The words, as translated, may seem harsh, yet they have no common beauty in Hebrew. The Prophet says he was blocked up and straitened as it were by walls; and as we shall see, he repeats this comparison three times; in other words, indeed, but for the same purpose. God, he says, hath built against me, as, when we wish to besiege any one, we build mounds, so that there may be no escape. This, then, is the sort of building of which the Prophet now speaks: God, he says, holds me confined all around, so that there is no way of escape open to me. He then gives a clearer explanation, that he was surrounded by gall [1] or poison and trouble. He mentions poison first, and then, without a figure, he shews what that poison was, even that he was afflicted with many troubles. He afterwards adds, --

Footnotes

1 - The Sept., the Targ., and the Arab. render this "my head;" but the Vulg. and the Syr., "gall." It occurs again in Lamentations 2:19, and is rendered "gall" by the Targ. and all the versions. He was "surrounded with gall," with what was bitter to him, and "with faintness," with what made him to faint. Hence, in the next verse, he represents himself as being like the dead. -- Ed.

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 (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.

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.

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

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