Lamentations 3:9
What does Lamentations 3:9 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 3:9 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 3:9 means
His ways are blocked with cut stone, and his paths are made crooked. The obstacles are not accidental; they are deliberate, firm barriers that thwart progress and confuse direction. Life under judgment feels like striking a wall at every turn. This communicates that God can frustrate plans and shut doors to hinder a people bent on sin, not to ruin them forever but to bring them to repentance. The crooked paths also express disorientation—a loss of clarity about the next step. Only God can straighten what He has bent, leading the humbled back to a right way.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000He hath walled up my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked.
KJV
King James Version · 1611He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901He hath walled up my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949He has put up a wall of cut stones about my ways, he has made my roads twisted.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862He hath hedged my ways with hewn work, My paths He hath made crooked.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Ghimel. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, he hath turned my paths upside down.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
Context
The lament continues to catalog obstructions: after unanswered prayer (v. 8), now immovable barriers in daily paths. Verses 10–13 will intensify the portrayal of God as an active adversary—ambushing like a bear, tearing like a lion, and shooting arrows. The cumulative effect is to show not just passive absence but active opposition, a key element in grasping the seriousness of covenant judgment and the weight of the later hope that God’s compassions are yet new.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Hosea 2:6
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she shall not find her paths.
- Isaiah 30:28
and his breath is as an overflowing stream, that reacheth even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction: and a bridle that causeth to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.
- Isaiah 63:17
O Jehovah, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and hardenest our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
- Lamentations 3:11
He hath turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he hath made me desolate.
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