John Calvin Commentary Lamentations 3:7

"He hath walled me about, that I cannot go forth; he hath made my chain heavy." — Lamentations 3:7 (ASV)

Here he says, first, that he was held shut up; for גדר, gidar, is to enclose, and גדרה, gidare, means a fence, a mound, or an enclosure of any kind. He then says that he was shut up, as it were, by a fence, so that he could not go out; literally, it is, and I shall not go out; but the conjunction here is to be taken as denoting the end. He has shut me up, he says, or he has enclosed me, so that I could not get out.

It then follows, He has made heavy my fetter. His meaning is that he was not only bound with fetters, but so bound that he could not raise his feet, as if to say that he not only had fetters, but they were so heavy that he could not even move his feet.