Let him bury his face in the dust—perhaps there is still hope.
He continues the same subject; for he describes to us men so subdued to obedience that they are ready to bear whatever God may lay on them. He then says that the sitting and the silence of which he spoke, so far prevailed, that the children of God, though in extreme evils, did not yet cease to persevere in their obedience.
Here the clouds begin to disperse and the sky to clear up; the complaint was very melancholy in the former part of the chapter, and yet here the tune is altered and the mourners in Zion begin to look a little pleasant. But for hope, the heart would break.
Commenting on Lamentations 3:21-36
He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him,.... Either to God that afflicts him, and patiently bears it; see Isa 9:13; or rather to men. To be smitten on the cheek is always reckoned a very great affront; to turn the cheek to an injurious man is to give him an opportunity and leave to smite, and signifies the taking of it patiently, and...