Lamentations 2:10

10 They sat in [the] earth, the eld men of the daughter of Zion were still; they besprinkled their heads with ashes, the elder men of Judah be girt with hair-shirts; the virgins of Judah casted down to the earth their heads. (They sat on the ground, the old men of the daughter of Zion were silent; they sprinkled their heads with ashes, the elders of Judah be girded with hair-shirts; the virgins of Judah cast down their heads to the ground.)

Lamentations 2:10 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 2:10

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, [and]
keep silence
Who used to sit in the gate on thrones of judgment, and passed sentence in causes tried before them; or were wont to give advice and counsel, and were regarded as oracles, now sit on the ground, and dumb, as mourners; see ( Job 2:13 ) ; they have cast up dust upon their heads;
on their white hairs and gray locks, which bespoke wisdom, and made them grave and venerable: they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
after the manner of mourners; who used to be clothed in scarlet and rich apparel, in robes suitable to their office as civil magistrates: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground:
through shame and sorrow; who used to look brisk and gay, and walk with outstretched necks, and carried their heads high, but now low enough. Aben Ezra interprets it of the hair of their heads, which used to be tied up, but now loosed and dishevelled, and hung down as it were to the ground.

Lamentations 2:10 In-Context

8 The Lord thought to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched forth his cord, and turned not away his hand from perdition; the forewall, either the outerward, mourned, and the wall was destroyed together (with it).

9 The gates thereof be pitched in the earth, he lost and all-brake the bars thereof; the king thereof and the princes thereof (be) among heathen men; the law is not, and the prophets thereof found not of the Lord a vision, either revelation. (Its gates be thrown onto the ground, he destroyed and broke up all its bars, or all its locks; its king and its leaders be put among the heathen; the Law is not, and its prophets cannot find a vision, that is, a revelation, from the Lord.)

10 They sat in [the] earth, the eld men of the daughter of Zion were still; they besprinkled their heads with ashes, the elder men of Judah be girt with hair-shirts; the virgins of Judah casted down to the earth their heads. (They sat on the ground, the old men of the daughter of Zion were silent; they sprinkled their heads with ashes, the elders of Judah be girded with hair-shirts; the virgins of Judah cast down their heads to the ground.)

11 Mine eyes failed for tears, mine entrails were troubled; my maw was shed out in [the] earth upon the sorrow of the daughter of my people (my bile was poured out on the ground over the sorrow of the daughter of my people); when a little child and [the] sucking (one) failed in the streets of the city.

12 They said to their mothers, Where is wheat, and wine? when they failed as wounded men in the streets of the city (They asked their mothers, Where is some corn, and some wine? then they died, wounded in the streets of the city); yea, when they sent out their souls in(to) the bosom of their mothers.