Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The poet describes Jerusalem’s condition immediately after its destruction, when former allies and former objects of honor now watch the city’s public humiliation. The speaker recounts the siege’s aftermath, where political collapse triggers widespread social abandonment.
The words — The text foregrounds חָֽטְאָה (cha.te.'Ah), literally "she has sinned," and נִדָּה (ni.Dah), translated here as "impurity" or "uncleanness," to identify the root of the city’s disgrace. These terms establish moral failure as the direct cause of the surrounding nations’ scorn.
The thread — The link between iniquity and severed fellowship recurs in Isaiah 59:2, where sin builds barriers between the people and God, and in Jeremiah 13:22, where the magnitude of iniquity explains the defilement of the skirts. Both passages treat moral corruption as the engine of social and divine rupture.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that public disgrace and relational abandonment are direct consequences of unaddressed moral failure. It requires readers to trace present isolation back to specific actions rather than attributing the collapse to chance or external forces alone.
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
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
- Lamentations 1:20 See, O LORD, how distressed I am! I am churning within; my heart is pounding within me, for I have been most rebellious. Outside, the sword bereaves; inside, there is death.
- Jeremiah 13:22 And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.
- Jeremiah 13:26 So I will pull your skirts up over your face, that your shame may be seen.
- 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 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.
- 1 Samuel 2:30 Therefore, the LORD, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever. But now the LORD declares: Far be it from Me! For I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be disdained.
- 1 Kings 8:46 When they sin against You—for there is no one who does not sin—and You become angry with them and deliver them to an enemy who takes them as captives to his own land, whether far or near,
- 1 Kings 9:9 And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”
- Isaiah 47:3 Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”