It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is still young.
This verse admits of two meanings; for the word yoke may be explained as signifying teaching, or the scourges of God. We, indeed, undertake or bear in two ways the yoke of God, even when we are taught to receive his doctrine, or when we are resigned when he chastises us, when we are not obstreperous, but willingly submit to his corrections.
Here the clouds disperse and hope returns to save the heart from breaking. The church is like Moses's bush: burning yet unconsumed, persecuted by men but not forsaken by God. Though cast down, it is not destroyed, refined as silver in the furnace but never consumed as dross.
AI summary
Commenting on Lamentations 3:21-36
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Either the yoke of the commandments, as the Targum; or of correction, as Aben Ezra; of afflictions, as fatherly chastisements; both senses may be retained. It is good to bear the yoke of the moral law, or the commandments of God, as they are in the hands of Christ, a rule...