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Please take all of tomorrow evening, or even late tonight, to type about the vacation fallout that was triggered by going up that cursed house.

Survived the hell night by the mercy of God and nothing else
They're getting much harder to survive every time

Ironically, Lamentations 3 hits harder than ever in its wake.
This whole book is literally about me. It's gutwrenching.
...it also makes 3:21-33 pierce my poor heart like a sword of light.


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3:33 translation comparison is stunningly revelatory.
...God knew that I needed to hear this today, to be told beyond a doubt that this is true. I need this hope, this faith, this love, even more than I need to breathe.
Thank You, Lord.

"For He has not afflicted with His Heart, Nor does He grieve the sons of men...
He does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on mankind...
He does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow...
He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone...
He does not deliberately hurt or grieve human beings...
He takes no pleasure in causing us grief or pain...
He is not predisposed to afflict or to grieve people...
He does not afflict willingly, but He afflicts the children of the mighty men...
For He doth not plague, & cast out the children of men from His Heart...
He has not answered in anger from His Heart, though He has brought low the children of a man...
For He has not humiliated from His Heart, nor has He thrown aside the sons of men...
He does not enjoy seeing people who are in pain. He does not enjoy causing trouble for them...
Certainly it is not what His Heart desires when He causes affliction, when He brings grief to the children of men...
The Lord does not like to punish people or make them sad...
He doesn’t want to bring pain or suffering to anyone...
He does not deliberately hurt or grieve human beings...
He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way...
He does not want to cause trouble or sorrow for the children of men...
It is not the desire or way of God’s Heart to hurt and grieve the children of men.

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Verse 56 hitting hard too, hard enough to make me weep.

You heard my voice [then]: [Oh] hide not Your ear [now] at my prayer for relief...
You heard my voice. You didn’t close your ears. You didn’t refuse to rescue me...
‘Please listen to me, Lord,’ I shouted. ‘Help me! Save me!’ I shouted, and you heard me...
I prayed, “Please don’t close your ears to my cry for help.” And You heard my appeal...
You heard my voice calling, “Do not close your ears and ignore my gasps and shouts, my cries for relief.”
You have heard my voice, do not hide Your ear at my breathing— at my cry...
Thou hast heard my voice; do not hide thine ear at my cry that I might breath...
Hear my voice. Don’t close your ear to my need for relief, to my cry for help.
You have heard my voice. Do not turn away your ear from my sobbing and my cries...
Listen to my cry [for help]. Don't close your ears when I cry out for relief...
Thou hast heard my voice: stop not thine ear from my sigh, and from my cry.
You heard me call, “Do not let Your ear be deaf to my cry for help.”...
You have heard my voice, “Do not cover Your ear from my plea for relief, From my cry for help.”...
You heard my voice. “Do not [merely] incline your ear, but [act to] free me and save me!”
You listened when I called out, ‘Don’t shut your ears! Get me out of here! Save me!’ 
I begged You to listen. "Help!" I shouted. "Save me!" You answered my prayer...
And when I begged You to listen to my cry, You heard.
...and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping!

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And verse 57 immediately following all that— 

Come near to me on the day I call to you. Say to me, “Don’t be afraid.”
Yes, You came when I called; you told me, “Do not fear.”
Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.
You drew near when I called on You; You said, “Do not be afraid.”
You came near whenever I called you; You said, “Do not be afraid.”
You come near when I call on You; You say: "Do not be afraid."
Be close at hand when I call to You. You told me not to be afraid.
You drew near when I called out to you. You said, "Stop being afraid."
You came to me on the day that I called out to you. You said to me, “Don’t be afraid.”
Thou hast inclyned thy selfe vnto me when I called vpon thee: and hast said, feare not.
Thou drewest near in the day I shall call thee: thou saidst, Thou shalt not fear.
Thou drewest nigh to my help: in the day wherein I called upon thee thou saidst to me, Fear not.
You drew near in the daytime, when I called upon you. You said, “Fear not.”
You came when I was in need. You told me, “Don't worry!”
You came near to me when I prayed to you. ‘Do not be afraid,’ you said.
You came close when I called out. You said, ‘It’s going to be all right.’
So close when I’ve called out in my distress, You’ve whispered in my ear, “Do not be afraid.”

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Now for beginning to read the NET commentary

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations%203&version=NET

The noun (gever, “man”) refers to a strong man, distinguished from women, children, and other non-combatants whom he is to defend... the speaking voice in this chapter is that of a defeated soldier.
[This hurts, especially with how painfully & particularly personally applicable this entire chapter is.]

[The narrator is argued to be] the voice of an “everyman,” although “one might not unreasonably suppose that some archetypal communal figure like the king does in fact stand in the distant background.”
[IT'S BOTH, IF IT'S CHRIST SPEAKING THROUGH THESE WORDS.]

The verb (raʾah, “to see”) has a broad range of meanings, including (1) “to see” as to learn from experience [i.e. to "realize the results/ understand the outcome" OF an experience] and (2) “to see” as to experience [i.e. to "see" war, peace, famine, abundance, etc., directly, not as mere theory or ideal]. Here it means that the speaker has experienced these things.
The same Hebrew verb occurs in 2:20, where the Lord is asked to “see” (translated “Consider!”), although it is difficult to maintain this connection in an English translation.
[THAT IS A TOTAL MESSIANIC GAMECHANGER OF A NOTE. That's the “see for Yourself / take notice” line about the cannibalism of children and murder of prophets & priests. If THAT desperate plea DOES still carry this translation nuance, it means that the narrator ISN'T just asking for compassionate pity evoked by sincere and deeply affected watching– deep down, he's actually asking God to EXPERIENCE THIS PAIN WITH HIS PEOPLE, PERSONALLY SO. That goes FAR BEYOND mere "sincere listening" and "merciful intervention," although that IS being asked for from God. But these agonized people need something even deeper and more immediately real than divine assistance from a "distance." They need heart-to-heart consolation. They need someone to suffer WITH them. They need to KNOW, firsthand even, that God isn't detached from their misery, that God isn't "untouched" by their grief, that God KNOWS what it means to suffer like they are. They NEED to know that GOD’S HEART "SEES" THEM, and that is ONLY possible if God is willing and able to get down in the bloody dirt with the dying, to reach out and touch them and hold them and love them, face to face. Only then CAN the true help & healing occur– not only of body, but of mind & heart & soul, too. And this is exactly what Jesus Christ does– He Who Is "God Among Us".]


The noun (shevet, “rod”) refers to the weapon used for smiting an enemy, and to the instrument of child-discipline [and of slaves, Exodus 21:20?] It is used figuratively to describe discipline of the individual and the nation.
[The word– being associated with authority, governance, and justice– ALSO applies to KING'S SCEPTER and a SHEPHERD'S STAFF, which deepens the meaning of such discipline, especially when Divinely ordained— Even the "cudgel" of war is wielded only to destroy evil and train His children well.]

The verb (nahag) describes the process of directing (usually a group of) something along a route, hence commonly “to drive,” when describing flocks, caravans, or prisoners and spoils of war. But with people it may also have a positive connotation “to shepherd” or “to guide”. The line plays on this through the reversal of expectations. Rather than being safely shepherded by the Lord their King, He has driven them away into captivity.
[...I sense divine irony though. God cannot cease to be a Good Shepherd, or a Good King. But "good is not necessarily nice," especially when spiritual warfare is concerned. True, they are being driven into captivity; true, they are not "safe and sound" in Jerusalem. But had they been safe there, in their sins? NO. So, paradoxically, this "driving away" IS actually an act of being "safely shepherded," in the long run, especially concerning their souls. They are still His flock, still His caravan that He travels with (yes, even without the Ark, even with no visible signs; He is still their Covenant God and CANNOT be truly separated from them), even as they are also ironically His "spoils of war," taken back from the real enemy (sin) He is conquering IN THEM by this severe discipline, AND His "prisoners" too, in the sense that they are meant to be "slaves of righteousness" and not of evil? They WERE temporarily literal spoil & prisoner of their earthly conquerors, yes, but ultimately, they were never taken away from the LORD; they COULDN'T belong to anyone BUT Him. This is WHY, even when "driven away," they were still being "guided," still always traveling the "route" under God's Hand, even when they strayed, for His Purpose for them is unstoppable and He used every misstep to lead them on closer to Himself... even if the process of doing so looked like Covenant curses. The point is, God never lost control, and they were never outside of His authority or power. Even now, against ALL odds and expectations, although they are not trudging the ideal road, the one God intended for them to walk in obedience, it is STILL a route marked out by His Kingly authority, for they ARE His subjects; and guarded by the Shepherd of Israel, for they ARE His sheep.]

The Hiphil of (halakh, “to walk”) may be nuanced either as “brought” or “caused to walk”.
[Again, it's both/and. The "causing" IS His "bringing" us; we are in this heavy chastisement & place of suffering not because He "forced" our circumstances, making it inevitable, but because He accompanied us here. He ordained both the destination and the route, He both led us onward and drove us from behind, and He both "made us walk" and carried us here. We would not have survived on our own. We do not have anywhere near as much strength as we think we do. Even in our anguished march through darkness and devastation, somehow, inexplicably, we are being "brought" there in the Shepherd's arms. This is the terror and wonder of our God, Who is rightly as worthy of Fear as He is worthy of Love.]

"He led [guided and brought] me into darkness, not light."
"He led me and He brought darkness and not light"
"He led me and He walked me in darkness and not in the light"
"He has led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light"
"He drove me deeper and deeper into darkness"
"Me He hath led, and causeth to go in darkness, and without light"
"He has led me, but I walked in darkness and not in light."
"He has taken me, and led me away into darkness, and not into light"
"he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light"
"He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light"
"He took me by the hand and walked me into pitch-black darkness."
"An absence of light and only darkness. Darkness—that’s where God has driven me."
Etc.

The “hand of the Lord” is a metaphor for his power or influence... The idiom “to turn the hand against” someone is a figurative expression denoting hostility.
[Etymology "from Latin hostilis "of an enemy, belonging to or characteristic of the enemy; inimical," from hostis, in earlier use "a stranger, foreigner"." This ties into "enemy"= , "one hateful toward and intent on harming (someone)," from Old French enemi... "enemy, adversary, foe; demon, the Devil," from Latin inimicus "an enemy," literally "an unfriend." ...from in- "not" + amicus "friend" related to amare "to love". From c. 1300 in English as "adversary of God, unbeliever, heathen, anti-Christian;" late 14c. as "the Devil;" also late 14c. as "member of an armed, hostile body in a war, feud, etc.;". So you see this is ALL EXPLICITLY SPIRITUAL WARFARE LANGUAGE, and that context is the ONLY one in which God could EVER actually be "hostile" towards us– the ONLY enemy of God is the DEVIL, who is essentially the avatar of sin, and so whenever WE sin, we "ALLY" with the devil. Our own sinful actions are analogous with his evil assaults against all goodness, "intent on harming" his own Creator, AND His creatures– including us, even when our sins benefit his own wicked cause! This is because, by sinning, we ARE harmed, and devastatingly so= we make ourselves "strangers" to God, "foreigners" to His Kingdom, adversaries to His cause, even hateful towards His designs... when we sin, we become those who DO NOT LOVE GOD. So of COURSE God is going to "respond in kind"– because HE HATES SIN, for sin is the LACK of Love, which God IS. Its not "us" that God is an "enemy" to– besides, God even tells US to "LOVE our enemies," because the REAL "enemy" that is DEFEATED by Love is SIN. But Love means "seeking the highest good of the other as other," which is their eternal salvation, and as such Love is NOT "cuddly" or harmless. "The LORD is a WARRIOR," and therefore, yes, sometimes His Hand WILL be "turned against us" in "hostility"– not against us as His creatures, but against us as defectors to the forces of hell. THAT IS WHY REPENTANCE IS REQUIRED FOR MERCY. We must willingly & decisively declare both our awful guilt and our awful contrition, and solemnly renew our loyalty to our true King, with total submissive humility. Otherwise, God will "assume" we want to be on the losing side, the one doomed to be eternally destroyed. We have free will. This means we have the responsibility to exercise it rightly. Remember: God will never be "hostile" to His friends– to those who love Him and PROVE it by keeping His Covenant and Commandments. Make sure you are living as His friend.]

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https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8513.htm
telaah: distress, hardship, weariness, trouble, travail

...conveys an experience of hardship or distress that taxes the strength of those who endure it... Every passage underlines the faithful activity of God in the midst of trouble, whether through His deliverance, His warning, His covenant faithfulness, or His refining discipline.

Scriptural Usage
1. Exodus 18:8 — Moses recounts to Jethro “all the hardship ("telaah")” that had found Israel in Egypt and on the way, “and how the LORD had delivered them.” The word stands at the center of a testimony meeting, turning affliction into praise.
2. Numbers 20:14 — From Kadesh, Moses reminds Edom’s king of “all the hardship” that befell Israel, appealing for passage. The term functions diplomatically, urging compassion on the basis of shared human vulnerability before God’s dealings.
3. Nehemiah 9:32 — In a prayer of national confession the Levites speak of “all the hardship” that has come upon Israel “from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.” Here the word gathers centuries of covenant discipline into a single expression, awakening repentance.
4. Lamentations 3:5 — Jeremiah laments, “He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship,” portraying affliction in intensely personal terms and turning the nation’s tragedy into individual lament.

Historical Background
• Wilderness Journey: Exodus and Numbers embed the term in Israel’s formative trek from bondage to promise. Hardship is inseparable from pilgrimage, yet also from redemptive intervention.
• Exilic and Post-Exilic Era: Nehemiah and Lamentations locate telaah in the fallout of covenant unfaithfulness—siege, exile, and rebuilding. The word thus marks both divine judgment and the hope of restoration.

Theological Significance
• Covenant Faithfulness: God ALLOWS hardship but NEVER ABANDONS His Promises; each occurrence AFFIRMS His sustaining Presence.
• Memory and Identity: Rehearsing hardship solidifies communal memory, shaping Israel’s identity as a people delivered by grace.
• Divine Sovereignty IN Suffering: Lamentations 3 presents hardship as proceeding through the Sovereign Hand of God, yet framed by the assurance, “Great is Your faithfulness” .
• Moral Appeal: Moses’ message to Edom implies that awareness of God-permitted hardship should cultivate MERCY toward others.

Typological Insights
The wilderness hardships foreshadow the believer’s earthly pilgrimage.
Nehemiah’s summary of national hardship anticipates the church’s suffering through the ages.
Jeremiah’s lament prefigures the Man of Sorrows, Who “learned obedience from what He suffered”.

Practical and Pastoral Application
• Testimony: Believers are encouraged to recount hardships alongside deliverances, turning trials into doxology.
• Intercession: Like the Levites, prayer may appeal to God’s covenant mercy amid prolonged affliction.
• Compassion: Remembering personal and corporate hardship fuels empathy and hospitality toward "outsiders."
• Perseverance: The word reminds the church that hardship is neither foreign nor futile but integral to sanctification.

Telaah binds together accounts of pilgrimage, petition, penitence, and personal lament. In every case Scripture portrays hardship as a stage on which God displays His Power, cultivates humility in His people, and ultimately leads His people into fuller communion with Himself.

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https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7219.htm
rosh: poison, bitterness, poisoned
1. a poisonous plant, probably the poppy (from its conspicuous head)
2. (generally) poison (even of serpents); gall, hemlock, venom.

Within Moses’ final admonitions the term surfaces as a vivid emblem of hidden spiritual peril. “Make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison”. The image warns that idolatry can germinate unseen, yet, like a toxic weed, infect the whole community. 

The vine of Sodom: national apostasy exposed
In the Song of Moses, Israel’s future unfaithfulness is compared to the corrupt viticulture of Sodom:
“For their vine is from the vine of Sodom… Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras”.
Here rosh brands the entire produce of a counterfeit vine as lethal. Centuries later, prophets will reuse the motif to expose covenant infidelity.

Jeremiah declares that persistent sin will be repaid in kind:
“The LORD our God has… given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against Him”.
Rosh appears alongside “wormwood,” intensifying the message that rebellion converts life-giving streams into bitterness. 
Hosea 10:4 pictures judgment that “springs up like poisonous weeds,” while Amos 6:12 laments that Israel has “turned justice into poison.” The word becomes shorthand for institutionalized corruption— when truth itself tastes like venom.

Lamentations applies the term to the siege trauma of Jerusalem... Rosh thus bridges personal grief and national catastrophe, illustrating how sin’s consequences invade both public and private life.

Job’s friend Zophar predicts that the wicked will “suck the poison of cobras”. The verse shows Rosh used for self-inflicted ruin—evil consumed becomes evil’s executioner.

Psalm 69:21 records, “They poisoned my food with gall and gave me vinegar to drink.” The Gospel writers recall this verse when Jesus is offered wine mixed with bitter gall. Rosh thereby foreshadows the rejection and suffering of the Messiah, Who drinks the bitter cup of judgment on behalf of sinners.

Theological themes
1. Hidden beginnings, catastrophic ends – Rosh starts as an unseen root but matures into lethal fruit.
2. Moral inversion – Justice and righteousness become poison when detached from the fear of the LORD.
3. Retributive irony – God repays obstinate sin with the very bitterness it produced.
4. Messianic substitution – The bitter cup prophetically reserved for the wicked is ultimately tasted by Christ, opening the way to grace.

Pastoral and ministry implications
• Vigilance against “roots” of bitterness, whether personal grievances or doctrinal compromise, is essential for congregational health.
• Prophets’ use of Rosh urges leaders to guard teaching and practice; poisoned springs defile entire communities.
• In counseling the suffering, Lamentations 3 reminds us that bitterness can be acknowledged honestly, yet set within hope.
• The gospel offers the only true antidote: the One Who “knew no sin” absorbed mankind’s gall so that living water could flow.

Thus Rosh stands as Scripture’s enduring symbol of the deadly nature of sin and the surpassing grace that overcomes it.

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations%203&version=NET

3:7 The verb (gadar) has a twofold range of meaning: (1) “to build up a wall” with stones, and (2) “to block a road” with a wall of stones. The imagery either depicts the Lord building a wall to seal off personified Jerusalem with no way to escape the city, or his blocking her road of escape. Siege imagery prevails in 3:4-6, but 3:7-9 pictures an unsuccessful escape that is thwarted due to blocked roads in 3:7 and 3:9.
[There is ANOTHER hidden double meaning here? Looking up Scripture usage of "gadar," it ALSO refers to "repairing the LORD'S House" and "closing up the breach" and "restoring the wall (of moral integrity)"– all in explicit (often prophetic) contexts of healing the damage done by covenantal infidelity! SO, I will daringly suggest that even here, as God "seals off all escape" and "blocks our paths," He is doing so for the same ultimate reason– to prevent us from running further away from our covenant identity or from Him. To escape from Jerusalem, even as it is besieged by God, would be to abandon our identity as members OF that holy city? At least, metaphorically so. In any case it would be an act of pride, refusing to be humbled & chastised, because we refuse to admit we are at fault, and so seek to flee from the judgment God has declared, as if we were the exception. The "walls" He builds to "barricade us in", therefore, are actually keeping us in a place where there IS still hope, despite everything, because here there is the chance to submit & REPENT.]

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https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1443.htm
gadar: To wall up, to build a wall, to enclose, to fence

The root gadar gathers its meaning around the acts of enclosing, fencing, repairing, and hedging. The contexts... range from literal masonry to vivid metaphors of divine restraint or protection. Together they form a rich biblical motif: the wall that guards, the breach that endangers, and the call to restore what sin has broken.

Construction and Restoration of Physical Walls
1. Royal building projects... craftsmen “repairing the damage to the temple of the LORD.” Temple walls symbolize covenant order; their mending... mirrors moments of reform, reminding modern readers that material stewardship can serve spiritual renewal.
2. National rebuilding... "You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,” linking social justice and fasting with civic reconstruction. 
Amos extends the theme to David’s fallen tent: “I will raise up the fallen booth of David and repair its breaches,” projecting the Messianic hope of Acts 15.. Thus gadar becomes a pledge that God’s purposes, though breached, will stand again.

Obstruction and Limitation in Personal Suffering
Job voices the lament, “He has walled up my way so I cannot pass.” Lamentations 3 echoes the anguish: “He has walled me in so I cannot escape… He has walled in my ways with hewn stone.” Here gadar portrays adversity as an impenetrable barrier. Yet even this wall is under divine sovereignty, pushing the sufferer toward humble appeal rather than despair.

Divine Hedge of Protection and Discipline
Hosea intertwines mercy and judgment: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns and wall her in, so she cannot find her paths.” The hedge disciplines a wayward nation while ultimately shielding her from deeper ruin. Pastoral application sees believers sometimes “hemmed in” for redemptive correction.

Prophetic Calls to Stand in the Breach
Ezekiel rebukes false prophets who “did not go up to the breaches or build a wall for the house of Israel.” He records God’s search for “a man… who would build up the wall and stand in the gap.” Gadar thus underlines intercessory responsibility. When leadership fails to fortify moral boundaries, God's judgment advances unchecked.

Theological and Ministry Insights
• Walls signify ordered worship, moral boundaries, and covenant security. Their repair is an act of both engineering and repentance.
• God may wall in or hedge about His people either to protect (Psalm 34:7’s angelic encampment echoes the imagery) or to restrain them from self-destruction.
• Christ fulfills the prophetic promise of restored walls and inaugurates a spiritual house “being built together”, where breaches are healed by His atonement.
• Ministry today imitates the masons and intercessors of old: repairing doctrinal breaches, guarding congregational holiness, and standing in prayer “on the walls” .
• Personal trials that feel like walls can become altars of trust; communal breakdowns that appear as breaches invite courageous restoration.

In every occurrence gadar presents the same divine initiative: what has been broken must be mended, what has been exposed must be secured, and what threatens to imprison can, by grace, become a fortress of hope.