Bible Strands
Lamentations 3:50
until the LORD looks down from heaven and sees.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The afflicted poet of Lamentations 3 pauses his prayer for divine attention at the peak of his unrelenting sorrow, directly between his description of overflowing eyes (3:49) and his confession of soul-deep grief (3:51).
The words — The verse centers on יַשְׁקִיף (yashqîp, "he will look down") and יֵרֶא (yêrê, "he will see"), linked by עַד ("until") to mark a boundary for Yahweh’s observation from heaven.
The thread — This plea for heavenly observation appears in Isaiah 63:15 and Psalms 80:14, while Psalms 102:19 tracks the same theme but specifies God looking from the heights of His sanctuary and gazing from heaven to earth rather than repeating the exact phrase.
Why it lands — The text records a demand that God’s sight must finally reach the petitioner’s suffering, leaving the resolution entirely to His decision rather than human effort.
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
Till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 63:15 Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.
- Psalms 80:14 Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—
- Psalms 102:19 For He looked down from the heights of His sanctuary; the LORD gazed out from heaven to earth
- Lamentations 5:1 Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace!
- Isaiah 62:6 On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD shall take no rest for yourselves,
- Isaiah 64:1 If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
- 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?
- Daniel 9:16 O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.