Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
Here he shews the fruit of teachableness; for when God deals severely with his children, they yet do not rebel, but even then they willingly submit to his authority. For whence comes it that so much impatience rages in men, except that they know not what it is to obey God, to prepare themselves to bear the yoke?
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
He putteth his mouth in the dust,.... Of self-abhorrence; sensible of his own vileness and nothingness, his unworthiness, and the unprofitableness of all his duties; ascribing the whole of his salvation to the free grace of God, Job 42:6; humbling himself under the mighty hand of God; not daring to open his mouth in a complaining way against him; but prostrating himself before him to...