Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Lamentations 5:7 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 7. 7Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse distinguishes ancestors who sinned and died from descendants bearing their iniquities or consequences.
Read It With
- Lamentations 5:7-10
Read Lamentations 5:7 with 5:7-10. This verse distinguishes ancestors who sinned and died from descendants bearing their iniquities or consequences. The complete unit establishes this movement: The community names consequences inherited from ancestors, humiliating subjugation, dangerous attempts to obtain bread, and bodies burning and darkened by severe famine.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Material dependence deepens into intergenerational consequence, domination, lethal food insecurity, and bodily famine before the poem names sexual violence. Within that movement, this verse distinguishes ancestors who sinned and died from descendants bearing their iniquities or consequences.
Follow the Context
- Ancestors' sins and deaths are distinguished from descendants bearing iniquities or consequences.
- Low-status rulers dominate and no deliverer appears.
- Bread is obtained at risk of life because of wilderness violence.
- Famine heats and darkens the skin like an oven.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Our fathers have sinned”
In plain language: This verse distinguishes ancestors who sinned and died from descendants bearing their iniquities or consequences.
Consequences can be inherited without making guilt biologically transferable.
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 blame descendants for everything ancestors did or treat ancestry as personal moral guilt.
What Remains True
Consequences can be inherited without making guilt biologically transferable.
How It Can Shape Life
- Repair inherited harms while judging persons by their own conduct.
Teach It Back
Explain how Lamentations 5:7 contributes to Lamentations 5:7-10. Include the surrounding alphabet stanza, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Lamentations 5:7-10 — Inherited Consequences, Subjugation, and FamineSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The term avon can include guilt and borne consequence; verse 16 later adds present communal confession.
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 5:7-10, 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.5.7-Lam.5.10
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. 1575-1577, translation and notes on 5:7-10
Open source ↗