Lamentations 2:10
What does Lamentations 2:10 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 2:10 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 2:10 means
The elders sit on the ground in silence, dust on their heads and sackcloth on their bodies—a public sign of mourning and humiliation. The virgins, once symbols of joy and future hope, hang their heads to the ground. The verse shows grief cutting across generations and roles: leaders are speechless; the young are shamed. In a culture where elders guided and maidens anticipated life, both are brought low. Mourning is not staged but genuine; dignity has collapsed alongside walls. This communal posture confesses that words fail, strength is gone, and there is no quick path out of sorrow or easy explanation for the ruin.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they 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.
KJV
King James Version · 1611The 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.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they 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.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949The responsible men of the daughter of Zion are seated on the earth without a word; they have put dust on their heads, they are clothed in haircloth: the heads of the virgins of Jerusalem are bent down to the earth.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862Sit on the earth--keep silent do the elders of the daughter of Zion, They have caused dust to go up on their head, They have girded on sackcloth, Put down to the earth their head have the virgins of Jerusalem.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Jod. The ancients of the daughter of Sion sit upon the ground, they have held their peace: they have sprinkled their heads with dust, they are girded with haircloth, the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they keep silence; they have cast dust upon their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their head to the ground.
Context
After describing civic and spiritual collapse (v. 9), verse 10 displays its human face: elders and virgins alike in visible mourning. This sets the stage for Jeremiah’s personal lament in verse 11, where his body breaks under grief. The flow transitions from the external wreckage to internal pain. Understanding this helps the reader feel the movement from citywide devastation to intimate agony. The sorrow will soon focus on the most vulnerable—the young children—deepening the lament and inviting compassion before the poem returns to confront the role of false prophets and gloating enemies.
v.9Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.
v.10This passage
v.11Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Isaiah 47:1
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
- Lamentations 5:12
Princes were hanged up by their hand: The faces of elders were not honored.
- Isaiah 47:5
Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called The mistress of kingdoms.
- Joel 1:8
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
- Amos 8:13
In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst.
- Amos 8:3
And the songs of the temple shall be wailings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence.
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