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.
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.”
- BSB 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.
- 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 52:6And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- Jer 38:9My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is: for there is no more bread in the city.
- Lam 2:12They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers’ bosom.
- Deut 28:52–57And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
- 1 Sam 30:11–12And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water;
- Lam 4:4–10The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
- Jer 19:9And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
- Lam 1:19–20I 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.
- 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.
- Job 40:4Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
- Lam 2:20Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- 2 Kgs 6:25And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
- Ps 25:15–19Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
- Ezek 5:16–17When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:
- Ezek 4:15–17Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
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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
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