Give them sorrow of heart - They shall have a callous heart, covered with obstinacy, and thy execration. The former is their state, the latter their fate. This is the consequence of their hardening their hearts from thy fear. Blayney translates, "Thou wilt give with a hearty concordance thy curse unto them." That is, Thou wilt give it to them freely, and without reserve; intimating that God felt no longer any bowels of compassion for them. Formerly he inflicted punishments with reluctance, while there was any hope of amendment: but, in the instance before us, the case was so hopeless, that God acts according to the simple principle of vindictive justice. The prophet therefore considers them on the utmost verge of final reprobation: another plunge, and they are lost for ever.
A prayer for deliverance and for vengeance upon his enemies.
Lamentations 3:55
Out of the low dungeon - “The lowest pit” of Psalm 88:6. Some consider that Jeremiah 38:6 note).
Lamentations 3:56
Thou hast heard - In sending Ebedmelech to deliver me. The next clause signifies “Hide not thine ear to my relief to my cry,” i. e. to my cry for relief.
Lamentations 3:58
God now appears as the prophet‘s next of kin, pleading the lawsuits of his soul, i. e. the controversies which concern his salvation. and rescuing his life, in jeopardy through the malice of his enemies.
Lamentations 3:59
Wrong - Done to him by the perversion of justice.
Lamentations 3:60, Lamentations 3:61
Imaginations - Or, devices.
Lamentations 3:63
Their sitting down, and their rising up - i. e. all the ordinary actions of their life.
Musick - Or, song, “the subject of it.”
Lamentations 3:64-66
The versions render the verbs in these verses as futures, “Thou shalt render unto them a recompence,” etc.
Lamentations 3:65
Give them sorrow of heart - Or, “Thou wilt give them” blindness “of heart.”
Lamentations 3:66
Persecute - Or, pursue them in anger and destroy them, etc.