Lamentations 3:7 Meaning and Explanation

'He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out.' The sufferer is fenced in on every side, every exit closed. Elsewhere a hedge can be God's protection, but here it is felt as imprisonment, a barrier that keeps him trapped rather than safe. The same image can mean shelter or confinement, and in his grief he feels only the confinement.

'He hath made my chain heavy' adds the weight of bondage to the closeness of the walls. He is not only shut in but shackled, dragging a load he cannot throw off. The piling up of images, walls and chains, captures the helplessness of one who has tried every door and found them all barred. There will be no escape by his own strength; deliverance, when it comes, must come from outside.