Passage

Lamentations 1.7

Book: Lamentations · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

5. Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

7. Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. 9. Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter: Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself. (Lamentations 1:5-9, ASV)

WEB

5. Her adversaries have become the head, her enemies prosper; for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary. 6. All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion: her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

7. Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her, The adversaries saw her, they mocked at her desolations.

Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she has become as an unclean thing; all who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yes, she sighs, and turns backward. 9. Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn’t remember her latter end; therefore she has come down astoundingly; she has no comforter: “See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.” (Lamentations 1:5-9, WEB)

KJV

5. Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. 6. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. ^{pleasant: or, desirable}

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. ^{is: Heb. is become a removing, or, wandering} 9. Her 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. (Lamentations 1:5-9, KJV)

YLT

5. Her adversaries have become chief, Her enemies have been at ease, For Jehovah hath afflicted her, For the abundance of her transgressions, Her infants have gone captive before the adversary. 6. And go out from the daughter of Zion doth all her honour, Her princes have been as harts, They have not found pasture, And they go powerless before a pursuer.

7. Remembered hath Jerusalem [In] the days of her affliction and her mournings, all her desirable things that were from the days of old, In the falling of her people into the hand of an adversary, And she hath no helper; Seen her have adversaries, They have laughed at her cessation.

A sin hath Jerusalem sinned, Therefore impure she hath become, All who honoured her have esteemed her lightly, For they have seen her nakedness, Yea, she herself hath sighed and turneth backward. 9. Her uncleanness [is] in her skirts, She hath not remembered her latter end, And she cometh down wonderfully, There is no comforter for her. See, O Jehovah, mine affliction, For exerted himself hath an enemy. (Lamentations 1:5-9, YLT)

See this page's graph and discover linked topics

Setting

Speaker: the poet as narrator. The book is anonymous. Tradition, from the Septuagint's opening note and the Talmud (Baba Bathra 15a), assigns it to Jeremiah, who lamented in an earlier crisis (2 Chronicles 35:25); many modern commentators treat the five poems as the work of one or more unnamed poets writing in the same years
Audience: the surviving community of Judah, and Yahweh himself, to whom the poems repeatedly turn in protest and prayer
Location: Judah; the poems speak from within or beside ruined Jerusalem, and the book names no place of composition
Time period: the aftermath of Jerusalem's fall to Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army in 587/586 BC, when the temple was burned and the walls broken down (2 Kings 25:8-10; Jeremiah 52:12-14). Most scholars date the poems before the first return from exile in 538 BC
Literary context: chapter 1, a 22-verse alphabetic acrostic in which each verse opens with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. A narrator speaks of Zion in the third person (1:1-11), and personified Zion herself speaks for most of the rest (1:12-22). In Hebrew this verse has four lines instead of the usual three, one of only two such verses in chapters 1 and 2 (the other is 2:19); commentators from Keil and Delitzsch onward note the two exceptions, and David Noel Freedman argued against deleting the extra lines as later additions ("Acrostics and Metrics in Hebrew Poetry," Harvard Theological Review 65, 1972, 367-392).

Theological reading

"Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations." (Lamentations 1:7, ASV)

Memory as pain. In her affliction Jerusalem remembers "all her pleasant things that were from the days of old". Memory, which in Israel's worship usually leads to praise (Psalm 77:11-12), here sharpens the loss, because the good things are gone.

No helper, and mockery. The verse names the fall plainly: her people "fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her". The enemy's mockery adds shame to loss, a theme the book returns to often (2:15-16; 3:46).

Honest lament. The verse shows that Scripture does not ask the grieving to pretend. Recalling what has been lost is itself a form of prayer, and chapter 3 will turn the act of remembering in a new direction: "This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope" (3:21).

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

None of the words in this verse has its own lexicon entry yet.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Muhammad Not in Bible Objection Defeater

Notes

Your annotations.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.