The rod of his wrath.—The “wrath” is obviously that of Jehovah (comp. Proverbs 22:8; Isaiah 10:5), but there is something significant in the fact that He is not named.

La 3:1-66.

Jeremiah proposes his own experience under afflictions, as an example as to how the Jews should behave under theirs, so as to have hope of a restoration; hence the change from singular to plural (La 3:22, 40-47). The stanzas consist of three lines, each of which begins with the same Hebrew letter.

Aleph.

1-3. seen affliction—his own in the dungeon of Malchiah (Jer 38:6); that of his countrymen also in the siege. Both were types of that of Christ.The faithful bewail their misery and contempt, Lamentations 3:1-21. They nourish their hope by consideration of the justice, providence, and mercies of God, Lamentations 3:22-38. They stir up themselves to repentance, patience, prayers, and confidence of deliverance for themselves, and Divine vengeance on their enemies, Lamentations 3:39-66.

Some understand this of the prophet, some of the people, who were before set out under the notion of a woman, a daughter, here of a man.

Affliction must here be taken emphatically for eminent degrees of affliction, caused not merely from the power and malice of the enemy, but from the wrath of God, though brought upon them by the Chaldeans, who were to the two tribes the rod of God’s wrath, as the Assyrians are called with reference to the ten tribes, Isaiah 10:5.

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 Sol 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.

(a) The prophet complains of the punishments and afflictions that he endured by the false prophets and hypocrites when he declared the destruction of Jerusalem, as in Jer 20:1,2.