Unlike chapters 1 and 2, chapter 3 does not begin with “How.” Verse 1 identifies the poet only as the man who has suffered. In contrast with the earlier chapters, in which Jerusalem is depicted as a woman, chapter 3 presents suffering as experienced by a man, the Hebrew geber, which is often used to emphasize maleness. Here the word serves only to indicate a man as a general description. Its intention is not male as distinct from female. Accordingly Good News Translation “one who” is satisfactory.

In some languages the sudden appearance of the man will create an abrupt break with chapter 2, particularly as the reader has seen Jerusalem pictured to this point as a woman. In order to make a satisfactory transition to this new point of view, it may be necessary to do more than supply a section heading. For example, it may be necessary to say “I am the man who now writes this. I am one who knows what it is to have God punish me,” or “I am the writer and am a man whom God has made suffer,” or “… who has suffered under God’s anger.”

Seen affliction is somewhat idiomatic in Hebrew as it is in English. As used here it means “experienced, gone through, endured.” In other words “I am a person who has suffered,” “I am one who knows what it is to suffer,” or “I am the one who has experienced suffering” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy).

Under the rod of his wrath may be understood as the condition causing the suffering, as in Revised Standard Version, or as in New English Bible‘s statement, “I have felt the rod of his wrath.” Wrath, meaning “anger,” is the same word as used in 2.2. All references to God are through pronouns in Hebrew until verse 18. Therefore his wrath refers to God’s anger. The rod of his wrath occurs in various forms: Proverbs 22.8 “the rod of his fury”; Proverbs 22.15 “the rod of discipline”; Isaiah 10.5 “the rod of my anger.” The expression is idiomatic and refers to God’s punishment of someone, or, as Biblia Dios Habla Hoy says, “under the blows of the Lord’s anger.” Good News Translation makes it passive, “to be punished by God.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on Lamentations. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .