Lamentations 3:65

Put a veil of anguish over their hearts; may Your curse be upon them!

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — The speaker addresses the LORD during a season of national devastation, petitioning for judgment against those who opposed God’s people. The prayer follows a statement that God will repay enemies according to their works and immediately precedes a plea for God to pursue them in anger.

The words — The text pairs מְגִנַּת (me.gi.nat), literally "shamelessness of," with לֵב (Lev), "heart," to describe a state of unrepentant defiance. It then invokes תַּאֲלָתְ/ךָ (ta.'a.la.te./Kha), meaning "your curse," as the requested divine verdict.

The thread — This request for divine hardening parallels Isaiah 6:10, where God orders hearts to be calloused, and Deuteronomy 2:30, where God makes a king’s spirit stubborn. The curse motif reappears in 1 Corinthians 16:22, where Paul pronounces a curse on those who refuse to love the Lord.

Why it lands — The verse requires readers to submit to God’s authority to judge persistent rebellion without appropriating vengeance. It demands recognition that spiritual blindness and divine cursing serve God’s purposes rather than human retaliation.

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

תִּתֵּ֤ןti.Tenyou will giveלָהֶם֙la./Hemto/ themמְגִנַּת־me.gi.nat-shamelessness of לֵ֔בLevheart תַּאֲלָֽתְךָ֖ta.'a.la.te./Khacurse/ yourלָהֶֽם׃la./Hem[may it belong] to/ them

King James Version

Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them.

Cross-references

Isaiah 6:10 Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Deuteronomy 2:30 But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as is the case this day.
1 Corinthians 16:22 If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be under a curse. Come, O Lord!
Deuteronomy 27:15 ‘Cursed is the man who makes a carved idol or molten image—an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’
Psalms 109:17 The cursing that he loved, may it fall on him; the blessing in which he refused to delight, may it be far from him.