Lamentations 3:19

Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) Remembering.—The verb, which is rendered by the Authorised version as a gerundial infinitive, is better taken as an imperative, Remember mine affliction; the prayer being addressed to Jehovah. The two terms of the first clause are taken from Lamentations 1:7. The mourner begins his prayer, as it were, by a recapitulation of his sufferings. (Comp. Psalm 69:21.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-20 The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. It was an affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. The struggle between unbelief and faith is often very severe. But the weakest believer is wrong, if he thinks that his strength and hope are perished from the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Remembering - Or, as in the margin. It is a prayer to Yahweh.

My misery - Or, "my" homelessness (Lamentations 1:7 note).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19-21. This gives the reason why he gave way to the temptation to despair. The Margin, "Remember" does not suit the sense so well.

wormwood … gall—(Jer 9:15).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

If, according to our translation, we read

Remembering, or While I remember, these two verses contain but one sentence; in tire former part the prophet in the name of this people expresseth their despairing condition; in the latter he gives the reason of it, viz. the people’s poring upon their great and heavy afflictions, which he compares to wormwood and gall, two things excessively bitter, and often made use of to signify great affliction, Psalm 69:21 Jeremiah 8:14 9:15 23:15 Revelation 8:11. But it may as well be read imperatively, Remember mine affliction; so the first of these two verses expresseth the dejection of the people’s minds in their captivity, caused through their proneness to despair of any better condition that their angry God would bring them into. The 19th verse is a prayer directed to God, which showed that though they were mightily perplexed, yet they were not in utter despair; and to this sense the following verses seem to incline.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Remembering mine affliction and my misery,.... The miserable affliction of him and his people; the remembrance of which, and poring upon it continually, caused the despondency before expressed: though it may be rendered imperatively, "remember my affliction, and my misery" (s); so the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions; and Aben Ezra observes, that the words may be considered as a request to God, and so they seem to be; the prophet, and the people he represents, were not so far gone into despair, as to cast off prayer before God; but once more looked up to him, beseeching that he would, in his great mercy and pity, remember them in their distressed condition, and deliver out of it; for none could do it but himself:

the wormwood and the gall; figurative expressions of bitter and grievous afflictions, Lamentations 3:5.

(s) "recordare", Munster, Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Cocceius, Michealis.

Geneva Study Bible

Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. God is now directly invoked.

misery] mg. wandering, or, outcast state.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 19-21. - These verses prepare the way for a brief interval of calmness and resignation. Verse 19. - Remembering; rather, remember. It is the language of prayer. Lamentations 3:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Consideration of God's compassion and His omnipotence as displayed at critical junctures in the affairs of men. C. B. Michaelis has correctly perceived, and thus set forth, the transition from the complaint, bordering on despair, to hope, as given in Lamentations 3:19 : luctatur hic contra desperationis adfectum, quo tentatus fuerat, Lamentations 3:18, mix inde per fidem emersurus. In like manner it is said in the Berleburger Bibel, "In Lamentations 3:19 he struggles with despair, to which he had been tempted, and in the following verse soars up once more into the region of faith." By the resumption of עני from Lamentations 3:1, and of לענה and ראשׁ from Lamentations 3:15 and Lamentations 3:5, the contents of the whole preceding lamentation are given in a summary, and by זכר are presented to God in prayer. "Mine affliction" is intensified by the addition of "my persecution" (see on Lamentations 1:7), and the contents of the lamentation thereby more plainly pointed out. This connection of the verse has been misunderstood in many ways. An old interpretation of the words, still maintained by Bttcher and Thenius, makes זכר an infinitive; according to this view, Lamentations 3:19 would require to be conjoined with the preceding, and the inf. without ל would stand for the ground, recordando, "while I think of," - which is grammatically impossible.

(Note: Seb. Mnster long since said: Secundum quosdam est זכר infinit., ut sit sensus: periit spes mea, recordante me afflictionis meae. Calvin also gives the preference to this view, with the remark: Videtur enim hic propheta exprimere, quomodo fere a spe exciderit, ut nihil reperiret amplius fortitudinis in Deo, quia scilicet oppressus erat malis; in support of which he affirms that it is valde absurdum, eos qui experti sunt aliquando Dei misericordiam, sic omnem spem abjicere, ut non statuant amplius sibi esse refugium ad Deum.)

The same remark applies to the assumption that זכר is an infinitive which is resumed in Lamentations 3:20 : "it thinks of my misery...yes, my soul thinks thereon" (Bttcher, Thenius). Gerlach very properly remarks concerning this view that such a construction is unexampled, and, as regards the change in the form of the infinitive (constr. and abs.), would be unintelligible. The objection of Thenius, however, that the imperative meaning usually attached to זכר is against the whole context, and quite inappropriate here, is connected with the erroneous assumption that Lamentations 3:19 and Lamentations 3:20 form a continuation of what precedes, and that the idea of the speaker's being completely overwhelmed by the thought of all that he had suffered and still suffers, forms the proper conclusion of the first part, after which, from Lamentations 3:21 onwards, there follows relief. Gerlach has rightly opposed to these arguments the following considerations: (1) That, after the outburst of despair in Lamentations 3:18, "my strength is gone, and my hope from Jahveh," the words "my soul is bowed down in me" form far too feeble a conclusion; (2) That it is undoubtedly more correct to make the relief begin with a prayer breathed out through sighs (Lamentations 3:19), than with such a reflection as is expressed in Lamentations 3:21. Ewald also is right in taking זכר as an imperative, but is mistaken in the notion that the speaker addresses any one who is ready to hear him; this view is shown to be erroneous by the simple fact that, in what precedes and succeeds, the thoughts of the speaker are directed to God only.