💧WEB · Lamentations 3:5
What does Lamentations 3:5 mean?
"He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship."
— Lamentations 3:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.
Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.
He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.
He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.
Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.
Explanation
Lamentations 3:5 reads, "He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship." In plain language, the speaker is describing a feeling of being under siege by God himself. The imagery is military—like a besieging army building siege works, ramparts, and walls around a city to trap its inhabitants and cut off any escape. The speaker feels that God has done this to him personally, walling him in with suffering ("bitterness") and difficulty ("hardship") so that there seems to be no way out.
The book of Lamentations was written in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC, traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who witnessed this catastrophe firsthand. The book consists of five poems mourning the fall of the city, the suffering of its people, and the apparent abandonment by God. Chapter 3 shifts from the communal voice of the earlier chapters to an intensely personal one—a single man (often called "the man of sorrows" in this chapter) speaking of his own affliction under God's hand. Verses 1–20 form an extended lament describing this affliction in vivid, almost claustr
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