Lamentations 3:51

51 Mine eye robbed my soul in all the daughters of my city. (My heart is grieved at what befell 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Lamentations 3:51 In-Context

49 Mine eye was tormented, and was not still; for no rest was. (My eyes were tormented, and were not still; for there was no rest,)

50 Until the Lord beheld, and saw from heavens. (until the Lord beheld, and saw from heaven.)

51 Mine eye robbed my soul in all the daughters of my city. (My heart is grieved at what befell all the daughters of my city.)

52 Mine enemies took me without cause, by hunting (me) as a bird. (My enemies had no reason to be against me, yet they hunted me down like a bird.)

53 My life slid into a pit; and they putted a stone on me.