Albert Barnes' Bible Commentary
Lamentations 3:5
He hath builded ... - The metaphor is taken from the operations in a siege.
Gall and travail - Or “travail;” i. e. bitterness and weariness (through toil).
He hath builded ... - The metaphor is taken from the operations in a siege.
Gall and travail - Or “travail;” i. e. bitterness and weariness (through toil).
Verse Lamentations 3:5. _HE HATH BUILDED AGAINST ME_] Perhaps there is a reference here to the _mounds_ and _ramparts_ raised by the Chaldeans in order to take the city....
CHAPTER 3 THE PROPHET'S SUFFERING AND DISTRESS This chapter is intensely personal. None but Jeremiah could have written these wonderful expressions of sorrow, the sorrows of the people of God into whi...
LAMENTATIONS 3. THE THIRD LAMENT. Here it is the singer that comes chiefly to the front; whereas in Lamentations 3:1 it had been Zion, and in Lamentations 3:2 it was Yahweh. EV hardly puts Lamentation...
BUILDED AGAINST. built up against. GALL. Compare Lamentations 3:19, and Psalms 69:21, with Matthew 27:34. TRAVEL. travail, or labour. This line probably is put for the fortifications and the tren
_He hath builded against me, and compassed_ Here as in Lamentations 3:3 we have to deal with the idiom by which two verbs are used where we should in English have a verb and adverb. Translate therefor...
COMPASSED ME WITH GALL AND TRAVAIL— _Broken my head, that I faint away._ Schultens....
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR A SUFFERING PROPHET Lamentations 3:1-66 Again in chapter three the poet has adopted the acrostic style but in a slightly different form from that of the previous Chapter s. In Ch...
My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. MY FLESH AND MY SKIN HATH HE MADE OLD - (, "Thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me, and my leanness rising up...
GALL] bitterest sorrow (Jeremiah 8:14). TRAVEL] RV 'travail,' which is the more modern spelling, in the sense here intended, of painful labour (Numbers 20:14). HE HATH SET ME] RV 'He hath made me to d...
ZION'S HOPE IN GOD'S MERCY This third poem is the most elaborate in structure and the most sublime in thought of all. The poet speaks not only for himself, but for the nation. The order of thought is...
JEREMIAH WEEPS IN THE DARKNESS LAMENTATIONS _ROY ROHU_ CHAPTER 3 JEREMIAH SPEAKS. In this chapter, the writer speaks on behalf of all God’s people. Much of what he says is true also of the troub...
HE HATH BUILDED. — The attack of sorrow is presented under the figure of a siege. In the next clause the figure is dropped. “Gall” stands, as in Jeremiah 8:14, for bitterest sorrow. “Travel” is the ol...
בָּנָ֥ה עָלַ֛י וַ יַּקַּ֖ף רֹ֥אשׁ וּ תְלָאָֽה
THE MAN THAT HATH SEEN AFFLICTION Lamentations 3:1 WHETHER we regard it from a literary, a speculative, or a religious point of view, the third and central elegy cannot fail to strike us as by far th...
In this central and longest poem, Jeremiah identified himself completely with the experiences of his people. In the first movement, in language which throbs with pain, he described his own sorrows, re...
He hath (b) built against me, and surrounded [me] with gall and labour. (b) He speaks this as one that felt God's heavy judgment, which he greatly feared, and therefore sets them out with this divers...
_Gall. Septuagint, "head." Chaldean, "he hath seized the chief," Job xvi. 13. He speaks in the name of the besieged, who had been threatened with this punishment, ver. 19., and chap. viii. 14. (Calmet...
I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the...
The words, as translated, may seem harsh, yet they have no common beauty in Hebrew. The Prophet says he was blocked up and straitened as it were by walls; and as we shall see, he repeats this comparis...
In chapter 3 we find the language of faith, of sorrowing faith, of the Spirit of Christ in the remnant, on the occasion of the judgment of Jerusalem in which God had dwelt. Before, the prophet (or the...
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] WI...
He hath builded against me, and compassed [me] with gall and travail. Ver. 5. _He hath builded against me._] Bulwarks and batteries. _ And compassed me with gall and travel._] Or, With venom and vexa...
_Surely against me is he turned_ The course of his providence toward me is quite altered. He was formerly kind and gracious, but now exercises an afflicting hand against me, and that not occasionally,...
A LAMENT OVER GRIEVOUS SUFFERINGS...
He hath builded against me, like a besieging army, AND COMPASSED ME WITH GALL AND TRAVEL (travail), that is, with poison and heavy afflictions....
1-20 The prophet relates the more gloomy and discouraging part of his experience, and how he found support and relief. In the time of his trial the Lord had become terrible to him. It was an afflictio...
He hath not builded with me, increasing my prosperity, and protecting my houses, but he hath builded forts, and batteries, and castles, (military buildings,) to batter down my walls and houses, ISAIAH...
Lamentations 3:5 besieged H1129 (H8804) surrounded H5362 (H8686) bitterness H7219 woe H8513 builded -...
IN HIS INITIAL DESPAIR THE PROPHET BEWAILS HIS OWN SAD CONDITION (LAMENTATIONS 3:1). In this section God is simply spoken of as ‘He', the only mention of His Name being in Lamentations 3:18 where the...
We are about to read a chapter which is very full of sorrow; while you are listening to it, some of you may be saying, «We are not in that condition.» Well then, be thankful that you are not, and whil...
The first part of this chapter is one of the saddest in the whole Book of God; yet I expect it has ministered as much consolation as some of the brightest pages of Holy Writ, because there are childre...
I am about to read a portion of Holy Scripture which may seem very strange to some of you, but it belongs to a part of the congregation, and I hope it may be the means of giving them comfort. I read i...
CONTENTS: Complaint of God's displeasure and comfort to God's people. Appeal to God's justice against persecutors. CHARACTERS: God, Jeremiah. CONCLUSION: Bad as things may be, it is owing to the mer...
The Metre changes here. The letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty two in number, begin three hemistichs, which make sixty six verses. It would look better, and read more poetically, if the hemistichs...
LAMENTATIONS—NOTE ON LAMENTATIONS 3:1 I Am the Man Who Has Seen Affliction. Chapter Lamentations 3:1 has one speaker, a man who has endured suffering, expe
LAMENTATIONS—NOTE ON LAMENTATIONS 3:4 HE HAS MADE MY FLESH AND MY SKIN WASTE AWAY. Literally, “he has swallowed up my flesh and my skin.” For “swallow” as a symbol of judgment, see...
EXEGETICAL NOTES.— (ב) Lamentations 3:4. Details as to how the writer suffered. MY FLESH AND MY SKIN HE HAS WORN OUT, HE HAS BROKEN MY BONES. Bodily exhaustion and racking pains consume the vital for...
EXPOSITION LAMENTATIONS 3:1 MONOLOGUE SPOKEN BY AN INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER WHOSE FATE IS BOUND UP WITH THAT OF THE
In this third lamentation he begins from the depth of depression and despair. He begins with hopelessness, and hopelessness is always the experience behind depression. Depression is the loss of hope,...
Jeremiah 23:15; Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:15; Job 19:8; Lamentati
Builded — He hath built forts and batteries against my walls and houses....