Skip to content
mannafest.faith
Read

Lamentations 1:4

in Lamentations 1

The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she herself is bitter with anguish.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

KJV

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

⋯

This verse in Lamentations 1

Commentary

2 notes on this verse

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

The ways of Zion do mourn - A fine prosopopoeia. The ways in which the people trod coming to the sacred solemnities, being now no longer frequented, are represented as shedding tears; and the gates themselves partake of the general distress. All poets of eminence among the Greeks and Romans have recourse to this image.

This site's exposition

The ways of Zion do mourn

on Lamentations 1:4-6

The roads to Jerusalem are personified in grief, the ways of Zion mourning because no pilgrims travel them to the solemn feasts, the pilgrim festivals of the Law now attended by no one at all. Priests sigh and virgins are afflicted, the temple's own personnel and its youngest witnesses named together, the roads standing as silent evidence of a calendar broken. Her princes, once the strength of the nation, are now like harts that find no pasture, fugitives too weak to outrun the pursuer, a figure the commentators take from the hunted deer of the wilderness rather than the palace.

The words behind it

16 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • דַּרְכֵ֨י[the] roads of

    darkheiH1870 →707 times

  • צִיּ֜וֹןZion

    tziyonH6726 →154 times

  • אֲבֵל֗וֹת[are] mourning

    ʾavelotH57 →

  • מִבְּלִי֙because not

    mibeliH1097 →

  • בָּאֵ֣י[those who] come

    baeiH935 →2568 times

  • מוֹעֵ֔ד<of> an appointed feast

    moedH4150 →223 times

  • כָּל־all

    kol-H3605 →5413 times

  • שְׁעָרֶ֙יהָ֙gates her

    sheareihaH8179 →374 times

  • שֽׁוֹמֵמִ֔ין[are] desolate

    shomeminH8074 →86 times

  • כֹּהֲנֶ֖יהָpriests her

    kohaneihaH3548 →750 times

  • נֶאֱנָחִ֑ים[are] groaning

    neenachimH584 →13 times

  • בְּתוּלֹתֶ֥יהָvirgins her

    betuloteihaH1330 →50 times

  • נּוּג֖וֹת[are] grieving

    nugotH3013 →8 times

  • וְהִ֥יאand she

    vehi'H1931 →1879 times

  • מַר־it is bitter

    mar-H4843 →

  • לָֽהּ׃ סto her

    lah

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

18 in all, six open

The number beside each verse is how many compiled reference works tie it to this one. The strongest six stand open.

Lamentations 2:6He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.5 worksJoel 1:8–13Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.4 worksJeremiah 9:11“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”4 worksIsaiah 3:26And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.4 worksJeremiah 10:22Listen! The sound of a report is coming— a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.3 worksJeremiah 14:2“Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.3 works
The other 12 cross-references, with their words ▾
Isaiah 24:4–6The earth mourns and withers; the world languishes and fades; the exalted of the earth waste away.3 worksZephaniah 3:18“I will gather those among you who grieve over the appointed feasts, so that you will no longer suffer reproach.3 worksJudges 5:6In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers took the byways.3 worksLamentations 1:21People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me.3 worksLamentations 2:10The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth. The young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.3 worksLeviticus 26:22I will send wild animals against you to rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and reduce your numbers, until your roads lie desolate.3 worksLamentations 5:13Young men toil at millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood.2 worksIsaiah 32:9–14Stand up, you complacent women; listen to me. Give ear to my word, you overconfident daughters.2 worksLamentations 2:19–21Arise, cry out in the night from the first watch of the night. Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who are fainting from hunger on the corner of every street.2 worksJeremiah 33:10–12This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again2 worksMicah 3:12Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.2 worksLamentations 1:18–20The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.2 works

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 14:2

    “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 3:26

      And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.

    • Jeremiah 8:21

      For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed. I mourn; horror has gripped me.

    • 1 Samuel 5:12

      Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.

    • Lamentations 4:8–9

      But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 9:11

    “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 25:2

      Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

    • Isaiah 13:22

      Hyenas will howl in her fortresses and jackals in her luxurious palaces. Babylon’s time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.

    • Jeremiah 10:22

      Listen! The sound of a report is coming— a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 10:22

    Listen! The sound of a report is coming— a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

    it leads to

    • Jeremiah 9:11

      “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Where this verse is studied

2 studies on this verse

About Lamentations

People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Lamentations: the study guide →Read Lamentations 1 →

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament.

Read on in Lamentations 1 →