A Man in Deep Suffering
Study note
The speaker describes his personal experience of God's punishment using powerful word pictures. He feels driven into darkness, walled in with heavy stones, and hunted like prey. God seems like a bear or a lion waiting to attack. His bones are broken, his teeth are cracked, and he is covered in ashes. These images show how completely overwhelmed and hopeless he feels. By verse 18, he has reached the very bottom and believes all hope is gone.
1 I am the man who has lived through suffering under the rod of God's anger. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He has driven me forward and forced me to walk in total darkness instead of light. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 He has truly turned his hand against me over and over, all day long. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 He has worn away my skin and my body. He has snapped my bones. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He has boxed me in and surrounded me with hardship and misery. He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He has made me sit in the dark like someone who has been dead and buried for ages. He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He has built walls around me so I cannot get out. He has loaded me down with heavy chains. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I scream for help and beg for relief, he blocks my prayers from getting through. Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He has set up stone walls to block my path. He has made every road I take twist into confusion. He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He has been like a bear crouching in ambush, like a lion hiding in the brush, waiting to pounce. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
11 He yanked me off the road and ripped me apart. He has left me completely ruined. He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he hath made me desolate.
12 He has bent his bow and set me up as the target for his arrows. He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
13 He has driven arrows from his quiver deep into my insides. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.
14 I have become a joke to everyone I know. They mock me with their songs from morning to night. I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
15 He has stuffed me full of bitterness and forced me to gulp down the drink of sorrow. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16 He has made me chew on gravel until my teeth cracked, and he has shoved my face into the dust. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
17 Peace has been ripped away from my life. I cannot even remember what it feels like to be happy. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace: I forgat prosperity.
18 So I said to myself, "My strength is completely gone. Any hope I had from the Lord has died." And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD:
Hope in God's Faithfulness
Study note
This is the turning point of the entire book. From the depths of despair, the man chooses to remember something that gives him hope: God's mercies never run out and are brand new every single morning. Verses 22-23 are among the most famous in all of Scripture. The speaker declares that the Lord is good to those who wait for him and seek him. He teaches that God does not enjoy causing people to suffer. Even though discipline is painful, the Lord will not reject his people forever.
19 I keep going back to the memory of my pain and my wandering -- all the bitterness and heartbreak. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My mind replays it over and over without stopping, and it crushes me inside. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
21 But then I remember something else, and this one thought gives me hope. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
22 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 "The Lord is everything I need," my soul declares. "Therefore I will keep hoping in him." The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The Lord is good to everyone who waits for him, to anyone who seeks him out. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is a good thing to wait patiently and quietly for the Lord to come and save. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is a good thing for a person to learn to carry a heavy load while they are still young. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 Let that person sit alone in silence, accepting this burden that God has placed on them. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
29 Let them press their face to the ground in humility. Perhaps there is still hope. He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
30 Let them turn the other cheek to the one who hits them. Let them accept the full weight of the disgrace. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
31 Because the Lord does not cast people away forever. For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
32 Even when he brings grief, he will follow it up with compassion, because his mercy is deep and endless. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 He does not take pleasure in causing people suffering or heartache. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34 When prisoners are ground down under people's feet, To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 when a person's basic rights are stolen before the Most High, To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,
36 when someone gets cheated in a court of law -- the Lord sees all of that, and he does not approve. To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
A Call to Return to God
Study note
The speaker asks an important question: why should anyone alive complain about being punished for their sins? Instead of complaining, he calls the people to examine their ways and turn back to the Lord. He urges them to lift their hearts and hands to God in heaven. But honesty remains, and the people confess that they have sinned and rebelled, and God has not yet forgiven them.
37 Who has the power to speak something into existence unless the Lord has commanded it? Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38 Do not both trouble and blessing come from the mouth of the Most High God? Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39 Why should anyone alive grumble? They are being set straight for their own wrongs. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us take a careful, honest look at the way we have been living, and let us turn back to the Lord. Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41 Let us raise our hearts and our hands toward God in heaven. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42 We have sinned and turned our backs on you, and you have not yet forgiven us. We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
Surrounded by Enemies
Study note
God's anger has been like a thick cloud blocking their prayers from reaching heaven. The people feel like trash and garbage among the nations. Enemies open their mouths against them, and fear and destruction are everywhere. The speaker's tears flow like rivers as he watches his people suffer. His enemies hunt him like a bird and throw him into a pit, piling stones on top of him. Water rises over his head, and he believes he is about to die.
43 You have wrapped yourself in anger and hunted us down. You have killed without any trace of mercy. Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44 You have hidden yourself behind a thick cloud so that not a single prayer can break through to you. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45 You have turned us into garbage and refuse among the nations. Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46 All of our enemies have opened their mouths wide to devour us. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 We have been hit with fear and falling, with devastation and destruction. Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
48 Rivers of tears stream from my eyes because my people have been torn apart. Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My tears keep flowing and will not stop. They keep coming Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 until the Lord peers down from heaven and takes notice of what is happening. Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.
51 What I see with my own eyes shatters my heart, especially the suffering of the women and girls of my city. Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies hunted me down like a bird, even though I had done nothing to deserve it. Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.
53 They threw me alive into a deep pit and piled stones on top of me. They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me.
54 Water rose up over my head, and I was sure it was the end for me. Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.
God Hears from the Depths
Study note
Even from the deepest pit, the speaker calls out to God by name. And God answers. He draws near and says, 'Don't be afraid.' The speaker remembers that God has defended his cause and saved his life before. He asks God to see the cruelty of his enemies and to bring justice. The chapter ends with a strong appeal for God to judge those who have mocked and plotted against his people.
55 I called out your name, Lord, from the very bottom of that dark pit. I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.
56 You heard my voice. Please do not shut your ears when I beg you for help and cry out for relief. Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
57 On the day I cried out, you came close to me. You said, "Don't be afraid." Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.
58 Lord, you stepped in and defended my case. You saved my life. O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.
59 Lord, you have witnessed the injustice done to me. Now stand up for me and make things right. O LORD, thou hast seen my wrong: judge thou my cause.
60 You have seen all the hatred they carry and all the schemes they have cooked up against me. Thou hast seen all their vengeance and all their imaginations against me.
61 Lord, you have heard every insult they have thrown at me and every wicked plan they have made. Thou hast heard their reproach, O LORD, and all their imaginations against me;
62 My enemies spend all day long whispering and scheming against me. The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.
63 Watch them! Whether they are sitting or standing, they are making up mocking songs about me. Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.
64 Pay them back, Lord, for what their own hands have done. Render unto them a recompence, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.
65 Put heaviness on their hearts. Let your curse land on them. Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.
66 Hunt them down in your anger and erase them from under the Lord's sky. Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.