Bible Strands
Lamentations 5:9
We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The collective voice of Judah’s survivors addresses God following Jerusalem’s destruction. They describe a moment of ongoing siege where obtaining food requires dangerous foraging in open terrain.
The words — The Hebrew verb נָבִיא (na.vi') means "we bring," paired with לַחְמֵנוּ (lach.menu), "our bread." The prepositional phrase מִפְּנֵי חֶרֶב הַמִּדְבָּר (mi.penei che.rev ha.midbar) literally renders "from the face of the sword in the wilderness."
The thread — The motif of threatened food supply appears in Ezekiel 4:16, which announces God cutting off Jerusalem’s bread ration, and Ezekiel 12:18, where bread is consumed with trembling. Jeremiah 40:9 provides a contrasting historical moment where a governor assures refugees of safety to remain in the land.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that daily survival has become a direct confrontation with violence and starvation. It requires the reader to face the concrete mechanics of covenant judgment without smoothing the reality with comfort.
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
We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 4:16 Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.
- Jeremiah 40:9 Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore an oath to them and their men, assuring them, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.
- Ezekiel 12:18 “Son of man, eat your bread with trembling, and drink your water with quivering and anxiety.
- Judges 6:11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
- 2 Samuel 23:17 saying, “Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this! Is this not the blood of the men who risked their lives?” So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three mighty men.
- Jeremiah 41:1 In the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family and one of the king’s chief officers, came with ten men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and they ate a meal together there.
- Jeremiah 41:18 to escape the Chaldeans. For they were afraid of the Chaldeans because Ishmael son of Nethaniah had struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.
- Jeremiah 42:14 and if you say, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt and live there, where we will not see war or hear the sound of the ram’s horn or hunger for bread,’
- Jeremiah 42:16 then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow on your heels into Egypt, and you will die there.