Verse Lens · Context pointer
Lamentations 3:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse opens the final descent stanza with teeth broken on gravel and the body covered with ashes.
Read It With
- Lamentations 3:13-18
Read Lamentations 3:16 with 3:13-18. This verse opens the final descent stanza with teeth broken on gravel and the body covered with ashes. The complete unit establishes this movement: The afflicted voice moves from arrows inside the body and communal mockery to forced bitterness, broken teeth, ashes, lost peace, forgotten good, and an explicit conclusion that both strength and hope from the LORD are gone.
Why It Needs Context
Read this line with Lamentations 3:13-18. The surrounding alphabet stanza supplies the complete lament movement summarized here: The afflicted voice moves from arrows inside the body and communal mockery to forced bitterness, broken teeth, ashes, lost peace, forgotten good, and an explicit conclusion that both strength and hope from the LORD are gone.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Lamentations 3:13-18 — Piercing Pain, Mockery, Bitterness, and Lost HopeSources used for this context pointer
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 3:13-18, 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.3.13-Lam.3.18
Open source ↗