Alone and Silent Lamentations 3:28

After stating that is was good for a man to bear his yoke in his youth, Jeremiah begins to describe what bearing that yoke is like. In chapter three and verse twenty-eight he tells us two of the mannerisms of the humbled man. He wrote:

He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him.

The verse begins, “He sits alone and keeps silence,...” The first trait of the humbled man – the man who bears his yoke – is that he “sits alone”. The idea conveyed is “isolation, withdrawal, or separation”. Jeremiah, who probably was sitting alone at the time of this writing, tells of the benefit of “solitude”. Secondly, Jeremiah said that not only does he sit alone, but he “keeps silence” which means “to be still, wait, be dumb, grow dumb”. The man who bears his yoke and displays “good” while doing so, removes himself from everything else to be in solitude and keeps quiet while he sits.

The verse continues, “because he has borne it upon him.” Jeremiah next tells why this person “sits alone and keeps silence”. He employed the word “because” which is normally used to explain the reason for an action just taken. The reason the man “sits alone and keeps silence” is “because” he has taken the yoke upon himself. He has “borne or lifted” it up, and that has moved him to his solitude and quietness.

Should we think about this verse long enough, we might be able to relate to those times in life when we are motivated to sit alone and stay quiet. It also may remind us of Jesus who bore his yoke, the cross, and He did so in a sense of solitude and silence. With Jesus as our example, it would benefit us to remember to get away from all the normal activities, revert to solitude, sit quietly, and bear our yokes without any noise. There is something special about solitude and silence for the one who knows Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior. As King David of Israel wrote in the book of Psalms 46:10:

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

May we all learn to identify those special times of sitting alone and keeping silent before Him.

Next time we see what else the man who bears his yoke will do, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

 

Until tomorrow...there is more...

 

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