Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Lamentations 2:20 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 20. 20Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse confronts the LORD with starving women consuming nurtured children and with worship leaders slain in sanctuary.
Read It With
- Lamentations 2:20-22
Read Lamentations 2:20 with 2:20-22. This verse confronts the LORD with starving women consuming nurtured children and with worship leaders slain in sanctuary. The complete unit establishes this movement: Zion confronts God with the siege's most unbearable scenes—starving mothers, dead children, slain worship leaders, indiscriminate street death, and a grotesque reversal of festival gathering—without receiving an answer.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The summons to pray for children becomes a direct accusation that places the moral horror of their deaths before God. Within that movement, this verse confronts the LORD with starving women consuming nurtured children and with worship leaders slain in sanctuary.
Follow the Context
- Zion commands the LORD to behold who has been treated this way.
- She names starving women consuming the children they bore and nurtured.
- Priest, prophet, young, old, women, and men lie slain.
- Terrors replace festival guests and the enemy consumes those Zion raised.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Behold”
In plain language: This verse confronts the LORD with starving women consuming nurtured children and with worship leaders slain in sanctuary.
The most unbearable harms may be brought directly into prayer without blaming those trapped by them.
Why it matters: The wording carries textual, theological, ethical, or pastoral risk requiring its complete unit and stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not condemn starving mothers, sensationalize dead children, or imply siege victims invited atrocity.
What Remains True
The most unbearable harms may be brought directly into prayer without blaming those trapped by them.
How It Can Shape Life
- Use trauma-aware notice and focus response on protection and relief.
Teach It Back
Explain how Lamentations 2:20 contributes to Lamentations 2:20-22. Include the surrounding alphabet stanza, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Lamentations 2:20-22 — Zion Confronts God with Siege AtrocitiesSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The poetic scene may use siege convention, historical memory, or both; its moral horror remains.
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 2:20-22, 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.2.20-Lam.2.22
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 2:20-22
Open source ↗