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 against me - Perhaps there is a reference here to the mounds and ramparts raised by the Chaldeans in order to take the city.

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; 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) "et fatigatione", Montanus, Vatablus, Castalio.

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 diversity of words.

3:5 Builded - He hath built forts and batteries against my walls and houses.

5. builded-mounds, as against a besieged city, so as to allow none to escape (so La 3:7, 9).

3:1-20 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 affliction that was misery itself; for sin makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup. The struggle between unbelief and faith is often very severe. But the weakest believer is wrong, if he thinks that his strength and hope are perished from the Lord.