Lamentations 1:6
What does Lamentations 1:6 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 1:6 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 1:6 means
Zion’s splendor has departed. Her leaders, once symbols of strength, are like exhausted deer with no pasture—skittish, starving, and powerless before pursuit. The verse paints leadership failure in images of nature: princes scattered and faint, unable to rally courage or strategy. The removal of “majesty” signals both the loss of political dignity and the fading of the Lord’s favor that once crowned the city. When the shepherds falter, the flock is exposed. This is the full unraveling of civic order: rulers without strength, enemies with the wind at their backs, and a populace bereft of those who should have stood firm in crisis.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
KJV
King James Version · 1611And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949And all her glory has gone from the daughter of Zion: her rulers have become like harts with no place for food, and they have gone in flight without strength before the attacker.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862And go out from the daughter of Zion doth all her honour, Her princes have been as harts--They have not found pasture, And they go powerless before a pursuer.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Vau. And from the daughter of Sion, all her beauty is departed; her princes are become like rams that find no pastures; and they are gone away without strength before the face of the pursuer.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890And from the daughter of Zion all her splendour is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture; and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
Context
Following the explanation of divine affliction (verse 5), verse 6 shows its results in the collapse of leadership and the departure of Jerusalem’s glory. This prepares for the turn to memory and mockery in verse 7, where the city recalls better days while adversaries gloat. The flow alternates between describing present humiliation and recalling former honor, intensifying the sense of tragic reversal. These depictions continue to set up the confession of sin and shame that comes openly in verse 8 and the prayerful appeals for God to notice their plight in verses 9 and 11.
v.5Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Jehovah hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
v.6This passage
v.7Jerusalem remembereth in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old: When her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and none did help her, The adversaries saw her, they did mock at her desolations.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Ezekiel 11:22
Then did the cherubim lift up their wings, and the wheels were beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.
- Isaiah 4:5
And Jehovah will create over the whole habitation of mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory shall be spread a covering.
- 2 Kings 19:21
This is the word that Jehovah hath spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
- Deuteronomy 28:25
Jehovah will cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them, and shalt flee seven ways before them: and thou shalt be tossed to and from among all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Psalms 96:9
Oh worship Jehovah in holy array: Tremble before him, all the earth.
- Jeremiah 47:3
At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers look not back to their children for feebleness of hands;
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