Bible Strands
Lamentations 1:21
People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jerusalem personified addresses God following the city's fall, contrasting her isolation with her enemies' rejoicing over divine judgment.
The words — The Hebrew נֶאֱנָחָה (ne'ehnah) denotes deep groaning, paired with אֵין מְנַחֵם ('ein menachem) to state there is no comforter present.
The thread — This motif of enemy rejoicing at divine judgment echoes the scorn in Lamentations 1:8, the glee over stumbling in Psalms 35:15, and the triumphal singing over plundered inheritance in Jeremiah 50:11.
Why it lands — It demands recognition that divine justice can isolate the repentant while provoking the wicked, requiring the reader to endure the tension between present suffering and promised retribution.
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
They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
Cross-references
- Lamentations 1:8 Jerusalem has sinned greatly; therefore she has become an object of scorn. All who honored her now despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away.
- Psalms 35:15 But when I stumbled, they assembled in glee; they gathered together against me. Assailants I did not know slandered me without ceasing.
- Jeremiah 50:11 “Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,
- 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.
- Lamentations 1:22 Let all their wickedness come before You, and deal with them as You have dealt with me because of all my transgressions. For my groans are many, and my heart is faint.
- Lamentations 2:15 All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
- Jeremiah 51:24 Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and all the dwellers of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion,” declares the LORD.
- 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 1:4 The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.
- Lamentations 4:21 So rejoice and be glad, O Daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz. Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.