Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The poet describes the desolation of Zion following Judah's exile, when the city's inhabitants are scattered, pursued, and living in harsh slavery among the nations.
The words — The text highlights דּרָכֵי Zion (dar.Khei tzi.Yon, "roads of Zion") and אֲבֵלוֹת (a.ve.Lot, "mourning") to depict empty thoroughfares, alongside מוֹעֵד (mo.'Ed, "appointed feast") to mark the cessation of religious gatherings.
The thread — This imagery of abandoned sacred spaces and national mourning echoes Jeremiah 9:11, where Jerusalem becomes a heap of rubble, and Joel 1:8, which commands a virgin to wail for her lost husband.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that covenant disobedience results in the collapse of communal worship and the loss of sacred geography, leaving the city physically empty and spiritually desolate.
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 ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 9:11 “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Joel 1:8 Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.
- Isaiah 24:4 The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away.
- Jeremiah 10:22 Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. It will make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt for jackals.
- Jeremiah 14:2 “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.
- Lamentations 2:6 He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.
- Isaiah 32:9 Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters.
- Jeremiah 33:10 This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again
- 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 1:18 The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.