Lamentations 1:16

For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears. For there is no one nearby to comfort me, no one to revive my soul. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The speaker, personified Jerusalem, addresses the community in the immediate aftermath of Judah's military defeat and the Lord's judicial trampling of the city. This declaration follows the account of God summoning an army to crush the young warriors and reject the mighty men.

The words — The phrase עַל־אֵלֶּה (‘al-'elleh) literally renders "on these [things]" and anchors the speaker's grief directly to the preceding judgments. The verb בוֹכִיָּה (bokhiyyah) means "[am] weeping," describing the active, physical outpouring of mourning.

The thread — The motif of unavenged weeping appears in Lamentations 1:2, where the city's former allies fail to provide comfort, and in Jeremiah 13:17, where God decrees secret weeping in response to pride. Psalms 119:136 redirects the imagery of streaming eyes toward grief over the disregard of divine law rather than national catastrophe.

Why it lands — The text requires the reader to recognize that structural collapse and military defeat produce concrete, unmediated sorrow. It demands an honest accounting of isolation when all human avenues of rescue are formally closed.

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

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

Cross-references

Psalms 119:136 My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.
Lamentations 1:2 She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.
Jeremiah 13:17 But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.
Jeremiah 14:17 You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound.
Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
Lamentations 2:18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest.
Lamentations 3:48 Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Psalms 69:20 Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found no one.
Ecclesiastes 4:1 Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter.
Jeremiah 9:1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.