5. Ædificavit contra me, et circumdedit felle et molestia.
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS
4. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
4. Senio confecit earnera meam (senescere fecit, ad verbum) et pelletn meam
(vel, cutem;) confregit ossa mea.
These, as it evidently appears, are metaphorical words. Illness often makes people to look old, for from pain proceeds leanness: thus the skin is contracted, and the wrinkles of old age appear even in youths. As, then, sorrows exhaust moisture and strength, hence he is said to grow old who pines away in mourning. This is what the
Prophet now means. God, he says, has made my flesh and my skin, to grow old, that is, he hath worn me out, within and without, so that I am almost wasted away.
He then adds, He hath broken my bones This seems to be hyperbolical; but we have said elsewhere that this simile does not in every instance express the greatness of the sorrow which the faithful feel under a sense of God's wrath. Both David and
Hezekiah spoke in this way; nay, Hezekiah compares God to a lion,
a lion,'' he says, ``has he broken my bones.''
(Isaiah 38:13.)
And David says at one time that his bones wasted away, at another that they were broken, and at another that they were reduced to ashes; for there is nothing more dreadful than to feel that God is angry with us. The Prophet, then, did not only regard outward calamities, but the evidence of God's vengeance; for the people could see nothing else in their distresses except that God was their enemy --- and this was true; for God had often exhorted them to repentance; but upon those whom he had found incurable, he at length, as it was just, poured forth his vengeance to the uttermost.
This, then, was the reason why the Prophet said, that God had broken his bones. He then adds, ---
Lamentations 3:5
5. He hath builded against me, and encompassed me with gall and travail.
5. Ædificavit contra me, et circumdedit felle et molestia.
The words, as translated, may seem harsh, yet they have no common beauty in
Hebrew. The Prophet says he was blocked up and straitened as it were by walls; and as we shall see, he repeats this comparison three times; in other words, indeed, but for the same purpose.
God, he says, hath built against me, as, when we wish to besiege any one, we build mounds, so that there may be no escape. This, then, is the sort of building of which the Prophet now speaks: God, he says, holds me confined all around, so that there is no way of escape open to me.
He then gives a clearer explanation, that he was surrounded by gall 535 or poison and trouble. He mentions poison first, and then, without a figure, he shews what that poison was, even that he was afflicted with many troubles. He afterwards adds,
---
Lamentations 3:6
535The Sept., the Targ., and the Arab. render this "my head;" but the Vulg. and the Syr., "gall." It occurs again in Lamentations 2:19, and is rendered "gall" by the Targ. and all the versions. He was "surrounded with gall," with what was bitter to him, and "with faintness," with what made him to faint. Hence, in the next verse, he represents himself as being like the dead. — Ed.