Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Lamentations 1:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse explains the city's tears through absent comfort, desolate children, and enemy victory.
Read It With
- Lamentations 1:12-17
Read Lamentations 1:16 with 1:12-17. This verse explains the city's tears through absent comfort, desolate children, and enemy victory. The complete unit establishes this movement: Daughter Zion asks witnesses to look at unmatched sorrow and describes divine judgment through bodily images of fire, trapping, burden, collapse, crushed young people, and a winepress; tears and outstretched hands receive no comfort.
Why This Verse Appears Here
After two brief appeals for God to see, the personified sufferer now controls the description and insists that onlookers see what theological shorthand can conceal. Within that movement, this verse explains the city's tears through absent comfort, desolate children, and enemy victory.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“For these things I weep”
In plain language: This verse explains the city's tears through absent comfort, desolate children, and enemy victory.
Tears are a proportionate response when comfort and children are gone.
Why it matters: The wording marks this verse's distinct contribution to the poem.
How certain? strongWhat Remains True
Tears are a proportionate response when comfort and children are gone.
How It Can Shape Life
- Bring stable care to bereaved families without prescribing the duration of grief.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Lamentations 1:12-17 — Daughter Zion Names the Assault and Absent ComfortSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Exact location: Lamentations 1:12-17, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Lamentations
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, alphabet sequence, person and number, repeated vocabulary, and translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lam.xml, OSIS Lam.1.12-Lam.1.17
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Lamentations with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1551-1558, translation and notes on 1:12-17
Open source ↗