John Calvin on Lamentations 3:65

He expresses what the vengeance was to be, even that God would give them up to a reprobate mind; for by מגנת-לב, meganet-leb, he no doubt meant the blindness of the heart, and at the same time included stupidity, as though he had said, “O Lord, so oppress them with evils, that they may become stupified.” For it is an extremity of evil, when we are so overpowered as not to be as it were ourselves, and when our evils do not drive us to prayer. The word meant “covering, as rendered by the Sept.; the Syr. Has “sorrow,” and the Vulg. “shield,” which has no meaning. What is no doubt meant is hardness or blindness —

Give them blindness of heart: Thy curse be to them.

— Ed

We now then perceive what the Prophet meant by asking God to give to his enemies the impediment of heart, even that he might take away a sound mind, and smite them with blindness and madness, as it is said elsewhere. — I run on quickly, that I may finish, lest the hour should prevent us. The last verse of this triple alphabet follows, —

Lamentations 3:66

66. Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.

66. Persequere in ira et perde eos e sub coelis Jehovae (quidam in vocativo casu legunt, Jehova; sed quia non ponitur שמים, sed in constructione שמי, ideo retineo proprietatem.)