Bible Strands
Lamentations 1:19
I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker, personifying Jerusalem, addresses the Lord and all people while describing the city's devastation following rebellion against divine command. The account occurs during the siege's aftermath, as leaders die and survivors flee into captivity.
The words — The text records רִמּ֔וּ/נִי (ri.Mu./ni), meaning "they deceived me," describing the broken alliance with Judah's former political allies. It also notes גָּוָ֑עוּ (ga.Va.'u), meaning "they perished," to state the literal death of priests and elders during famine.
The thread — The theme of abandoned alliances appears in Lamentations 1:2, where the speaker notes that among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. The famine motif continues in Lamentations 1:11, which records the people groaning and trading treasures for bread to survive.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that political and religious structures fail when a community persists in rebellion against divine authority. It requires the reader to observe the concrete consequences of covenant breach without offering immediate consolation.
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
I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their souls.
Cross-references
- 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.
- Lamentations 1:11 All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.
- Lamentations 2:20 Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Job 19:13 He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.
- Jeremiah 2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.
- Jeremiah 14:15 Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who prophesy in My name: I did not send them, yet they say, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ By sword and famine these very prophets will meet their end!
- Jeremiah 23:11 “For both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the LORD.
- Jeremiah 27:13 Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the LORD has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?
- Jeremiah 30:14 All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.
- Jeremiah 37:7 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt.