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Lamentations 3:14

in Lamentations 3

I am a laughingstock to all my people; they mock me in song all day long.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV

ASV

I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.

KJV

I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

This verse in Lamentations 3

Commentary

3 notes on this verse

A commentator

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on Lamentations · Written before 1274.

Third, the delusion of those persons punished is exposed: "I have become the laughing stock of all peoples, the burden of their songs all day long." As elsewhere said: "I have become a laughing stock all the day; every one mocks me." (Jeremiah 20:7). That …

This site's exposition

I was a derision to all my people

on Lamentations 3:14-18

Public shame joins private pain, I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day, the sufferer's grief made into other people's entertainment. He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood gives the affliction a taste, the same wormwood the Law names as the fruit of turning from the covenant, a word the bench hears chosen deliberately. The unit ends at its lowest point, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord, hope named as gone in the man's own words, the floor the chapter's turn will rise from.

The record, by era

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

Jeremiah herein was a type of Messiah. "All my people" (Joh 1:11).

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

On the verses either side of this one

The arrows of His quiver. Arrows that are put into the quiver, called cuivre [in O.F.].
Rashi: France, 1040–1105 · Rashi on Lamentations 3:13:1, via Sefaria, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

7 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.

  • הָיִ֤יתִיI have become

    hayitiH19613559 times

  • שְּׂחֹק֙a laughingstock

    sechokH7814

  • לְכָל־to all

    lekholH36055413 times

  • עַמִּ֔יpeople my

    ʾamiH59711873 times

  • נְגִינָתָ֖םtaunt song their

    neginatamH5058

  • כָּל־all

    kol-H36055413 times

  • הַיּֽוֹם׃the day

    haiyomH31172304 times

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

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

    Psalms 79:4

    We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 80:6

      You make us contend with our neighbors; our enemies mock us.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Psalms 89:41

      All who pass by plunder him; he has become a reproach to his neighbors.

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

  • Through

    Psalms 44:13

    You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 79:4

      We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those around us.

  • Through

    Lamentations 3:63

    When they sit and when they rise, see how they mock me in song.

    it leads to

    • Psalms 139:2

      You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.

    • Job 30:9

      And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

  • Through

    Jeremiah 20:7

    You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.

    it leads to

    • Hosea 9:7

      The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have arrived—let Israel know it. The prophet is called a fool, and the inspired man insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and…

    • Jeremiah 20:9

      If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of…

    • Ezekiel 3:14

      So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the LORD upon me.

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

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.