Lamentations 3:5

5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;

Lamentations 3:5 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 3:5

He hath builded against me
Fortresses, as the Targum adds; as when forts and batteries were raised by the Chaldeans against the city of Jerusalem, in which the prophet was: and compassed [me] with gall and travail;
or "weariness" F5; the same with gall and wormwood, ( Lamentations 3:19 ) ; as Jarchi observes. The sense is, he was surrounded with sorrow, affliction, and misery, which were as disagreeable as gall; or like poison that drank up his spirits, and made him weary of his life. Thus our Lord was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; (perilupov) , encompassed with sorrows, ( Matthew 26:38 ) . The Targum is,

``he hath surrounded the city, and rooted up the heads of the people, and caused them to fail.''

FOOTNOTES:

F5 (haltw) "et fatigatione", Montanus, Vatablus, Castalio.

Lamentations 3:5 In-Context

3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones;
5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
6 he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me;
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.