Bible Strands
Lamentations 3:48
Streams of tears flow from my eyes over the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses the immediate aftermath of the panic, pitfall, and devastation described in Lamentations 3:47, marking a moment of acute national collapse.
The words — The phrase פַּלְגֵי (pal.gei) denotes "streams of" water, while שֶׁ֖בֶר (She.ver) literally means "brokenness" or destruction. These terms frame the weeping as a direct physical response to societal fracture.
The thread — This motif of unrelenting tears over national ruin appears in Jeremiah 9:1, Jeremiah 9:18, and Lamentations 2:11. Each reference pairs profuse weeping with the destruction of the people.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to recognize grief as the necessary posture when confronting collective devastation. It presents weeping not as an emotion to be managed, but as a factual response to brokenness.
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
Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 9:1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
- Jeremiah 9:18 Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.
- Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- Psalms 119:136 My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.
- Jeremiah 4:19 My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the pain in my chest! My heart pounds within me; I cannot be silent. For I have heard the sound of the horn, the alarm of battle.
- Jeremiah 13:17 But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will overflow with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.
- 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 2:18 The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord. O wall of the Daughter of Zion, let your tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief, and your eyes no rest.
- Romans 9:1 I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit.