Lamentations 3:8
in Lamentations 3Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Yea, when I cry, and call for help, he shutteth out my prayer.
KJV
Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
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This verse in Lamentations 3
Commentary
6 notes on this verseSecond, is cut off a remedy for escape, due to an exclusion of prayer. "Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer." And, as Psalm 22:2 says: "O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by …
This site's exposition
He has walled me in so I cannot escape
on Lamentations 3:7-9
Affliction is pictured as a prison: “He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains”. The last line takes away direction as well as escape: “He has barred my ways with cut stones; He has made my paths crooked”.
This site's exposition
He shuts out my prayer
Prayer, the last way left, is shut as well. Albert Barnes reads the verb as shutting in, a cell so closed that the cry cannot pass out. Thomas Aquinas set the verse beside Psalm 22:2, and the same complaint comes back for the whole people at Lamentations 3:44.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
): " When I cry and shout, as one in earnest, as one that would make him hear, yet he shuts out my prayer and will not suffer it to have access to him." God's ear is wont to be open to the prayers of his people, and his door of mercy to those that knock at it; but now both are shut, even to one that cries and shouts.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Also when I cry and shout,.... Cry, because of the distress of the enemy within; "shout", or cry aloud for help from others without; as persons in a prison do, to make them hear and pity their case: thus the prophet in his affliction cried aloud to God; was fervent, earnest, and importunate in prayer; and yet not heard: he shutteth out my prayer; shuts the door, that it may not enter; as the door is sometimes shut upon beggars, that their cry may not be heard.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Shout - i. e. call for help. Shutteth out - Or, “shutteth in.” God has so closed up the avenues to the place in which he is immured, that his voice can find no egress.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| גַּ֣ם | gam | also | H1571 → | 769 times |
| כִּ֤י | ki | if | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| אֶזְעַק֙ | ʾezak | I will cry out | H2199 → | |
| וַאֲשַׁוֵּ֔עַ | vaashavea' | and I may cry for help | H7768 → | |
| שָׂתַ֖ם | satam | he has shut out | H5640 → | |
| תְּפִלָּתִֽי׃ | tefilati | prayer my | H8605 → |
גַּ֣םalso
gamH1571 →769 times
כִּ֤יif
kiH3588 →4482 times
אֶזְעַק֙I will cry out
ʾezakH2199 →
וַאֲשַׁוֵּ֔עַand I may cry for help
vaashavea'H7768 →
שָׂתַ֖םhe has shut out
satamH5640 →
תְּפִלָּתִֽי׃prayer my
tefilatiH8605 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Matthew 27:46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
it leads to
- Psalms 22:1
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?
- Hebrews 5:7
During the days of Jesus’ earthly life, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His…
- Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days,…
- Mark 15:34
At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
- Psalms 71:11
saying, “God has forsaken him; pursue him and seize him, for there is no one to rescue him.”
- Psalms 22:1
Through
Psalms 22:2I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.
it leads to
- Psalms 42:3
My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Luke 18:7
Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help?
- Psalms 88:1
O LORD, the God of my salvation, day and night I cry out before You.
- Psalms 42:3
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies17
On this verse
On this chapter
About Lamentations
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Lamentations; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.