Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
Parallel translations
- KJV Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
- BSB Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.
- NKJV Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
- NASB Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
- NLT Your holy cities are destroyed. Zion is a wilderness; yes, Jerusalem is a desolate ruin.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They lament that the holy cities, including Zion and Jerusalem, have become a wilderness. It matters because it mourns the ruin that sin and judgment brought.
Overview
The prayer surveys the desolation of the once-holy cities, with Jerusalem itself laid waste. This grief reflects the devastation foreseen in the Babylonian exile. The lament over ruined holy places sharpens the longing for restoration and ultimately points to the new Jerusalem God will establish, where desolation gives way to His everlasting presence (Revelation 21:2-4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Isa 1:7Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
- Luke 21:24They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- Lam 5:18For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
- Lam 2:4–8He has bent his bow like an enemy, he has stood with his right hand as an adversary, Has killed all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he has poured out his wrath like fire.
- Dan 9:26–27After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have nothing: and the people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and its end shall be with a flood, and even to the end shall be war; desolations are determined.
- Lam 1:1–4How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become tributary!
- Rev 11:1–2A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, “Rise, and measure God’s temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it.
- 2 Kgs 25:9He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.
- Dan 12:7I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it shall be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
- Ps 79:1–7A Psalm by Asaph. God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.
- 2 Chr 36:19–21They burned God’s house, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels.
- Mic 3:12Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Luke 21:21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the middle of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 64:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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