This chapter stands out from the other three in various ways. The most immediate is that it is longer! 66 verses as opposed to 22. It is again an acrostic, but each stanza has three lines that each begin with the relevant letter. So in the first stanza all the verses begin with aleph, and in the second they all begin with beth etc.
Verse 1 stresses that this lament is written by an eye-witness. This is no mere second-hand or imagined retelling of what it must have been like to have gone through the events in Jerusalem, but is written by someone who did actually go through it. He felt as if the Lord was directly against him.
He feels utterly oppressed, and oppressed by the Lord. He prays for help but gets no answer. Every way seems to be blocked.
It felt as though the Lord had him particularly in his sights, as though all this was meticulously planned to get him. Note that there is no indication that all this was "the work of the devil".
He experiences great bitterness and his soul is downcast. Yet in the midst of this he recalls the Lord's great love. Read verses 22-24:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him
Now remember the situation from which they are written. We often sing "great is your faithfulness" but forget the context from which it comes. It is in the midst of defeat and despair that the writer calls out in faith to the Lord. It is in a situation where he is experiencing the full depths of God's judgement and is feeling it deep within his soul with no apparent way out or way through. Even so, he waits upon the Lord. Despite everything he still trusts in the Lord. This is true faith indeed.
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