It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
The first clause may be explained in two ways: The view commonly taken is, that it ought to be ascribed to God’s mercy that the faithful have not been often consumed. Hence a very useful doctrine is elicited — that God succors his own people, lest they should wholly perish.
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 of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,.... It was true of the prophet, that he died not in prison, or in the dungeon; and of the people of the Jews, who though many of them perished by the sword, famine, and pestilence, yet God did not make a full end of them, according to his gracious promise, Jer 30:11; but left...