Lamentations 3:32 Meaning and Explanation

This verse holds two truths together with perfect honesty: 'though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion.' It does not deny that God causes grief; the whole book has felt that grief deeply. But it insists that grief is not the end. Compassion follows, as surely as morning follows night, 'according to the multitude of his mercies.'

The measure of the coming compassion is the multitude of God's mercies — his hesed, that vast, overflowing covenant love. The grief is real but bounded; the mercies are beyond counting. So the balance is never even between the sorrow God permits and the compassion he delights to show; mercy always outweighs. This is the settled confidence of faith: that whatever grief God allows, his compassion is greater, and the last word over his people will always be mercy.