We have become orphans and waifs, Our mothers are like widows.
Parallel translations
- WEB We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
- KJV We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
- BSB We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.
- NASB We have become orphans, without a father; Our mothers are like widows.
- NLT We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed.
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 have become like orphans and widows, stripped of protectors.
Overview
The people describe themselves as fatherless and their mothers as widows, picturing utter vulnerability and loss. In Israel, orphans and widows were the most defenseless, dependent on God's special care. Their plight appeals to the God who is Father to the fatherless, a care perfectly shown in Christ who promises not to leave us as orphans (Ps. 68:5; John 14:18).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Jer 18:21Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, and their young men struck by the sword in battle.
- Exod 22:24and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
- Jer 15:8Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
- Hos 14:3Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.”
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 5:3 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.