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Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
Wednesday in Easter Week
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Read the Bible

Young's Literal Translation

Lamentations 3:5

He hath built up against me, And setteth round poverty and weariness.

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.
Berean Standard Bible
He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness 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;

Contextual Overview

1 I [am] the man [who] hath seen affliction By the rod of His wrath. 2 Me He hath led, and causeth to go [in] darkness, and without light. 3 Surely against me He turneth back, He turneth His hand all the day. 4 He hath worn out my flesh and my skin. He hath broken my bones. 5 He hath built up against me, And setteth round poverty and weariness. 6 In dark places He hath caused me to dwell, As the dead of old. 7 He hath hedged me about, and I go not out, He hath made heavy my fetter. 8 Also when I call and cry out, He hath shut out my prayer. 9 He hath hedged my ways with hewn work, My paths He hath made crooked. 10 A bear lying in wait He [is] to me, A lion in secret hiding-places.

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
and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'
Genesis 3:2
And the woman saith unto the serpent, `Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we do eat,
Genesis 3:3
and of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye do not eat of it, nor touch it, lest ye die.'
Genesis 3:6
And the woman seeth that the tree [is] good for food, and that it [is] pleasant to the eyes, and the tree is desirable to make [one] wise, and she taketh of its fruit and eateth, and giveth also to her husband with her, and he doth eat;
Genesis 3:7
and the eyes of them both are opened, and they know that they [are] naked, and they sew fig-leaves, and make to themselves girdles.
Genesis 3:10
and he saith, `Thy sound I have heard in the garden, and I am afraid, for I am naked, and I hide myself.'
Genesis 3:13
And Jehovah God saith to the woman, `What [is] this thou hast done?' and the woman saith, `The serpent hath caused me to forget -- and I do eat.'
Genesis 3:14
And Jehovah God saith unto the serpent, `Because thou hast done this, cursed [art] thou above all the cattle, and above every beast of the field: on thy belly dost thou go, and dust thou dost eat, all days of thy life;
Genesis 3:15
and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee -- the head, and thou dost bruise him -- the heel.'
Genesis 3:22
And Jehovah God saith, `Lo, the man was as one of Us, as to the knowledge of good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand, and have taken also of the tree of life, and eaten, and lived to the age,' --

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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