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Lamentations 2:10-13, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Lamentations 2:10-13
Silent Mourners and Starving Children
Elders sit silent while children ask for grain
The 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. After institutions collapse, the poem moves to bodies.
The poet's eyes fail with tears, his bowels are troubled, his liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of his people, because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets. They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom. Corn and wine here are staple provision, not adult indulgence by infants.
The sea is named because no comparison can heal
What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?
The question is lament, not a ban on food, medicine, or accompaniment. No easy comparison is adequate. Mothers are not blamed for food that siege and violence made unavailable.
How this should shape us
Prioritize children and caregivers in a crisis. Offer food, protection, and presence, and do not demand meaning-making while survival needs remain acute. Do not use starving children as spectacle.
Teach it back
Explain Lamentations 2:10-13 in your own words. Include its poetic movement, one material uncertainty, one vulnerable person or group centered by the text, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Anatomical language, ages, and the precise scale of hunger cannot be reconstructed clinically. The text unmistakably describes children losing life under siege conditions and adults unable to comfort them.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Lamentations 2:10-13, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, alphabet sequence, person and number, repeated vocabulary, and translation questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lam.xml, OSIS Lam.2.10-Lam.2.13
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1559-1565, translation and notes on 2:10-13
Supports: Five-poem form, historical horizon, voice, judgment, Daughter Zion, chapter 3, famine, hope alternatives, and the unresolved ending.
Joyce, 'Lamentations,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 530-531, discussion of poem 2 and 2:10-13
Supports: Trauma-informed analysis of voice, embodiment, humiliation, divine and human agency, children, famine, resistance, memory, and fragile hope.
Yansen, Daughter Zion's Trauma, printed pp. 154-201 and 203-245 on trauma poetics, Daughter Zion, famine, children, judgment, protest, and resistance; applied to 2:10-13
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
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 2:10-13, 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.2.10-Lam.2.13
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. 1559-1565, translation and notes on 2:10-13
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Lamentations
Paul M. Joyce
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Five-poem form, historical horizon, voice, judgment, Daughter Zion, chapter 3, famine, hope alternatives, and the unresolved ending.
Exact location: Joyce, 'Lamentations,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 530-531, discussion of poem 2 and 2:10-13
Open source ↗doctoral dissertation and trauma reading
Daughter Zion's Trauma: Reading Lamentations with Insights from Trauma Studies
James Washington Sydgrave Yansen, Jr.
Boston University School of Theology / OpenBU, 2016
Supports: Trauma-informed analysis of voice, embodiment, humiliation, divine and human agency, children, famine, resistance, memory, and fragile hope.
Exact location: Yansen, Daughter Zion's Trauma, printed pp. 154-201 and 203-245 on trauma poetics, Daughter Zion, famine, children, judgment, protest, and resistance; applied to 2:10-13
Open source ↗