Bible Strands
Lamentations 5:8
Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hands.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The exiled community speaks to God, declaring that they now bear the punishment for their ancestors’ sins while living under foreign oppression. This statement occurs amid ongoing violence and scarcity following the city’s destruction.
The words — עֲבָדִים ('a.va.Dim) = slaves and מָ֣שְׁלוּ (Ma.she.lu) = they have ruled describe the inversion of social order where the subjugated now exercise control. The text pairs this with אֵ֥ין ('ein) = there not and פֹּרֵ֖ק (po.Rek) = [is one who] rescues to state the absence of any liberator.
The thread — This theme of oppressive governance appears in Nehemiah 5:15, where governors heavily burden the people, and Proverbs 30:22, which notes a servant becoming king. Zechariah 11:6 similarly reflects divine withdrawal of compassion, leaving the people to mutual hostility.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that human power structures can become instruments of oppression when divine deliverance is absent. It requires the reader to confront the reality of helplessness without attributing the situation to personal failure alone.
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
Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 5:15 The governors before me had heavily burdened the people, taking from them bread and wine plus forty shekels of silver. Their servants also oppressed the people. But I did not do this, because of my fear of God.
- Proverbs 30:22 a servant who becomes king, a fool who is filled with food,
- Zechariah 11:6 For I will no longer have compassion on the people of the land, declares the LORD, but behold, I will cause each man to fall into the hands of his neighbor and his king, who will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from their hands.”
- Psalms 7:2 or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
- Genesis 9:25 he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
- Deuteronomy 28:43 The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower.
- Nehemiah 2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked us and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”
- Job 5:4 His sons are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender.
- Job 10:7 though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?
- Psalms 50:22 Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you: