Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
- KJV Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
- BSB Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
- NASB Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.
- NLT And though I cry and shout, he has shut out my prayers.
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
Even when he cries for help, he feels God shuts out his prayer. It voices the painful sense of unanswered prayer.
Overview
The anguish deepens as the sufferer feels his very prayers are blocked, 'he shuts out my prayer.' This is among the hardest trials of faith, crying to God and sensing no response. Yet the honest cry itself is still directed to God, and the believer trusts that in Christ the way to the Father is forever opened (Ephesians 2:18).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 30:20I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.
- Ps 22:2My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent.
- Job 19:7“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.
- Matt 27:46About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
- Lam 3:44You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.
- Hab 1:2Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you “Violence!” and will you not save?
- Ps 80:4Yahweh God of Armies, How long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?
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 3:8 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.