Bible Strands
Lamentations 3:19
Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses God at a moment of total despair, immediately after declaring that his strength and hope have perished. The words — The Hebrew זְכָר (ze.khor) issues a direct command to "remember," while לַעֲנָה (la'aneh) literally denotes "wormwood," a bitter plant. The thread — The wormwood and bitterness motif runs through Lamentations 3:15 and Lamentations 3:5, while the act of remembering hardship is echoed in Nehemiah 9:32. Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to confront the raw data of suffering without evasion, establishing pain as the necessary starting point for any subsequent reflection.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Cross-references
- Lamentations 3:15 He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
- Lamentations 3:5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
- Nehemiah 9:32 So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.
- Job 7:7 Remember that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never again see happiness.
- Psalms 89:47 Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!
- Psalms 89:50 Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants, which I bear in my heart from so many people—
- Psalms 132:1 A song of ascents. O LORD, remember on behalf of David all the hardships he endured,
- Jeremiah 9:15 Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.