Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.
Parallel translations
- WEB The young men bare the mill; The children stumbled under the wood.
- KJV They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
- NKJV Young men ground at the millstones; Boys staggered under loads of wood.
- NASB Young men worked at the grinding mill, And youths staggered under loads of wood.
- NLT Young men are led away to work at millstones, and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.
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
Young men are forced to grind at the mill like slaves, and children stagger under heavy loads of wood. The young and weak are crushed by forced labor.
Overview
Grinding grain at the mill was demeaning servile work, and children buckle beneath burdens too heavy for them—both signs of a people reduced to bondage. The verse mourns how oppression falls hardest on the vulnerable. It stirs compassion and reminds us that Christ invites the heavy-laden to find rest in Him (Matthew 11:28-30).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Judg 16:21Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.
- Matt 23:4They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
- Exod 1:11So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
- Isa 47:2Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.
- Job 31:10then may my own wife grind grain for another, and may other men sleep with her.
- Exod 2:11One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.
- Isa 58:6Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?
- Exod 11:5and every firstborn son in the land of Egypt will die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, to the firstborn of the servant girl behind the hand mill, as well as the firstborn of all the cattle.
- Neh 5:1–5About that time there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.
- Exod 23:5If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.
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 5:13 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.