Bible Strands
Lamentations 5:7
Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their punishment.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker, representing the surviving remnant of Judah, addresses God in a communal lament following Jerusalem's destruction. The voice speaks at a moment of total national collapse, where survival has required submission to foreign empires.
The words — The text foregrounds חָֽטְאוּ (cha.te.'U) "they sinned" and סָבָֽלְנוּ (sa.Val.nu) "we have borne," establishing a direct grammatical link between ancestral transgression and present suffering. These verbs frame the community's condition as inherited consequence rather than isolated misfortune.
The thread — This motif appears in Jeremiah 31:29 and Ezekiel 18:2, which directly quote the proverb about fathers eating sour grapes and children's teeth being set on edge. The theme also surfaces in Jeremiah 16:12, which contrasts the current generation's stubbornness with their ancestors' failures.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment of historical continuity in sin and its consequences without excusing present responsibility. It requires the reader to confront how past choices shape current reality while recognizing the weight of collective accountability.
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
Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 16:12 And you have done more evil than your fathers. See how each of you follows the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.
- Jeremiah 31:29 “In those days, it will no longer be said: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’
- Ezekiel 18:2 “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge’?
- Jeremiah 14:20 We acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD, the guilt of our fathers; indeed, we have sinned against You.
- Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
- Genesis 42:36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”
- Jeremiah 31:15 This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
- Matthew 23:32 Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers.
- Job 7:21 Why do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For soon I will lie down in the dust; You will seek me, but I will be no more.”
- Genesis 42:13 But they answered, “Your servants are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more.”