Lamentations 5:3
in Lamentations 5We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.
KJV
We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
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This verse in Lamentations 5
Commentary
6 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Our mothers are as widows - The particle “as” suggests that the whole verse is metaphorical. Our distress and desolation is comparable only to that of fatherless orphans or wives just bereaved of their husbands.
This site's exposition
We have become fatherless orphans
on Lamentations 5:3-4
Verse 3 states the plainest fact of famine and slaughter: “We have become fatherless orphans; our mothers are widows”. Verse 4 measures the loss in trade: “We must buy the water we drink; our wood comes at a price”, the barest needs now sold.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church1 voice
Regarding divine protection Verse 3 declares: "We have become orphans, fatherless;". That is, we are destitute of divine direction, like to a paternal consolation. And: "our mothers are like widows." Since definite security is called for. As the prophet Isaiah asserts: "Therefore the Lord does …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
We - We are all of us without a king, (our common father) we are deprived of thy fatherly protection, and many young children among us are left without an earthly parent.
Our king, who is the father of the country, is cut off; nay, God our Father seems to have forsaken us and cast us off; our mothers, our cities, that were as fruitful mothers in Israel, are now as widows, are as wives whose husbands are dead, destitute of comfort, and exposed to wrong and injury, and this is our reproach; for we who made a figure are now looked on with contempt." 3.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
We are orphans and fatherless,.... In every sense; in a natural sense, their fathers having been cut off by the sword, famine, or pestilence; in a civil sense, their king being taken from them; and in a religious sense, God having forsaken them for their sins: our mothers are as widows; either really so, their husbands being dead; or were as if they had no husbands, they not being able to provide for them, protect and deferred them.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery 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.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| יְתוֹמִ֤ים | yetomim | fatherless ones | H3490 → | |
| הָיִ֙ינוּ֙ | hayinu | we have become | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| וְאֵ֣ין | veein | and there not | H369 → | 789 times |
| אָ֔ב | ʾav | [is] a father | H1 → | |
| אִמֹּתֵ֖ינוּ | ʾimoteinu | mothers our | H517 → | 220 times |
| כְּאַלְמָנֽוֹת׃ | kealmanot | [are] like widows | H490 → |
יְתוֹמִ֤יםfatherless ones
yetomimH3490 →
הָיִ֙ינוּ֙we have become
hayinuH1961 →3559 times
וְאֵ֣יןand there not
veeinH369 →789 times
אָ֔ב[is] a father
ʾavH1 →
אִמֹּתֵ֖ינוּmothers our
ʾimoteinuH517 →220 times
כְּאַלְמָנֽוֹת׃[are] like widows
kealmanotH490 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach 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
Hosea 14:3Assyria will not save us, nor will we ride on horses. We will never again say, ‘Our gods!’ to the work of our own hands. For in You the fatherless find compassion.”
it leads to
- Psalms 10:14
But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
- Psalms 68:5
A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.
- Isaiah 31:1
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy…
- John 14:18
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
- Hosea 5:13
When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound, then Ephraim turned to Assyria and sent to the great king. But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.
- Psalms 10:14
Through
Exodus 22:24My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will become widows and your children will be fatherless.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 15:8
I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men. I will suddenly bring upon them anguish and…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Psalms 109:9
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
- Jeremiah 15:8
Through
Jeremiah 18:21Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck…
it leads to
- Psalms 109:9–20
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
- Psalms 109:9–20
Where this verse is studied
About Lamentations
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.