All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.
Parallel translations
- WEB All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for food to refresh the soul: “Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become abject.”
- KJV All 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.
- NKJV All her people sigh, They seek bread; They have given their valuables for food to restore life. “See, O Lord, and consider, For I am scorned.”
- NASB All her people groan, seeking bread; They have given their treasures for food To restore their lives. “See, Lord, and look, For I am despised.”
- NLT Her people groan as they search for bread. They have sold their treasures for food to stay alive. “O Lord, look,” she mourns, “and see how I am despised.
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
The starving people trade their treasures for food, and Jerusalem cries to God to see her abasement. It shows famine reducing a proud city to begging.
Overview
The siege has brought such hunger that people barter their valuables merely to stay alive. The verse closes with another direct appeal: 'Look, Yahweh, and see; for I have become abject.' Physical hunger here points to the deeper hunger of the soul that only the Bread of Life can satisfy (John 6:35).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Jer 52:6By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Jer 38:9“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.”
- Lam 2:12They cry out to their mothers: “Where is the grain and wine?” as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.
- Deut 28:52–57They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.
- 1 Sam 30:11–12Now his men found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David. They gave the man water to drink and food to eat—
- Lam 4:4–10The nursing infant’s tongue clings in thirst to the roof of his mouth. Little children beg for bread, but no one gives them any.
- Jer 19:9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
- Lam 1:19–20I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.
- Lam 1:9Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!
- Job 40:4“Behold, I am insignificant. How can I reply to You? I place my hand over my mouth.
- Lam 2:20Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- 2 Kgs 6:25So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.
- Ps 25:15–19My eyes are always on the LORD, for He will free my feet from the mesh.
- Ezek 5:16–17When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.
- Ezek 4:15–17“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 1:11 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.