Ecclesiastes 4:1

He saw the tears of the oppressed who had no comforter, while power lay with their oppressors. The suffering caused by injustice and the absence of comfort weighs heavily on him.

Cross-references · 40

• Eccl 3:16And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
• Eccl 5:8If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.
• Isa 5:7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
• Job 35:9By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty.
• Isa 59:13–15In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
• Jas 5:4Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
• Ps 12:5For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
• Mal 3:5And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
• Lam 1:2She 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.
• Isa 51:23But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
• Ps 42:9I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
• 2 Tim 4:16–17At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
• Lam 1:9Her 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.
• Matt 26:56But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
• Ps 42:3My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?
• Isa 59:7Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
• Ps 69:20Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
• Ps 142:4I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
• Judg 4:3And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.
• Job 6:29Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.
• Exod 1:13–14And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:
• Exod 1:22And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.
• Ps 80:5Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.
• Exod 2:23–24And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
• Job 24:7–12They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold.
• Deut 28:48Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
• Prov 28:15–16As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
• Job 16:4I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.
• Exod 1:16And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
• Prov 28:3A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
• Deut 28:33The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:
• Mal 2:13And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.
• Neh 5:1–5And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews.
• Ps 10:9–10He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
• Eccl 7:7Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
• Job 19:21–22Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
• Exod 5:16–19There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.
• Judg 10:7–8And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.
• Mal 3:18Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
• Prov 19:7All the brethren of the poor do hate him: how much more do his friends go far from him? he pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him.

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