Devine Scripture

Lamentations 5:8

What does Lamentations 5:8 mean?

A plain-English look at Lamentations 5:8 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.

What Lamentations 5:8 means

“Servants rule over us” paints a world turned upside down. Those with little status—perhaps foreign soldiers, officials, or slaves—now hold sway, and there is no rescuer. The line underscores helplessness: former leaders have fallen, institutions are broken, and the people cannot free themselves. It reflects covenant curses realized—domination by outsiders and loss of independence. By confessing this to God, they acknowledge His sovereignty even over their subjugation. They look beyond human saviors, admitting that escape by their own hand is impossible. The implication is clear: unless Jehovah arises to deliver, they remain under the hand of lesser rulers who show no mercy.

Parallel translations

WEB

World English Bible · 2000

Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

KJV

King James Version · 1611

Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

ASV

American Standard Version · 1901

Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

BBE

Bible in Basic English · 1949

Servants are ruling over us, and there is no one to make us free from their hands.

YLT

Young's Literal Translation · 1862

Servants have ruled over us, A deliverer there is none from their hand.

DRA

Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752

Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand.

DBY

Darby Bible · 1890

Bondmen rule over us: there is no deliverer out of their hand.

Context

After noting inherited consequences, the prayer describes the humiliating reversal of social order. Verse 8 emphasizes the absence of deliverance. The next verse will move to the life-and-death risks of getting food, widening the lens from political subjection to immediate survival threats. The cumulative effect is to display the totality of their need as they approach the turning point in verses 19–21.

v.7Our fathers sinned, and are not; And we have borne their iniquities.

v.8This passage

v.9We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.

Cross references

Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

  • Job 10:7

    Although thou knowest that I am not wicked, And there is none that can deliver out of thy hand?

  • Psalms 7:2

    Lest they tear my soul like a lion, Rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.

  • Isaiah 43:13

    Yea, since the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it?

  • Genesis 9:25

    And he said, Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

  • Nehemiah 2:19

    But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?

  • Nehemiah 5:15

    But the former governors that were before me were chargeable unto the people, and took of them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God.

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