Lamentations 5:6-16

6 We have submitted * to ¹Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

7 Our ²fathers sinned, and are no more; It is we who have borne their iniquities.

8 ³Slaves rule over us; There is ⁴no one to deliver us from their hand.

9 We get our bread at the ⁵risk of our lives Because * of the sword in the wilderness.

10 Our skin has become as ⁶hot as an oven, Because * of the burning heat of famine.

11 They ravished the ⁷women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hung by their hands; ⁸Elders were not respected.

13 Young men ⁹worked at the grinding mill, And youths ¹⁰stumbled under loads of wood.

14 Elders are gone from the gate, Young men from their ¹¹music.

15 The joy of our hearts has ¹²ceased; Our dancing has been turned into mourning.

16 The ¹³crown has fallen from our head; ¹⁴Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Lamentations 5:6-16 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 5

In this chapter are reckoned up the various calamities and distresses of the Jews in Babylon, which the Lord is desired to remember and consider, La 5:1-16; their great concern for the desolation of the temple in particular is expressed, La 5:17,18; and the chapter is concluded with a prayer that God would show favour to them, and turn them to him, and renew their prosperity as of old, though he had rejected them, and been wroth with them, La 5:19-22.

Cross References

• 1. Hosea 9:3; Hosea 12:1
• 2. Jeremiah 14:20; Jeremiah 16:12
• 3. Nehemiah 5:15
• 4. Psalms 7:2; Zechariah 11:6
• 5. Jeremiah 40:9-12
• 6. Job 30:30; Lamentations 4:8
• 7. Isaiah 13:16; Zechariah 14:2
• 8. Isaiah 47:6; Lamentations 4:16
• 9. Judges 16:21
• 10. Jeremiah 7:18
• 11. Isaiah 24:8; Jeremiah 7:34
• 12. Jeremiah 25:10; Amos 8:10
• 13. Job 19:9; Psalms 89:39; Jeremiah 13:18
• 14. Isaiah 3:9-11

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "given the hand to"
• [b] Lit "to be satisfied with"
• [c] Lit "with our soul"
• [d] Or "In the face of"
• [e] Or "the ravages of hunger"
• [f] Lit "The faces of elders"
• [g] Lit "carry"
• [h] Lit "have ceased"