Lamentations 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The poet describes Jerusalem after the city fell: the temple's stones lie in the streets, its honored people are treated as worthless, and starvation reaches the point where children beg for bread and mothers eat their own children. The chapter names the sins of the city's prophets and priests as the reason, and reports that the LORD's anointed king was captured, ending the hope of shelter under him. It closes by telling Edom to rejoice for now, since the cup will pass to her too, and by saying that Zion's punishment is complete while Edom's is still coming.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The gold has become dim.
   • The finest gold has changed.
   • The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
2. 4:2
   • The sons of Zion are precious.
   • The sons of Zion were worth their weight in fine gold.
   • The sons of Zion are now regarded as clay jars.
   • Clay jars are the work of a potter's hands.
3. 4:3
   • Even jackals draw out the breast, the word being ambiguous between jackals and sea or land monsters.
   • They nurse their young.
   • The daughter of my people has become cruel.
   • The daughter of my people is like ostriches in the wilderness.
4. 4:4
   • The nursing child's tongue clings to the roof of his mouth from thirst.
   • Young children ask for bread.
   • No one breaks bread for them.
5. 4:5
   • Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets.
   • Those who were brought up in scarlet embrace ash heaps.
6. 4:6
   • The guilt of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, the word being ambiguous between the guilt itself and the punishment for it.
   • Sodom was overthrown as in a moment.
   • No hands were laid on Sodom, the phrase being ambiguous between no human hands doing it and no hands being wrung over her.
7. 4:7
   • Her consecrated ones were purer than snow.
   • They were whiter than milk.
   • Their bodies were more ruddy than corals.
   • Their form was like sapphire.
8. 4:8
   • Their appearance is blacker than soot.
   • They are not recognized in the streets.
   • Their skin has shriveled on their bones.
   • Their skin has become dry like wood.
9. 4:9
   • Those slain by the sword are better off than those slain by hunger.
   • Those slain by hunger waste away, pierced through, for lack of the produce of the field.
10. 4:10
    • The hands of compassionate women boiled their own children.
    • The children became food for them.
    • This happened in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11. 4:11
    • The LORD has spent his fury.
    • The LORD has poured out his fierce anger.
    • The LORD has kindled a fire in Zion.
    • The fire has devoured Zion's foundations.
12. 4:12
    • The kings of the earth did not believe that an adversary and an enemy would enter the gates of Jerusalem.
    • All the inhabitants of the world did not believe it either.
13. 4:13
    • This came because of the sins of her prophets.
    • This came because of the iniquities of her priests.
    • Her prophets and priests shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.
14. 4:14
    • They wandered as blind men in the streets.
    • They were defiled with blood.
    • No one could touch their garments.
15. 4:15
    • People cried to them to depart, calling them unclean.
    • People cried to them, Depart, depart, do not touch.
    • They fled and wandered.
    • It was said among the nations that they would sojourn there no longer.
16. 4:16
    • The face of the LORD has scattered them.
    • He will no longer look upon them.
    • No honor was shown to the priests.
    • No favor was shown to the elders.
17. 4:17
    • Our eyes failed as we looked for help.
    • The help we looked for was empty.
    • In our watching we watched for a nation that could not save.
18. 4:18
    • They hunted our steps.
    • We could not walk in our streets.
    • Our end drew near.
    • Our days were fulfilled.
    • Our end had come.
19. 4:19
    • Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens.
    • They chased us on the mountains.
    • They lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20. 4:20
    • The anointed of the LORD, the breath of our nostrils, was captured in their pits.
    • We had said of him that under his shadow we would live among the nations.
21. 4:21
    • The daughter of Edom is told to rejoice and be glad.
    • The daughter of Edom dwells in the land of Uz.
    • The cup will pass to her also.
    • She will become drunk.
    • She will strip herself naked.
22. 4:22
    • The punishment of the daughter of Zion's iniquity is complete.
    • He will no longer carry her away into exile.
    • He will punish the iniquity of the daughter of Edom.
    • He will uncover her sins.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

In Hebrew this poem is an alphabet acrostic: each of the twenty-two verses begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is why the chapter has exactly twenty-two verses. The gold and the stones belong to the temple, its inner walls and fittings were overlaid with gold, and its cut stonework was the pride of the building. "At the head of every street" means where the streets opened out, the public places where rubble and refuse were tipped.

4:2

Zion was originally the name of the fortified hill in Jerusalem; it came to stand for the city itself and for its people. "Sons of Zion" means simply the men of Jerusalem. Clay jars were the cheapest household goods there were, mass-produced, easily smashed, thrown away without a thought. That is the force of the comparison with gold.

4:3

The King James "sea monsters" translates a Hebrew word that can mean a serpent or sea creature, but here means jackals (desert scavengers, yet even they nurse their young. Ostriches were proverbially thought to abandon their eggs on the ground and forget them (the same idea appears in Job 39:13-17); the bird stands for a mother without natural feeling. "Daughter of my people" is a set Hebrew phrase for a city and its population pictured as a woman) it does not mean anyone's actual daughter.

4:4

Bread was baked in flat round loaves and torn by hand rather than cut, so "breaking bread" for someone simply means giving them a share of food.

4:5

Scarlet and crimson dyes were expensive and marked out the wealthy; being "brought up in scarlet" means raised in luxury. The King James "dunghills" refers to the ash and refuse heaps outside a town where rubbish was dumped and where the destitute slept for warmth.

4:6

Sodom was the city destroyed suddenly by fire in Genesis 19. The comparison is about manner, not amount: Sodom's end came in a moment, while Jerusalem's came through months of siege and slow starvation. The Hebrew of the last phrase is uncertain: it may mean that no hand was raised to help her, or that no hands were wrung over her, or that she was overthrown without an army laying a hand on her.

4:7

The King James "Nazarites" translates a Hebrew word for men set apart by a vow, who let their hair grow and abstained from wine and from contact with the dead (the rules are in Numbers 6); many translators take the word here more generally as nobles or dignitaries. The gem words are uncertain: the stone rendered "rubies" is probably red coral or pearl, and "sapphire" almost certainly means lapis lazuli, the deep blue stone flecked with gold, since true sapphire was not worked in that period.

4:8

"Visage" simply means face. The blackening is what long starvation and exposure do to skin, and the point of "they are not known in the streets" is that famine has changed people so much that their own neighbors walk past without recognizing them.

4:10

This describes what happened during the long Babylonian siege, when the food inside the walls ran out. Cannibalism under siege is named as a horror in the curse lists of Deuteronomy 28:53-57 and reported at Samaria in 2 Kings 6:28-29; the poet is pointing to that language deliberately.

4:11

The event behind the whole book: Babylonian forces under Nebuchadnezzar broke into Jerusalem in 587/586 BC after a siege of about eighteen months, burned the temple, the palace and the houses, pulled down the walls, and deported much of the surviving population.

4:12

Jerusalem had held out against earlier attacks, most famously the Assyrian siege of 701 BC, and a widespread belief had grown up that the city and its temple could not be captured. That assumption is what verse 12 says the whole world shared.

4:13

"The blood of the just" means the killing of innocent people. Jeremiah, a contemporary, accuses the prophets and priests of Jerusalem of exactly this, and records the murder of the prophet Uriah (Jeremiah 26:20-23).

4:14

Contact with blood or a corpse made a person ritually unclean, and the uncleanness passed on to anything and anyone they touched, a disqualifying condition for priests in particular, since it barred them from serving. The picture is of men so contaminated that nobody could come near their clothing.

4:15

The shouted warning is the cry the law required of a person with an infectious skin disease, who had to live outside the camp and call out "Unclean, unclean" to keep others away (Leviticus 13:45-46). Applying it to the priests and prophets is a deliberate reversal: the men who once declared others clean or unclean are now the ones being driven off.

4:16

The Hebrew reads literally "the face of the LORD has scattered them", the face or presence standing for God acting in person. In the second half it is the conquerors, not the priests, who show no respect: the King James wording can be misread as though the priests were the ones failing to honor someone.

4:17

The nation watched for was Egypt. Judah's king had appealed to Pharaoh for help; an Egyptian force did march out and briefly lifted the siege, but withdrew and left Jerusalem to fall (Jeremiah 37:5-11).

4:19

The Hebrew word covers both eagles and the large vultures of the region, birds known for dropping on prey at great speed. "Wilderness" means open, unfarmed country, scrub and rock rather than sand dunes.

4:20

"The breath of our nostrils" is an idiom for the one on whom a people's life depends. "The LORD's anointed" is a standing title for the king, who was installed by having oil poured over his head; here it means Zedekiah, who fled the falling city, was run down on the plains near Jericho and taken to Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:4-7). Being "caught in their pit" is hunting language, pits were dug and covered to trap large animals. "Living in his shadow" is a common phrase for living under someone's protection.

4:21

Edom was the neighboring kingdom southeast of Judah, descended from Esau; it was widely accused of cheering on the Babylonian sack and profiting from it (Obadiah 10-14; Psalm 137:7). Uz was a region associated with Edom's territory, and also named as Job's homeland. The "cup" is the standard prophetic image of a cup of wine handed round the nations, which leaves whoever drinks it staggering and helpless; stripping naked is what a drunk man does without knowing it, and stands for total public humiliation.

4:22

The Hebrew of the middle line can mean either that God will not send Zion into exile again, or that he will not prolong the exile she is already in. "Discover thy sins" in the King James means uncover or expose them, bring them into the open, not find them out.