Passage

Lamentations 3.31-33

Book: Lamentations · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

29. Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. 30. Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him; let him be filled full with reproach.

31. For the Lord will not cast off for ever. 32. For though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. 33. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, 35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, (Lamentations 3:29-35, ASV)

WEB

29. Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope. 30. Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.

31. For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32. For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses. 33. For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, 35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, (Lamentations 3:29-35, WEB)

KJV

29. He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. 30. He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.

31. For the Lord will not cast off for ever: 32. But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. 33. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. ^{willingly: Heb. from his heart}

To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35. To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, ^{the most High: or, a superior} (Lamentations 3:29-35, KJV)

YLT

29. He putteth in the dust his mouth, if so be there is hope. 30. He giveth to his smiter the cheek, He is filled with reproach.

31. For the Lord doth not cast off to the age. 32. For though He afflicted, yet He hath pitied, According to the abundance of His kindness. 33. For He hath not afflicted with His heart, Nor doth He grieve the sons of men.

To bruise under one's feet any bound ones of earth, 35. To turn aside the judgment of a man, Over-against the face of the Most High, (Lamentations 3:29-35, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the unnamed sufferer of chapter 3, "the man that hath seen affliction" (3:1). The book is anonymous. Tradition, from the Septuagint's opening note and the Talmud (Baba Bathra 15a), assigns it to Jeremiah, who lamented in an earlier crisis (2 Chronicles 35:25); many modern commentators treat the five poems as the work of one or more unnamed poets writing in the same years
Audience: the surviving community of Judah, and Yahweh himself, to whom the poems repeatedly turn in protest and prayer
Location: Judah; the poems speak from within or beside ruined Jerusalem, and the book names no place of composition
Time period: the aftermath of Jerusalem's fall to Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army in 587/586 BC, when the temple was burned and the walls broken down (2 Kings 25:8-10; Jeremiah 52:12-14). Most scholars date the poems before the first return from exile in 538 BC
Literary context: chapter 3, the book's centre: a triple acrostic of 66 verses, three verses for each Hebrew letter. A single sufferer, "the man" (3:1), speaks first; the voice widens into the community's "we" (3:40-47) and returns to the individual for a closing plea (3:48-66). Part of the central teaching section of chapter 3 (3:25-39), in the style of wisdom literature.

Theological reading

"For the Lord will not cast off for ever. For though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." (Lamentations 3:31-33, ASV)

Not for ever. The three verses each begin with "For" and give reasons to hope. God's rejection is not permanent; his grief-causing discipline is matched by compassion "according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses".

Not willingly. The Hebrew behind "willingly" is literally "from his heart" (so the KJV margin). The verse distinguishes what God does from what he delights in. He does bring affliction (3:32), yet affliction is not what his heart desires. The prophets say the same: God has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezekiel 33:11; compare Ezekiel 18:23, 32).

Apologetic weight. These verses are a direct biblical answer to the charge that the God of the Old Testament is cruel or delights in suffering. They come from inside Israel's worst catastrophe, from a writer who did not deny that God had acted in judgment.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

H6031 - anah, anah, Strong's H6031
H2617 - hesed, hesed, Strong's H2617
H5769 - olam, olam, Strong's H5769
H0136 - adonai, adonai, Strong's H0136
H3820 - lev, lev, Strong's H3820
H1121 - ben, ben, Strong's H1121

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.