He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.
- KJV He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
- BSB He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
- NKJV He has besieged me And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
- NASB He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
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 besieged by God and surrounded with bitterness and hardship. It pictures affliction as an inescapable siege.
Overview
Using military imagery, the sufferer feels God has 'built against' him as a besieger, hemming him in with 'gall and travail.' The bitterness (gall) and weariness surround him on every side. This sense of being besieged by trouble finds its answer in Christ, who endured the bitterest cup so his people might be delivered from final distress (Matthew 26:39).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Lam 3:19Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- Jer 23:15Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”
- Job 19:8He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
- Jer 9:15therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
- Ps 69:21They also gave me gall for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.
- Lam 3:7–9He has walled me about, that I can’t go out; he has made my chain heavy.
- Jer 8:14“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 3:5 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.