Lamentations 3:22-23
“It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Where this sits
Written after the destruction of Jerusalem, in a book of five poems of grief. These two verses sit at the exact centre of the middle poem — the lowest point of the book, and its turn.
Reflection
It is worth knowing where this sentence is standing when it speaks. Lamentations is not a hopeful book. The chapter these verses come from opens with “I am the man who has seen affliction,” and continues for twenty verses of unrelieved darkness — walls, chains, bitterness, teeth broken on gravel.
Then verse 21: “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.” The turn is not caused by a change in circumstances. Nothing outside the poet has improved. He has deliberately called something to mind.
That is a technique worth learning. Hope here is not a feeling that arrives; it is a memory that is retrieved on purpose, in the dark, against the grain of everything currently visible.
And what he retrieves is a fact about mornings. The mercies are new every morning — which implies they were used up yesterday, and were sufficient for yesterday, and are not expected to be sufficient for today. There is no reserve to hoard. You cannot draw down tomorrow's supply tonight, which is exactly why the small hours are so hard.
“Great is your faithfulness” was written by a man looking at a burned city. That is the credential this line carries. It is not a sunny disposition. It is a verdict reached at the bottom, by someone with every reason to reach a different one.
- Theme:
- Mercy
- Book:
- Lamentations