My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
These are metaphorical words: sorrow exhausts the body's moisture and strength, making the young look aged and wasted. The bones broken is hyperbole, but a proper one; there is nothing more dreadful than to feel God's anger. David and Hezekiah spoke the same way. The Prophet speaks not merely of outward calamity, but of the evidence of God's vengeance itself, which alone could have wrought such terror.
AI summary
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
His flesh was so emaciated and his skin so wrinkled he looked like an old man, though still young. Broken bones means his strength was utterly gone; he could not stir to help himself, and was in as much distress as though this were literally true. This applies to the Jews, to Jeremiah, and to Christ Himself, though the breaking was not literal but real in its effect.
AI summary