Bible Strands
Lamentations 1:14
My transgressions are bound into a yoke, knit together by His hand; they are draped over my neck, and the Lord has broken my strength. He has delivered me into the hands of those I cannot withstand.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker is the personified city of Jerusalem addressing God and the surrounding nations during the immediate aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction. The moment captures the realization of divine judgment following the Babylonian siege.
The words — The verse highlights עֹל ('ol), meaning "yoke," and פִּשְׁעֵי (piš‘ê), meaning "transgressions," to describe sins bound together by God's hand and draped over the neck. This imagery frames punishment as an imposed burden rather than a random calamity.
The thread — This motif of a divinely imposed yoke for sin appears in Deuteronomy 28:48, where enemies place a yoke of service on Israel, and in Proverbs 5:22, where the cords of sin entangle the wicked. Isaiah 47:6 further links God's anger to placing His people under the control of their oppressors.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that personal and national failure directly enables the authority of overwhelming enemies. It requires the reader to accept that divine judgment operates through concrete, inescapable consequences rather than abstract warnings.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 28:48 you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
- Isaiah 47:6 I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.
- Proverbs 5:22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
- Jeremiah 28:14 For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.’”
- Ezekiel 25:4 therefore I will indeed give you as a possession to the people of the East. They will set up their camps and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk.
- Ezekiel 25:7 therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’
- Isaiah 14:25 I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
- Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Jeremiah 27:8 As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.
- Jeremiah 27:12 And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live!