Bible Strands
Lamentations 3:51
My eyes bring grief to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses God while standing in the aftermath of a siege, voicing the immediate consequences of the city's destruction. His lament occurs between a plea for divine observation and a description of being hunted without cause.
The words — The Hebrew עֽוֹלְלָה ('o.Lah) literally means "it has dealt severely," describing how the speaker's own eyes inflict this severity upon his soul. עֵינִי ('ei.N/i) translates directly to "my eyes," anchoring the physical vessel of his reported grief.
The thread — The motif of grief over a city's daughters appears in 1 Samuel 30:3, where a burned city yields captured daughters, and in Jeremiah 19:9, which describes siege-induced devastation. Jesus later mirrors this city-focused sorrow in Luke 19:41 as he weeps over Jerusalem.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that prolonged mourning can wound the mourner as directly as the original tragedy. It requires the reader to confront how communal loss internalizes into personal anguish without offering comfort or resolution.
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 affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
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.’
- Luke 19:41 As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it
- 1 Samuel 30:3 When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned down and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
- 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 11:22 So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.
- Jeremiah 14:16 And the people to whom they prophesy will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem because of famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out their own evil upon them.
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Lamentations 1:18 The LORD is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.
- Lamentations 2:21 Both young and old lie together in the dust of the streets. My young men and maidens have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of Your anger; You have slaughtered them without compassion.
- Lamentations 5:11 Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.