Lamentations 3:6 - Exposition

This verse is verbally reproduced in Psalms 143:3 . In dark places ; i.e. in Hades (comp. Psalms 88:7 ). As they that be dead of old . A strange comparison; for what difference can it make whether the dead are men of the ancient or the modern world? The rendering, however, though perfectly admissible, is less suitable to the context than as they that are forever dead; who have entered "the land from which there is no return" (an Assyrian title of Hades). Comp. "the everlasting house," i.e. the grave ( Ecclesiastes 12:5 ), "the everlasting sleep" ( Jeremiah 51:39 , Jeremiah 51:57 ).