Charles Spurgeon Commentary Lamentations 3:9

"He hath walled up my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked." — Lamentations 3:9 (ASV)

He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone,

"The Lord has thoroughly shut me in, as if He had built a wall around me on every side."

He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone; he hath made my paths crooked.

It was believed that hewn stones made the strongest wall, as the joints would the more closely fit into one another. Jeremiah seems to speak as if God had taken care and trouble to build, not as men do, roughly with common stones, but with polished and well-shaped troubles built like strong barriers in his way.