Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall.
Parallel translations
- WEB Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- KJV Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- NKJV Remember my affliction and roaming, The wormwood and the gall.
- NASB ¶Remember my misery and my homelessness, the wormwood and bitterness.
- NLT The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He asks God to remember his affliction, bitterness, and gall. It turns his suffering back toward God in prayer.
Overview
Rather than sinking into despair, the sufferer begins to pray, asking the LORD to 'remember' his wormwood and gall. To ask God to remember is to appeal to his covenant faithfulness. This turn from despair to prayer signals the dawning of hope, the same hope that rests securely on the God who remembers his promises and fulfills them in Christ (Luke 1:54).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Lam 3:15He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
- Lam 3:5He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
- Neh 9:32So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.
- Job 7:7Remember that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never again see happiness.
- Ps 89:50Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants, which I bear in my heart from so many people—
- Ps 132:1A song of ascents. O LORD, remember on behalf of David all the hardships he endured,
- Ps 89:47Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!
- Jer 9:15Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 3:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.