While Lamentations 3:4–18 describe in figurative language the writer’s and the nation’s affliction, Lamentations 3:4 does so using the metaphor of physical pain. Therefore, the fourth verse employs bodily sufferings resulting in physical pain, figuratively, to describe this affliction. The writer may well have suffered physical pain but the description is not restricted to it. The suggestion of Lamentations 3:4 is that the whole person is afflicted (see also Psalm 22:14, Psalm 22:17; Psalm 32:3; Psalm 51:8; Isaiah 38:13).1 The wast[ing] away
of flesh
and skin
and broken bones
is a figurative expression used for ageing and pain in Scripture (see Psalm 51:8; Isaiah 38:13; Micah 3:1–3). It depicts the wasting away of vital force and recurs regularly in laments (see Psalm 32:3–4; Psalm 38:2–3).2 Apart from his own physical pain (and that of his compatriots), the immense level of destruction that God has caused includes the shattering of Jerusalem’s young men, her defences, and the city itself. This manner of description underscores the writer’s participation in Jerusalem’s misery. Their suffering was both individual and collective.3 This figurative passage therefore expresses the comprehensiveness of the affliction that has befallen both the writer and the people.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;