Bible Strands
Lamentations 4:20
The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — A survivor of the Babylonian siege addresses the exiled community and surrounding nations immediately after Jerusalem’s fall. The speaker marks the moment of the king’s capture as the collapse of Judah’s political and theological center.
The words — מְשִׁ֣יחַ (me.Shi.ach) translates literally to “the anointed one,” identifying the Davidic monarch. ר֤וּחַ (Ru.ach) combined with אַפֵּ֙י/נוּ֙ ('a.Pei./nu) means “breath of our nostrils,” a literal phrase for vital life and total dependence.
The thread — “LORD’s anointed” appears in 2 Samuel 1:14 and 2 Samuel 19:21 to forbid unauthorized violence against the king. “Breath of our nostrils” echoes Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into dust, framing the king as a temporary conduit of national survival.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to confront the collapse of trust in human leadership when political systems fail. It forces a direct accounting of where national security is actually placed when the “shadow” under which people lived is removed.
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
The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.
Cross-references
- Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- 2 Samuel 1:14 So David asked him, “Why were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?”
- 2 Samuel 19:21 But Abishai son of Zeruiah said, “Shouldn’t Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD’s anointed?”
- Jeremiah 39:5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on him.
- Ezekiel 12:13 But I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, and there he will die.
- 2 Samuel 1:21 O mountains of Gilboa, may you have no dew or rain, no fields yielding offerings of grain. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul, no longer anointed with oil.
- Psalms 89:20 I have found My servant David; with My sacred oil I have anointed him.
- Lamentations 2:9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and shattered their bars. Her king and her princes are exiled among the nations, the law is no more, and even her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
- Ezekiel 17:18 He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Seeing that he gave his hand in pledge yet did all these things, he will not escape!’
- Genesis 44:30 So if the boy is not with us when I return to your servant, and if my father, whose life is wrapped up in the boy’s life,