(5) He hath builded.--The attack of sorrow is presented under the figure of a siege. In the next clause the figure is dropped. "Gall" stands, as in Jeremiah 8:14, for bitterest sorrow. "Travel" is the old English form of "travail," the two forms, originally identical, being now used with different meanings.

Verse 5. - He hath builded against me, and compassed me. A figure from the siege of a town. Gall. For the true meaning of the word, see on Jeremiah 8:14. We need not trouble ourselves about it here, for the word is evidently used as a kind of "ideograph" for bitterness. Travel; literally, weariness.

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.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.