Lamentations 3:51

51 Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

Lamentations 3:51 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 3:51

Mine eye affecteth mine heart
Seeing the desolation of his country; the ruins of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and the multitudes of those that were slain, and carried captive; and the distresses the rest were in; this affected his heart, and filled it with grief; as his heart also affected his eyes, and caused them to run down in rivers of water, as before expressed; or, as the Targum,

``the weeping of mine eyes is the occasion of hurt to my soul or life;''
his excessive weeping endangered his life: because of all the daughters of my city;
not Anathoth, his native place, but Jerusalem; so the Targum,
``of Jerusalem my city.''
The meaning is, that his heart was affected at seeing the ruin of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; or of the towns and cities round about it, which that was the metropolis of. Some, as Jarchi, render it, "more than all the daughters of my city" F16; his heart was more affected with those calamities than those of the most tender sex, even than any or all of them.
FOOTNOTES:

F16 (yrye twnb lkm) "supra cunctas filias civitatis meae"; so some in Vatablus; and Jarchi.

Lamentations 3:51 In-Context

49 Mine eye poureth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50 till Jehovah look down and behold from the heavens.
51 Mine eye affecteth my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.
52 They that are mine enemies without cause have chased me sore like a bird.
53 They have cut off my life in a pit, and cast a stone upon me.
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.