Lamentations 5:13 Meaning and Explanation

'They took the young men to grind.' The young men, who should be in the strength of their years, are forced to labor at the grinding mill, work usually given to slaves or beasts. Their vigor is spent in degrading toil under their captors. The flower of the nation's strength is bent to servile labor.

'The children fell under the wood.' The children stagger and collapse under loads of wood too heavy for them, forced to carry burdens beyond their strength. From the young men to the little children, all are pressed into crushing labor. The verse completes the picture of a people enslaved across every age, the strong and the small alike broken under forced burdens. It is the cruel reduction of God's people to beasts of burden in the land of their captivity.