In Lamentations 3:9, the idea of prevention from freedom of action is further carried out on a new side. "He hath walled in my paths with hewn stones." גּזית equals גזית אבּני, 1 Kings 5:31, are hewn stones of considerable size, employed for making a very strong wall. The meaning is: He has raised up insurmountable obstacles in the pathway of my life. "My paths hath He turned," i.e., rendered such that I cannot walk in them. עוּה is to turn, in the sense of destroying, as in Isaiah 24:1, not contortas fecit (Michaelis, Rosenmller, Kalkschmidt), nor per viam tortuosam ire cogor (Raschi); for the prophet does not mean to say (as Ngelsbach imagines), "that he has been compelled to walk in wrong and tortuous ways," but he means that God has rendered it impossible for him to proceed further in his path; cf. Job 30:13. But we are not in this to think of the levelling of a raised road, as Thenius does; for נתיבה does not mean a road formed by the deposition of rubbish, like a mound, but a footpath, formed by constant treading (Gerlach).

Lamentations 3:15 Parallel Commentaries

filled

Lamentations 3:19 Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

Ruth 1:20 And she said to them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

Job 9:18 He will not suffer me to take my breath, but fills me with bitterness.

Psalm 60:3 You have showed your people hard things: you have made us to drink the wine of astonishment.

Isaiah 51:17-22 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which have drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury...

Jeremiah 9:15 Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood...

Jeremiah 23:15 Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood...

Jeremiah 25:15-18,27 For thus said the LORD God of Israel to me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you...

bitterness. Heb. bitternesses