Lamentations 3:20 Meaning and Explanation

'My soul hath them still in remembrance.' The memories of affliction press on him continually; he cannot set them down. And under their weight his soul 'is humbled in me' — bowed down, brought low, sinking within him. This is the honest condition of a person worn thin by grief, unable to escape the recollection of pain.

Yet this humbling, this being brought low, is not the end. There is a kind of bowing that precedes a lifting. The soul that has been emptied of its own strength and hope, that sits humbled in remembrance of its sorrow, is exactly the soul ready to be met by mercy. The very next verse will turn this remembrance in a new direction. The low place becomes the launching point.