Lamentations 3:61-63, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Lamentations 3:61-63
Reproach, Schemes, and a Sufferer Made into a Song
The speaker asks the LORD to attend to constant reproach, hostile planning, and a social world in which enemies turn his suffering into their song from sitting down to rising up.
Why this sits here
The legal appeal expands its evidence before the final acrostic stanza asks for recompense.
What helps us understand it
Later material that clarifies it
Lamentations 3:64-66The triple acrostic moves from evidence of harassment to a petition that asks God for recompense.
Lamentations 3:64 in Lamentations 3:64-66 is the reviewed hinge that connects the two units.
The mock-song describes sustained humiliation and may echo 3:14. It does not make ridicule trivial or justify counter-harassment.
How the passage moves
The LORD is said to have heard reproach and schemes.
Hostile lips and devices remain active all day.
The speaker asks God to behold the enemies' ordinary routine.
The sufferer has become their music or taunt song.
What the author is communicating
A needed correction
Reading Lamentations 3:61-63 inside its complete poem and the five-poem collection rules out these harmful uses:
This unit does not minimize ridicule as harmless speech when it sustains intimidation or dehumanization.
The appeal does not authorize doxxing, harassment, or retaliatory mockery.
Enemy language does not identify a modern people or social group.
What remains true
Communities should treat sustained humiliation as a real harm worthy of witness and protection.
How this should shape us
How should this shape us today?
Document patterns of harassment, protect targeted people, and refuse to make someone's pain into entertainment.
Teach it back
Explain Lamentations 3:61-63 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.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Movement 1
The LORD is said to have heard reproach and schemes.
Movement 2
Hostile lips and devices remain active all day.
Movement 3
The speaker asks God to behold the enemies' ordinary routine.
Movement 4
The sufferer has become their music or taunt song.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
reproach
The noun names public disgrace directed at the speaker.
How certain? probablescheme / muttering
The term can describe hostile plotting or whispered speech.
How certain? probablesong / music
The sufferer is turned into entertainment or a taunt.
How certain? probableWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
587/586 BCE horizon and dating limits
Conquered and displaced people could face mockery, but no audience or performance setting is named.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
KJV wording and material alternatives
KJV 'device' and 'musick' retain older spelling and broad senses. 'Their sitting down, and their rising up' means the full course of daily life, not merely posture.
How certain? probableEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Lamentations within Israel's Scriptures
Taunt and reproach occur in many laments. Bringing them before God resists their power without authorizing reciprocal dehumanization.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Responsible canonical connections
Taunt and reproach occur in many laments. Bringing them before God resists their power without authorizing reciprocal dehumanization. Responsible canonical comparison must preserve this unit's speaker, poetic form, and historical horizon.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
Textual, grammatical, and poetic care
Whether literal songs, taunts, or a metaphor for continual ridicule are intended cannot be fixed. The continuous social humiliation is clear.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Whether literal songs, taunts, or a metaphor for continual ridicule are intended cannot be fixed. The continuous social humiliation is clear.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
God is addressed as one who hears not only physical harm but reproach and hostile schemes.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
This unit contributes to the collection's movement through witness, protest, confession, prayer, fragile hope, and unresolved grief: The speaker asks the LORD to attend to constant reproach, hostile planning, and a social world in which enemies turn his suffering into their song from sitting down to rising up.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
This unit does not minimize ridicule as harmless speech when it sustains intimidation or dehumanization.
One vivid judgment or shame image can seem easier to repeat than the poem's full voice and human cost.
Humiliation is not incidental to violence; the speaker presents constant ridicule and plotting as evidence in the appeal for justice.
Communities should treat sustained humiliation as a real harm worthy of witness and protection.
This unit does not minimize ridicule as harmless speech when it sustains intimidation or dehumanization.
The appeal does not authorize doxxing, harassment, or retaliatory mockery.
A single confession or hope line can be detached from protest, agency, and unresolved suffering.
Humiliation is not incidental to violence; the speaker presents constant ridicule and plotting as evidence in the appeal for justice.
Communities should treat sustained humiliation as a real harm worthy of witness and protection.
The appeal does not authorize doxxing, harassment, or retaliatory mockery.
Enemy language does not identify a modern people or social group.
Ancient enemy and body language can be transferred carelessly into a modern target or rule.
Humiliation is not incidental to violence; the speaker presents constant ridicule and plotting as evidence in the appeal for justice.
Communities should treat sustained humiliation as a real harm worthy of witness and protection.
Enemy language does not identify a modern people or social group.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Lamentations 3:61-63, 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.3.61-Lam.3.63
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1565-1571, translation and notes on 3:61-63
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. 531-532, discussion of poem 3 and 3:61-63
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. 111-151 and 203-245 on acrostic structure, shifting voices, affliction, judgment, protest, and communal survival; applied to 3:61-63
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 3:61-63, 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.3.61-Lam.3.63
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. 1565-1571, translation and notes on 3:61-63
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. 531-532, discussion of poem 3 and 3:61-63
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. 111-151 and 203-245 on acrostic structure, shifting voices, affliction, judgment, protest, and communal survival; applied to 3:61-63
Open source ↗