Lamentations 3:47
What does Lamentations 3:47 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 3:47 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 3:47 means
They describe their condition with stark words: fear has become their environment, pits their traps, devastation and destruction their reality. This summarizes the calamities of siege, fall, and exile. Life feels unsafe and unstable at every turn. The verse acknowledges that the consequences of sin are not theoretical; they are lived dangers and losses. Admitting this is part of true lament, which names the ruin without softening it, even as it prepares to cry out for God’s compassionate gaze to change their story.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction.
KJV
King James Version · 1611Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949Fear and deep waters have come on us, wasting and destruction.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862Fear and a snare hath been for us, Desolation and destruction.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Phe. Prophecy is become to us a fear, and a snare, and destruction.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and ruin.
Context
This verse concludes a subsection of humiliation and terror (vv. 45–47). Next, verses 48–51 will pour out tears over the people’s destruction, with grief continuing unceasingly until Jehovah looks from heaven. This movement from terror to tears marks a turn from description to intercession by sorrow, appealing to God’s pity.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Jeremiah 48:43
Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith Jehovah.
- Luke 21:35
for so shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth.
- Lamentations 1:13
From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them; He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
- Lamentations 1:4
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
- Lamentations 2:1
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, And hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
- Isaiah 51:19
These two things are befallen thee, who shall bemoan thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort thee?
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