Lamentations 2:11 Meaning and Explanation
“Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The poet's own body is wracked with weeping at the ruin of his people, above all at children fainting in the streets.
What Does Lamentations 2:11 Mean?
The voice shifts to the poet himself, and his grief is bodily and total. His eyes fail from weeping, his inward parts churn, his very 'liver is poured upon the earth' — an idiom for an emotion so violent it feels like the insides spilling out. He does not observe the suffering from a distance; it breaks his own body.
What undoes him most is the sight of the little ones: children and nursing infants swooning from hunger in the open streets. There is no suffering harder to witness than that of the smallest and most helpless. The poet lets us feel that this is where grief grows unbearable. To love a people is to be wounded by their wounds, and the deepest wound here is the wasting of the children.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lamentations 2:11
What does Lamentations 2:11 mean?
The poet's own body is wracked with weeping at the ruin of his people, above all at children fainting in the streets.