Bible Strands
Lamentations 2:10
The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses the ruined city of Jerusalem at the precise moment its gates, leadership, law, and prophetic vision have been stripped away. He describes the communal posture adopted in direct response to this total collapse.
The words — The text records the elders as יִדְּמוּ (yi.de.Mu), meaning they are silent, and notes they הֶֽעֱל֤וּ (he.'e.Lu) dust, literally causing it to rise upon themselves.
The thread — This posture of sitting on the ground appears in Isaiah 3:26 as a sign of Zion's destitution, while the surrounding actions of sackcloth and weeping parallel the public mourning described in Isaiah 15:3. The cited Job 2:12 reference shows mourners weeping aloud rather than maintaining silence.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that institutional collapse precedes and provokes the visible, physical collapse of a community. It asks the reader to observe how grief and judgment manifest as deliberate, public postures rather than private feelings.
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 elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 3:26 And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
- Job 2:12 When they lifted up their eyes from afar, they could barely recognize Job. They began to weep aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust in the air over his head.
- Isaiah 15:3 In its streets they wear sackcloth; on the rooftops and in the public squares they all wail, falling down weeping.
- Joshua 7:6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the LORD until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.
- Isaiah 47:1 “Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of the Chaldeans! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate.
- Lamentations 1:1 How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.
- 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 3:28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it upon him.
- Ezekiel 7:18 They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.
- Amos 8:3 “In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”