The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground and keep silence; They throw dust on their heads And gird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Bow their heads to the ground.
Parallel translations
- WEB The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they keep silence; They have cast up dust on their heads; they have clothed themselves with sackcloth: The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
- KJV The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
- BSB The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
- NASB The elders of the daughter of Zion Sit on the ground and are silent. They have thrown dust on their heads; They have put on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem Have bowed their heads to the ground.
- NLT The leaders of beautiful Jerusalem sit on the ground in silence. They are clothed in burlap and throw dust on their heads. The young women of Jerusalem hang their heads in shame.
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 elders sit silent in dust and sackcloth and the young women bow their heads in grief. It pictures a whole community plunged into mourning.
Overview
From the oldest to the youngest, Jerusalem is gripped by the traditional signs of mourning: silence, dust, sackcloth, and bowed heads. The image conveys overwhelming, communal sorrow with no words left to speak. Such depths of grief express the brokenness from which only God can raise his people, ultimately through the resurrection hope in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 23
- Isa 3:26Her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
- Job 2:12–13When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.
- Isa 15:3In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.
- Lam 3:28Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.
- Ezek 7:18They will also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror will cover them. Shame will be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.
- Isa 47:1“Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
- Lam 1:4The ways of Zion mourn, because no one come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
- Lam 1:1How 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!
- Josh 7:6Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before Yahweh’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.
- Amos 8:3The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
- Lam 4:5Those who fed delicately are desolate in the streets: Those who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
- Amos 8:13In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst.
- Lam 4:16Yahweh’s anger has scattered them; he will no more regard them: They didn’t respect the persons of the priests, they didn’t favor the elders.
- Jer 8:14“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh.
- Joel 1:8Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!
- Isa 36:22Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
- Isa 47:5“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms.
- Rev 18:19They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour.
- Lam 5:12Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.
- Ezek 27:31and they shall make themselves bald for you, and clothe them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning.
- Lam 5:14The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
- Amos 5:13Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.
- 2 Sam 13:19Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colors that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head, and went her way, crying aloud as she went.
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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 2:10 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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