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God’s Steadfast Love Endures

I am one who has seen affliction

under the rod of God’s wrath;

he has driven and brought me

into darkness without any light;

against me alone he turns his hand,

again and again, all day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,

and broken my bones;

he has besieged and enveloped me

with bitterness and tribulation;

he has made me sit in darkness

like the dead of long ago.

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

he has put heavy chains on me;

though I call and cry for help,

he shuts out my prayer;

he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,

he has made my paths crooked.

He is a bear lying in wait for me,

a lion in hiding;

he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;

he has made me desolate;

he bent his bow and set me

as a mark for his arrow.

He shot into my vitals

the arrows of his quiver;

I have become the laughingstock of all my people,

the object of their taunt-songs all day long.

He has filled me with bitterness,

he has sated me with wormwood.

He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

and made me cower in ashes;

my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

so I say, “Gone is my glory,

and all that I had hoped for from the L ord.”

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness

is wormwood and gall!

My soul continually thinks of it

and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the L ord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

“The L ord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

The L ord is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul that seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the L ord.

It is good for one to bear

the yoke in youth,

to sit alone in silence

when the Lord has imposed it,

to put one’s mouth to the dust

(there may yet be hope),

to give one’s cheek to the smiter,

and be filled with insults.

For the Lord will not

reject forever.

Although he causes grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

for he does not willingly afflict

or grieve anyone.

When all the prisoners of the land

are crushed under foot,

when human rights are perverted

in the presence of the Most High,

when one’s case is subverted

—does the Lord not see it?

Who can command and have it done,

if the Lord has not ordained it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

that good and bad come?

Why should any who draw breath complain

about the punishment of their sins?

Let us test and examine our ways,

and return to the L ord.

Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands

to God in heaven.

We have transgressed and rebelled,

and you have not forgiven.

You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,

killing without pity;

you have wrapped yourself with a cloud

so that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us filth and rubbish

among the peoples.

All our enemies

have opened their mouths against us;

panic and pitfall have come upon us,

devastation and destruction.

My eyes flow with rivers of tears

because of the destruction of my people.

My eyes will flow without ceasing,

without respite,

until the L ord from heaven

looks down and sees.

My eyes cause me grief

at the fate of all the young women in my city.

Those who were my enemies without cause

have hunted me like a bird;

they flung me alive into a pit

and hurled stones on me;

water closed over my head;

I said, “I am lost.”

I called on your name, O L ord,

from the depths of the pit;

you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear

to my cry for help, but give me relief!”

You came near when I called on you;

you said, “Do not fear!”

You have taken up my cause, O Lord,

you have redeemed my life.

You have seen the wrong done to me, O L ord;

judge my cause.

You have seen all their malice,

all their plots against me.

You have heard their taunts, O L ord,

all their plots against me.

The whispers and murmurs of my assailants

are against me all day long.

Whether they sit or rise—see,

I am the object of their taunt-songs.

Pay them back for their deeds, O L ord,

according to the work of their hands!

Give them anguish of heart;

your curse be on them!

Pursue them in anger and destroy them

from under the L ord’s heavens.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The letters of the alphabet are tripled in this chapter, which I had omitted to mention. In the first two chapters each verse begins with the successive letters of the alphabet, except that in the last chapter there is one instance of inversion, for Jeremiah has put פ, phi, before ע, oin; or it may be that the order has been changed by the scribes; but this is uncertain. Here then, as I have said, each letter is thrice repeated. Then the first, the second, and the third verse begins with א aleph; and the fourth begins with ב, beth, and so he goes on to the end. ¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴     The verses in this chapter are needlessly multiplied. It would have been better had each verse contained a letter, for the length of this chapter is the same with the two foregoing; the only difference is, that the lines, or alternate lines, begin with the same letter three times, as follows, —
   א I am the man who hath seen affliction,
Through the rod of his indignation;
א Me hath he led and caused to walk
In darkness, and not in light;
א Surely against me he turns,
Upset me does his hand all the day.
   The three next lines, or alternate lines, begin with ב, and so on to the end of the alphabet — Ed

He confirms here the last verse, for lie shews the cause or the manner of his afflictions, for he had been led into darkness and not into light. This kind of contrast has not the same force in other languages as it has in Hebrew. But when the Hebrews said that they were in darkness and not in the light, they amplified that obscurity, as though they had said that there was not even a spark of light in that darkness, it being so thick and obscure. This is what the Prophet now means. And we know what is everywhere understood in Scripture by darkness, even every kind of Lamentation: for the appearance of light exhilarates us, yea, the serenity of heaven cheers and revives the minds of men. Then darkness signifies all sorts of adversities and the sorrow which proceeds from them. He afterwards adds, —

¹⁷⁴ The verses in this chapter are needlessly multiplied. It would have been better had each verse contained a letter, for the length of this chapter is the same with the two foregoing; the only difference is, that the lines, or alternate lines, begin with the same letter three times, as follows, — א I am the man who hath seen affliction, Through the rod of his indignation; א Me hath he led and caused to walk In darkness, and not in light; א Surely against me he turns, Upset me does his hand all the day. The three next lines, or alternate lines, begin with ב, and so on to the end of the alphabet — Ed