Bible Strands
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?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses Yahweh during a moment of total civic collapse, pleading for divine attention while Jerusalem's population starves and faces slaughter.
The words — רְאֵה (re'eh) issues a direct command to "see," and עוֹלַלְתָּ (olalta) means "have you dealt severely," structuring the verse as a rhetorical challenge to God's record of justice.
The thread — The famine imagery runs through Jeremiah 19:9 and Lamentations 4:10, while the death of religious officials mirrors Psalm 78:64.
Why it lands — The text forces a reader to confront the brutal reality of covenant judgment by listing specific, extreme violations of natural and sacred order before demanding divine response.
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
Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
- Lamentations 4:10 The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Psalms 78:64 His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.
- Exodus 32:11 But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
- Deuteronomy 9:26 And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
- Lamentations 4:13 But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.
- Leviticus 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
- Deuteronomy 28:53 Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.
- 2 Kings 6:28 Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’
- Isaiah 9:14 So the LORD will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day.