Lamentations 3:16
What does Lamentations 3:16 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 3:16 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 3:16 means
Having one’s teeth broken with gravel portrays painful humiliation, perhaps the gritty, degrading realities of siege and ruin. Being covered with ashes is the posture of mourning and shame. The sufferer does not minimize how debasing judgment has been. This is not merely inner sorrow; it is embodied degradation. When God’s hand is heavy, even daily necessities become harsh and honor is laid low. By bringing this to speech before Jehovah, the sufferer models how honest lament can be faithful—naming the pain without denying God’s rule, setting the stage for repentance and renewed trust.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes.
KJV
King James Version · 1611He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862And He breaketh with gravel my teeth, He hath covered me with ashes.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Vau. And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
Context
The images reach deep into bodily experience: bitterness has become tangible and humiliating. Verses 17–18 will now express the conclusion the sufferer feels forced to: peace and prosperity are gone, and hope in Jehovah seems perished. This bleak endpoint is essential for the narrative arc, because the next movement (vv. 19–24) will not come from circumstance but from deliberate remembrance of God’s character.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Psalms 58:6
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.
- Jonah 3:6
And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
- Jeremiah 6:26
O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us.
- Matthew 7:9
Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone;
- Psalms 102:9
For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping,
- Luke 11:11
And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent?
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