Lamentations 2:21

The corpses of people of all ages lie in the streets; there are even corpses of young men and young women who have been killed by our enemies’ swords. Because you were very angry, you caused them to be killed; you have slaughtered them without pitying them at all.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

In Context

20Yahweh, look, and think about it! Have you ever [RHQ] caused people to suffer like this before? It is certainly not right that [RHQ] women are eating the flesh of their own children, the children whom they have always taken care of! It is not right that [RHQ] priests and prophets are being killed in your own temple!

22You summoned our enemies to attack us from every direction, as though you were calling/inviting them to come to a feast. At that time when you showed that you were very angry, no one escaped. Our enemies murdered our little children, ones whom we took care of and reared/brought up.

Read all of Lamentations 2

Cross References

Joshua 6:21They killed [IDM] every living thing in the city—men and women, young people and old people, even cattle and sheep and donkeys.

2 Chronicles 36:17He incited the king of Babylonia to attack Judah with his army. They killed the young men with their swords, even in the temple. They did not spare/pity anyone, young men or young women or old people. God enabled the army of Nebuchadnezzar to kill all of them.

Psalms 78:62Because he was angry with his people, he allowed them to be killed [MTY] by their enemies.

Jeremiah 4:31It is as though I already hear the people in Jerusalem crying very loudly, like [SIM] a woman cries when she is giving birth to her first child; she gasps for breath and pleads for someone to help her. It is as though Jerusalem is crying, “Something terrible is happening to me! They are about to murder me!”

Jeremiah 9:20You women, listen to what Yahweh says [MTY]. Pay attention to his words [DOU]. Teach your daughters to wail. Teach each other how to sing funeral songs,

Jeremiah 11:22So the Commander of the armies of angels said about them, “I will punish them. Their young men will be killed in wars, and their children will die because they have no food.

Matthew Henry on Lamentations 2:11-22

Complicated Sorrows. ( b. c. 588.) 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground. 11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city. 12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Lamentations 2:21