Judah is in deep affliction. They have been carried away into captivity. They are under God’s governmental “wrath.” (chapters 2:1-7.) Nevertheless, they are His people. Jeremiah’s heart is therefore deeply moved, no doubt by the Spirit of Christ, to express most touching feelings concerning them, again reminding us of the precious Scripture, “In all their afflictions He was afflicted.” And did not, at a later time, the sad condition of the nation, in rejecting God’s message both by the Baptist and by the Messiah, give no sorrow of heart, no inward suffering, to the Lord Himself? Most assuredly it did; for they were still “His own;” and He could not but weep over their doomed city. And who can read His tender care for the suffering remnant in the coming time of Jacob’s trouble, without being struck with His deep love and sympathy for them? (Matthew 24:16-22.) So we find the prophet in Lamentations, under the power of the same Spirit, giving utterance to the most touching exclamations, while acknowledging the sins of the prophets, priests, and people bringing deserved chastisement, and most feelingly entering into their sufferings under “the rod of His anger,” and their deep humiliation by the Gentile power. Still there is hope; “for the Lord will not cast off forever; but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.” (chapter 3:31, 32.)