Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Overview

• Testament: Old
• Book: Lamentations
• Chapters: Lamentations 3:19-33
• Summary: At the theological center of Lamentations, the poet turns from the abyss of remembered affliction to a hope grounded not in changed circumstances but in God’s unchanging character — “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

Details

Lamentations 3 is the structural and theological heart of the entire book. Of the book’s five poems, this is the longest and the most intense: it triples the acrostic structure, giving three verses to each Hebrew letter for 66 verses total. The first 18 verses of the chapter are among the darkest in all of Scripture, a catalog of suffering so thorough and so personal that scholars have called it the most sustained expression of human anguish in the biblical canon. The speaker has been driven into darkness, his flesh made to waste away, his bones broken; God has set him in dark places, hedged him in, shut out his prayer, made his paths crooked (3:1-18). It ends with verse 18: “And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD.”

Then comes one of the most dramatic pivots in Scripture. Verse 19 begins “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall” — still in the depths — and then verse 21: “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” What does he recall? Not that circumstances have improved. Not that the enemy has been defeated or the city rebuilt or the children returned. He recalls who God is: “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (3:22-23). The pivot from despair to hope is not triggered by a change in the situation but by an act of theological memory — the deliberate recollection of God’s character as the ground of hope when every visible ground has been removed.

The key words here are among the richest in the Hebrew Bible. Chesed — rendered “mercies” — is the covenant love, the steadfast devotion, the hesed that defines the LORD’s relationship with his people in the Psalms, in Hosea, in Ruth. It is the love that does not end when circumstances deteriorate, the love that is not contingent on the beloved’s performance. Rachamim — “compassions” — is the plural of the word related to the Hebrew for “womb,” the tender, visceral, mother-love of God that cannot be turned off by catastrophe. These, the poet says, do not fail. In a book full of things that have failed — the city, the walls, the temple, the allies, the king — the LORD’s chesed and rachamim have not failed. And they are “new every morning” — not recycled from yesterday’s reserves but fresh, like manna, like the morning itself, renewed with each sunrise. The whole creation’s daily renewal is the sign of God’s inexhaustible faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him” (3:24). The language of “portion” is the language of the Levites, who had no territorial inheritance in the land because the LORD himself was their inheritance (Numbers 18:20; Psalm 16:5; 73:26). The poet, in the ruins of the city, standing among the rubble of everything that constituted Israel’s visible portion — land, temple, king, safety — declares that what the Levites knew is now his only resource: the LORD himself is his portion. When everything else that could have been called inheritance has been stripped away, the LORD remains. And because the LORD remains, hope remains.

The passage ends with two verses that give the theological rationale for the pivot: “For the LORD will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men” (3:31-33). The judgment that has come upon Jerusalem has come from God’s hand — this the book has not denied — but it is not his final word, and it is not his delight. The God who afflicts does not do so willingly. The chesed that is new every morning is moving toward restoration even through judgment. These verses became the text and theological framework for the great hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” composed by Thomas O. Chisholm in 1923 — a hymn that has carried the hope of this passage to countless people in their own hours of darkness.

Key People Involved

• Jeremiah — traditional author; the man who has been in the darkness of verses 1-18 and who makes the deliberate theological turn in verse 21
• The community of Israel — those for whom this corporate lament speaks

Important Verses

“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” — Lamentations 3:22-23

“The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.” — Lamentations 3:24

“He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” — Lamentations 3:33

Cross-References

• Related: Lament over Jerusalem — the full overview of Lamentations
• Related: Is It Nothing to You — Lamentations 1’s opening lament, whose darkness this passage answers without denying
• OT: Psalms — Psalm 16:5 (“The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance”); Psalm 73:26 (“God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever”)
• OT: Numbers 18:20 — the LORD as the Levites’ portion — the background to “The LORD is my portion”
• OT: Hosea 2:19-20 — the LORD’s covenant chesed and rachamim as the ground of restoration
• NT: Romans 8:38-39 — nothing shall separate us from the love of God — the New Testament fulfillment of the indestructible chesed