Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
Parallel translations
- WEB “You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.
- BSB You have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us; You have killed without pity.
- NKJV You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have slain and not pitied.
- NASB You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have slain and have not spared.
- NLT “You have engulfed us with your anger, chased us down, and slaughtered us without mercy.
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 God has pursued them in anger and shown no pity in slaying them.
Overview
The confession turns to lament over the severity of God's judgment, experienced as relentless wrath. The covering 'with anger' depicts God acting as enemy against His sinful people. Yet this very anger against sin underscores why a Savior is needed, one who would bear that wrath in our place (Rom. 5:9).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Lam 2:17The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.
- Lam 2:21The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
- Lam 2:1–2How hath the LORD covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
- Lam 3:66Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.
- Ps 83:15So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
- Ps 44:19Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
- Ezek 9:10And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.
- 2 Chr 36:16–17But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
- Ezek 7:9And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth.
- Ezek 8:18Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 3:43 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.