Bible Strands
Lamentations 5:16
The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The collective voice of Judah’s survivors addresses God immediately after describing the complete loss of joy and dancing. They speak at the climax of a national lament, marking the final collapse of their former civic and spiritual standing.
The words — עֲטֶ֣רֶת רֹאשֵׁ֔נוּ ('a.Teret ro.She.nu) translates literally as "crown of our head," and חָטָֽאנוּ (cha.Ta.nu) means "we have sinned." These terms anchor the verse’s plain declaration of lost honor followed by direct confession of guilt.
The thread — The fallen crown motif appears in Job 19:9 and Psalms 89:39, where judgment strips honor, while Isaiah 3:9 parallels the unshielded exposure of sin that triggers the woe. The imagery traces a consistent biblical pattern where covenant failure produces visible disgrace.
Why it lands — The text demands that the reader recognize national ruin as the direct result of confessed sin rather than impersonal fate. It asks for unflinching acknowledgment that the loss of joy, honor, and vitality is the measured consequence of breaking covenant obligations.
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 crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
Cross-references
- Psalms 89:39 You have renounced the covenant with Your servant and sullied his crown in the dust.
- Isaiah 3:9 The expression on their faces testifies against them, and like Sodom they flaunt their sin; they do not conceal it. Woe to them, for they have brought disaster upon themselves.
- Job 19:9 He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
- Jeremiah 13:18 Say to the king and to the queen mother: “Take a lowly seat, for your glorious crowns have fallen from your heads.”
- Lamentations 1:1 How lonely lies the city, once so full of people! She who was great among the nations has become a widow. The princess of the provinces has become a slave.
- Lamentations 4:13 But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.
- Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
- Jeremiah 2:17 Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way?
- Jeremiah 2:19 Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
- Jeremiah 4:18 “Your ways and deeds have brought this upon you. This is your punishment; how bitter it is, because it pierces to the heart!”