He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness instead of light.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
- KJV He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
- NKJV He has led me and made me walk In darkness and not in light.
- NASB He has driven me and made me walk In darkness and not in light.
- NLT He has led me into darkness, shutting out all light.
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 feels driven by God into darkness rather than light. It expresses the disorientation of walking through divine judgment.
Overview
The sufferer pictures God himself leading him into darkness, a reversal of the LORD who normally leads his people into light (Psalm 23). The image conveys lostness and the absence of God's felt favor. Yet this darkness is not the end; the chapter moves toward the One whose mercies are 'new every morning,' and ultimately to Christ, the light shining in the darkness (John 1:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Job 30:26But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.
- Isa 59:9Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
- Amos 5:18–20Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light.
- Lam 3:53–55They dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me.
- Jer 4:23I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light.
- Job 18:18He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.
- Jude 1:13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
- Jer 13:16Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.
- Lam 2:1How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger.
- Jude 1:6And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day.
- Deut 28:29and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 3:2 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.