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Lamentations 1

KJV · Chapter 1/5

1How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

2She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

3Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

4The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

5Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

6And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

7Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

8Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

9Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

10The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

11All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider; for I am become vile.

12Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

13From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day.

14The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

15The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

16For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

17Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.

18The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

19I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.

20Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

21They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

22Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Jerusalem is portrayed as a lonely widow, once full of people and now abandoned by her friends and allies. The city weeps over her sins, recognizing that her suffering came as a consequence of her own transgressions against God.

Explanation

This poem was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., when the temple was burned and much of the population was carried off into exile. Jewish and Christian tradition attributes its authorship to Jeremiah, who personally witnessed this tragedy. The image of a city personified as a woman — once a 'princess' among the nations, now a 'tributary' and alone — was a common poetic device in the Ancient Near East for lamenting the fall of great cities. The text is honest in admitting that the disaster was neither chance nor an injustice from God, but a direct consequence of the people's unfaithfulness. The practical application today is that openly lamenting losses before God, without hiding the pain, is a legitimate and healthy way of dealing with suffering.

Fun facts

  • Lamentations is one of the few books of the Bible structured as an acrostic: each chapter (except the fifth) follows the order of the Hebrew alphabet, with each stanza beginning with a successive letter — a device used to express that the grief was 'complete, from A to Z.'
  • Jewish tradition reads Lamentations every year on Tisha B'Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of both the first and second temples of Jerusalem, showing how this text still shapes religious practice more than 2,500 years later.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Lamentations 1:1This chapter, like the next two and the fourth, is an acrostic poem: each stanza in the original Hebrew begins with a different letter of the alphabet, in order, from aleph to tav, start to finish. Running through every letter is almost a way of saying the pain covers everything, from A to Z. The city, once full of people, is compared to a lonely widow, an image of lost status and protection.
  2. Lamentations 1:2The city weeps alone at night because her old allies (‘lovers’) — likely Egypt and other nations Judah sought for protection — turned into enemies as soon as she fell, showing that those alliances were never trustworthy.
  3. Lamentations 1:3Judah is described in exile because of the oppression she suffered, finding no rest even among foreign nations — pursued even far from home, caught between distresses everywhere.
  4. Lamentations 1:4The roads to Zion are described almost as mourners — no one comes up to Jerusalem anymore for the pilgrim feasts, because the city lies destroyed and the temple in ruins. It's a poetic way of showing the silence where a crowd used to be.
  5. Lamentations 1:5Jerusalem's enemies now prosper over her, because it was the Lord Himself who brought this affliction on account of her many accumulated sins — the children led away captive before the enemy is the most painful image of all.
  6. Lamentations 1:6'The daughter of Zion' has lost all the beauty she once had; her leaders flee like deer with no strength and no pasture, pursued without any power to resist — a picture of total weakness where there used to be strength.
  7. Lamentations 1:7In the middle of the affliction, Jerusalem remembers the treasures and good life of former days, while her enemies mock even her sabbaths, the sacred day of rest the city could no longer keep in peace.
  8. Lamentations 1:8Recognizes sin as the direct cause of the fall: the city, once honored, is now despised because her 'nakedness' (shame and weakness) was exposed — she herself turns away, ashamed.
  9. Lamentations 1:9The image of filthiness in her own skirts is shockingly physical — it describes a people who never thought about the consequences ahead, and so fell with no one to comfort them; the cry to God arises right out of that realization.
  10. Lamentations 1:10The worst sign of desecration: foreigners entered even the temple's most sacred sanctuary, a place the law expressly forbade to people outside the permitted nations.
  11. Lamentations 1:11Describes real famine during the siege: the people traded precious belongings for food just to survive, and the final cry asks God to see how vile the city has become.
  12. Lamentations 1:12The question of whether the pain touches those who merely pass by is the poem's central cry, aimed at anyone who passes without caring. It's an appeal for strangers to stop and recognize the size of the pain, almost like asking the world to pause for a moment.
  13. Lamentations 1:13Uses physical images of suffering — fire in the bones, a net for the feet — to describe how God Himself brought about the ruin, leaving the city weak and sick all day long.
  14. Lamentations 1:14Compares accumulated sins to a heavy yoke tied around the neck, carefully woven and placed there by God's own hand — the city's strength completely exhausted.
  15. Lamentations 1:15Describes God rejecting Jerusalem's best warriors and summoning an army against the city; the image of the winepress being trodden represents the crushing violence suffered by the 'virgin daughter of Judah.'
  16. Lamentations 1:16The continuous weeping comes from having no comforter nearby — the city's children are devastated because the enemy, in the end, proved stronger.
  17. Lamentations 1:17Zion spreads out her hands asking for help, but no one comes; the Lord Himself had decreed that Jacob's neighbors become his enemies, and Jerusalem is compared to an unclean woman, rejected by everyone.
  18. Lamentations 1:18Even in the midst of the pain, there is an acknowledgment of justice: 'the Lord is righteous,' because the rebellion against Him was real — and the invitation is for all peoples to see up close the pain of the young people led into captivity.
  19. Lamentations 1:19The old allies ('lovers') deceived the city when she needed them most, and even the religious leaders died in Jerusalem while desperately trying to find food.
  20. Lamentations 1:20The image of the sword outside and death inside sums up the experience of the siege: whoever tried to leave the city died by the enemy's sword outside, and whoever stayed inside faced famine and disease. There was no safe side.
  21. Lamentations 1:21Acknowledges that the enemies heard of the suffering and rejoiced over it, since it was God Himself who brought the announced day of judgment — and asks that, in the end, the enemies suffer the same fate.
  22. Lamentations 1:22Closes the chapter with a direct request that the enemies' evil also come before God, just as Jerusalem's evil came before Him — a cry for equivalent justice, ending with the heart 'faint' from so much sighing.

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