He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
These, as it evidently appears, are metaphorical words. Illness often makes people to look old, for from pain proceeds leanness: thus the skin is contracted, and the wrinkles of old age appear even in youths. As, then, sorrows exhaust moisture and strength, hence he is said to grow old who pines away in mourning. This is what the Prophet now means.
God is angry with His own people, yet it comes as a rod to correct, not a sword to destroy. Walk in darkness though we may, we must not quarrel with affliction, for His anger is just and His chastening, though grievous now, mixed with mercy.
AI summary
Commenting on Lamentations 3:1-20
My flesh and my skin hath he made old,.... His flesh with blows, and his skin with smiting, as the Targum; his flesh was so emaciated, and his skin so withered and wrinkled, that he looked like an old man; as our Lord, when little more than thirty years of age, what with his sorrows and troubles, looked like one about fifty: he hath broken...