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Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Lamentations 3:5

He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Despondency;   Pain;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Judgments;  

Dictionaries:

- Easton Bible Dictionary - Poison;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Lamentations, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Lamentations, Book of;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Gall;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Hemlock;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Builder;   Gall;   Travail;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
He has laid siege against me,encircling me with bitterness and hardship.
Hebrew Names Version
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
King James Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
English Standard Version
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
New American Standard Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
New Century Version
He surrounded me with sadness and attacked me with grief.
Amplified Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
World English Bible
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Geneva Bible (1587)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall, and labour.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.
Legacy Standard Bible
He has besieged and encompassed me with gall and hardship.
Contemporary English Version
He attacked and surrounded me with hardships and trouble;
Complete Jewish Bible
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
Darby Translation
He hath built against me, and encompassed [me] with gall and toil.
Easy-to-Read Version
He built up bitterness and trouble against me. He surrounded me with bitterness and trouble.
George Lamsa Translation
He has built ramparts against me, and compassed me with bitterness and travail.
Good News Translation
He has shut me in a prison of misery and anguish.
Lexham English Bible
He has besieged and engulfed me with bitterness and hardship.
Literal Translation
He built against me and has put around me bitterness and hardship.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
He hath buylded rounde aboute me, & closed me in with gall and trauayle.
American Standard Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Bible in Basic English
He has put up a wall against me, shutting me in with bitter sorrow.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
King James Version (1611)
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and trauel.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
He hath buylded rounde about me, and closed me in with gall and trauaile.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
BETH. He has built against me, and compassed my head, and brought travail upon me.
English Revised Version
He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Beth. He bildid in my cumpas, and he cumpasside me with galle and trauel.
Update Bible Version
He has built against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
Webster's Bible Translation
He hath built against me, and compassed [me] with gall and labor.
New English Translation
He has besieged and surrounded me with bitter hardship.
New King James Version
He has besieged me And surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
New Living Translation
He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
New Life Bible
He has shut me in with trouble and suffering.
New Revised Standard
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
He hath built up against me, and carried round me, fortifications and a trench;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Beth. He hath built round about me, and he hath compassed me with gall, and labour.
Revised Standard Version
he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
Young's Literal Translation
He hath built up against me, And setteth round poverty and weariness.

Contextual Overview

1I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath. 2He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness instead of light. 3Indeed, He keeps turning His hand against me all day long. 4He has worn away my flesh and skin; He has shattered my bones. 5He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.6He has made me dwell in darkness like those dead for ages. 7He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains. 8Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer. 9He has barred my ways with cut stones; He has made my paths crooked. 10He is a bear lying in wait, a lion in hiding.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

builded: Lamentations 3:7-9, Job 19:8

gall: Lamentations 3:19, Psalms 69:21, Jeremiah 8:14, Jeremiah 9:15, Jeremiah 23:15

Reciprocal: Psalms 88:17 - They Acts 8:23 - the gall Revelation 8:11 - Wormwood

Cross-References

Genesis 2:17
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die."
Genesis 3:2
The woman answered the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden,
Genesis 3:3
but of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.'"
Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:7
And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:10
"I heard Your voice in the garden," he replied, "and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."
Genesis 3:13
Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" "The serpent deceived me," she replied, "and I ate."
Genesis 3:14
So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:22
Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

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.


 
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