Lamentations 3:5 - John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Bible Comments

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" e; 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; περιλυπος, 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.''

e ותלאה "et fatigatione", Montanus, Vatablus, Castalio.

Lamentations 3:5

5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.