though he delighted in the evils of men, as a judge, who, when he ascends his throne and condemns the guilty to death, does not do this from his heart, because he wishes all to be innocent, and thus to have a reason for acquitting them; but. yet he willingly condemns the guilty, because this is his duty. So also God, when he adopts severity towards men, he indeed does so willingly, because he is the judge of the world; but he does not do so from the heart, because he wishes all to be innocent — for far away from him is all fierceness and cruelty; and as he regards men with paternal love, so also he would have them to be saved, were they not as it were by force to drive him to rigor. And this feeling he also expresses in Isaiah,

“Ah! I will take consolation from mine adversaries.”
(Isaiah 1:24.)

He calls them adversaries who so often provoked him by their obstinacy; yet he was led unwillingly to punish their sins, and hence he employed a particle expressive of grief, and exclaimed Ah! as a father who wishes his son to be innocent, and yet is compelled to be severe with him.

But however true this doctrine may be, taken generally, there is yet no doubt but that the Prophet here addresses only the faithful; and doubtless this privilege peculiarly belongs to God’s children, as it has been shown before. It follows, —