Lamentations 3:1

THE MESSAGE

I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God 's anger. He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness. Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over and over again.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I am the man who has seen affliction

Hebrew Names Version
I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

King James Version
I Am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

English Standard Version
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

New American Standard Bible
I am the man who has seen misery Because of the rod of His wrath.

New Century Version
I am a man who has seen the suffering that comes from the rod of the Lord 's anger.

Amplified Bible
I am [Jeremiah] the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.

World English Bible
I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Geneva Bible (1587)
I am the man, that hath seene affliction in the rod of his indignation.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.

Legacy Standard Bible
I am the man who has seen afflictionBecause of the rod of His wrath.

Berean Standard Bible
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath.

Contemporary English Version
The Prophet Speaks: I have suffered much because God was angry.

Complete Jewish Bible
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his fury,

Darby Translation
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Easy-to-Read Version
I am a man who has seen much trouble. God beat us with a stick, and I saw it happen.

George Lamsa Translation
O MIGHTY God, see my affliction; I am chastised by the rod of his wrath.

Good News Translation
I am one who knows what it is to be punished by God.

Lexham English Bible
I am a man who has seen misery, under the rod of his wrath.

Literal Translation
I, the man, have seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
I am the ma, that (thorow the rodd of his wrath) haue experiece of misery.

American Standard Version
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Bible in Basic English
I am the man who has seen trouble by the rod of his wrath.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

King James Version (1611)
I Am the man that hath seene affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
I am the man that thorowe the rodde of his wrath haue experience of miserie.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
ALEPH. I am the man that sees poverty, through the rod of his wrath upon me.

English Revised Version
I AM the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Aleph. I am a man seynge my pouert in the yerde of his indignacioun.

Update Bible Version
I am the [noble] man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

Webster's Bible Translation
I [am] the man [that] hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

New English Translation

א (Alef)

I am the man who has experienced affliction from the rod of his wrath.

New King James Version
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

New Living Translation
I am the one who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of the Lord 's anger.

New Life Bible
I am the man who has been suffering because of the power of God's anger.

New Revised Standard
I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath;

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I, am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his indignation;

Douay-Rheims Bible
Aleph. I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of his indignation.

Revised Standard Version
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;

Young's Literal Translation
I [am] the man [who] hath seen affliction By the rod of His wrath.

Contextual Overview

¹ I'm the man who has seen trouble, trouble coming from the lash of God 's anger. He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness. Yes, he's given me the back of his hand over and over and over again. ⁴He turned me into a scarecrow of skin and bones, then broke the bones. He hemmed me in, ganged up on me, poured on the trouble and hard times. He locked me up in deep darkness, like a corpse nailed inside a coffin. ⁷He shuts me in so I'll never get out, manacles my hands, shackles my feet. Even when I cry out and plead for help, he locks up my prayers and throws away the key. He sets up blockades with quarried limestone. He's got me cornered. ¹⁰He's a prowling bear tracking me down, a lion in hiding ready to pounce. He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces. When he finished, there was nothing left of me. He took out his bow and arrows and used me for target practice. ¹³He shot me in the stomach with arrows from his quiver. Everyone took me for a joke, made me the butt of their mocking ballads. He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat, bloated me with vile drinks. ¹⁶He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud. I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause." ¹⁹I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember— the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the man: Lamentations 1:12-14, Job 19:21, Psalms 71:20, Psalms 88:7, Psalms 88:15, Psalms 88:16, Isaiah 53:3, Jeremiah 15:17, Jeremiah 15:18, Jeremiah 20:14-18, Jeremiah 38:6

his wrath: That is, the wrath of God.

Reciprocal: Ruth 1:20 - dealt Job 30:28 - General Jeremiah 20:18 - came Jeremiah 43:6 - Jeremiah Jeremiah 45:3 - added

Cross-References

Genesis 3:13
"The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."

Isaiah 27:1
At that time God will unsheathe his sword, his merciless, massive, mighty sword. He'll punish the serpent Leviathan as it flees, the serpent Leviathan thrashing in flight. He'll kill that old dragon that lives in the sea.

Matthew 10:16
"Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.

2 Corinthians 11:14
Pseudo-Servants of God Will you put up with a little foolish aside from me? Please, just for a moment. The thing that has me so upset is that I care about you so much—this is the passion of God burning inside me! I promised your hand in marriage to Christ, presented you as a pure virgin to her husband. And now I'm afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ. It seems that if someone shows up preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different message—you put up with him quite nicely. But if you put up with these big-shot "apostles," why can't you put up with simple me? I'm as good as they are. It's true that I don't have their voice, haven't mastered that smooth eloquence that impresses you so much. But when I do open my mouth, I at least know what I'm talking about. We haven't kept anything back. We let you in on everything. I wonder, did I make a bad mistake in proclaiming God's Message to you without asking for something in return, serving you free of charge so that you wouldn't be inconvenienced by me? It turns out that the other churches paid my way so that you could have a free ride. Not once during the time I lived among you did anyone have to lift a finger to help me out. My needs were always supplied by the believers from Macedonia province. I was careful never to be a burden to you, and I never will be, you can count on it. With Christ as my witness, it's a point of honor with me, and I'm not going to keep it quiet just to protect you from what the neighbors will think. It's not that I don't love you; God knows I do. I'm just trying to keep things open and honest between us. And I'm not changing my position on this. I'd die before taking your money. I'm giving nobody grounds for lumping me in with those money-grubbing "preachers," vaunting themselves as something special. They're a sorry bunch—pseudo-apostles, lying preachers, crooked workers—posing as Christ's agents but sham to the core. And no wonder! Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light. So it shouldn't surprise us when his servants masquerade as servants of God. But they're not getting by with anything. They'll pay for it in the end. Let me come back to where I started—and don't hold it against me if I continue to sound a little foolish. Or if you'd rather, just accept that I am a fool and let me rant on a little. I didn't learn this kind of talk from Christ. Oh, no, it's a bad habit I picked up from the three-ring preachers that are so popular these days. Since you sit there in the judgment seat observing all these shenanigans, you can afford to humor an occasional fool who happens along. You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face! I shouldn't admit it to you, but our stomachs aren't strong enough to tolerate that kind of stuff. Since you admire the egomaniacs of the pulpit so much (remember, this is your old friend, the fool, talking), let me try my hand at it. Do they brag of being Hebrews, Israelites, the pure race of Abraham? I'm their match. Are they servants of Christ? I can go them one better. (I can't believe I'm saying these things. It's crazy to talk this way! But I started, and I'm going to finish.) I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. If I have to "brag" about myself, I'll brag about the humiliations that make me like Jesus. The eternal and blessed God and Father of our Master Jesus knows I'm not lying. Remember the time I was in Damascus and the governor of King Aretas posted guards at the city gates to arrest me? I crawled through a window in the wall, was let down in a basket, and had to run for my life.

1 Peter 3:7
The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I [am] the man [that] hath seen affliction,.... Had a much experience of it, especially ever since he had been a prophet; being reproached and ill used by his own people, and suffering with them in their calamities; particularly, as Jarchi observes, his affliction was greater than the other prophets, who indeed prophesied of the destruction of the city and temple, but did not see it; whereas he lived to see it: he was not indeed the only man that endured affliction, but he was remarkable for his afflictions; he had a large share of them, and was herein a type of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs:

by the rod of his wrath; that is, by the rod of the wrath of God, for he is understood; it is a relative without an antecedent, as in Song of Solomon 1:1; unless the words are to be considered in connection Lamentations 2:22. The Targum is,

"by the rod of him that chastiseth in his anger;''

so Jarchi; but God's chastisements of his own people are in love, though thought sometimes by them to be in wrath and hot displeasure; so the prophet imagined, but it was not so; perhaps some regard may be had to the instrument of Jerusalem's destruction, the king of Babylon, called the rod of the Lord's anger, Isaiah 10:5; all this was true of Christ, as the surety of his people, and as sustaining their persons, and standing in their room.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That hath seen affliction - i. e. hath experienced, suffered it.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER III

The prophet, by enumerating his own severe trials, 1-20,

and showing his trust in God, 21,

encourages his people to the like resignation and trust in the

Divine and never-failing mercy, 22-27.

He vindicates the goodness of God in all his dispensations, and

the unreasonableness of murmuring under them, 28-39.

He recommends self-examination and repentance; and then, from

their experience of former deliverances from God, encourages

them to look for pardon for their sins, and retribution to

their enemies, 40-66.

NOTES ON CHAP. III

Verse Lamentations 3:1. I am the man that hath seen affliction — Either the prophet speaks here of himself, or he is personating his miserable countrymen. This and other passages in this poem have been applied to Jesus Christ's passion; but, in my opinion, without any foundation.