Lamentations 4:10 Meaning and Explanation
“The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The famine grew so dire that even tender mothers were driven to unspeakable acts to survive.
What Does Lamentations 4:10 Mean?
This is perhaps the darkest verse in the book, naming a horror almost too terrible to speak: famine so extreme that 'pitiful women' — compassionate, tender-hearted mothers — were driven to the unthinkable to survive. The phrase 'pitiful women' is heartbreaking, for it insists these were loving mothers, not monsters, brought to this by unbearable starvation.
The verse fulfills the most dire of the ancient warnings about what a desperate siege could bring. The poem records it not for shock but as the ultimate measure of the catastrophe and of the sin that led to it. When a people's rebellion ripens into such suffering, the cost is beyond words. Scripture preserves this verse as a sober witness, so that no reader will ever think sin a trivial thing or judgment a small one.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lamentations 4:10
What does Lamentations 4:10 mean?
The famine grew so dire that even tender mothers were driven to unspeakable acts to survive.