Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Lamentations 3:33; 2 Peter 3:9). God is "slow to anger"; punishment is "His strange work" (Isaiah 28:21).
There is a tacit antithesis between this lamentation and that of the Jews for their own miseries, into the causes of which, however, they did not inquire.
As God is to judge them "according to their ways" (Proverbs 1:31), their only hope is to "repent"; and this is a sure hope, for God takes no delight in judging them in wrath, but graciously desires their salvation on repentance.
I will judge you--Though ye cavil, it is a sufficient answer that I, your Judge, declare it so, and will judge you according to My will; and then your cavils must end.
Repent--inward conversion (Revelation 2:5). In the Hebrew there is a play of like sounds, "Turn ye and return."
turn yourselves, etc.--the outward fruits of repentance. Not as the Margin, "turn others"; for the parallel clause (Ezekiel 18:31) is, "cast away from you all your transgressions." Perhaps, however, the omission of the object after the verb in the Hebrew implies that both are included: Turn alike yourselves and all whom you can influence.
from all . . . transgressions--not as if believers are perfect; but they sincerely aim at perfection, so as to be habitually and wilfully on terms with no sin (1 John 3:6-9):
your ruin--literally, "your snare," entangling you in ruin.
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