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Read the Bible

The NET Bible®

Lamentations 3:16

ו (Vav)

He ground my teeth in gravel; he trampled me in the dust.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Despondency;   Thompson Chain Reference - Teeth of the Wicked;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Judgments;  

Dictionaries:

- Holman Bible Dictionary - Gravel;   Lamentations, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Lamentations, Book of;   Wormwood;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Ashes;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Teeth;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Ashes;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Gravel;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Ashes;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Artisans;   Exilarch;   Hananiah (ḥanina) B. Teradion;   ḥiyya Bar Abba;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
He ground my teeth with graveland made me cower in the dust.
Hebrew Names Version
He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
King James Version
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
English Standard Version
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
New American Standard Bible
He has also made my teeth grind with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.
New Century Version
He broke my teeth with gravel and trampled me into the dirt.
Amplified Bible
He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has [covered me with ashes and] made me cower in the dust.
World English Bible
He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
Geneva Bible (1587)
He hath also broken my teeth with stones, and hath couered me with ashes.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.
Legacy Standard Bible
He has broken my teeth with gravel;He has made me cower in the dust.
Berean Standard Bible
He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust.
Contemporary English Version
He made me eat gravel and rubbed me in the dirt.
Complete Jewish Bible
He has broken my teeth with gravel and pressed me down into ashes.
Darby Translation
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
Easy-to-Read Version
He pushed my teeth into rocky ground. He pushed me into the dirt.
George Lamsa Translation
He has broken my teeth with a stone, he has covered me with ashes.
Good News Translation
He rubbed my face in the ground and broke my teeth on rocks.
Lexham English Bible
He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.
Literal Translation
And He broke my teeth with gravel; He has covered me in the ashes.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
He hath smytten my teth in peces, & rolled me in the dust.
American Standard Version
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes.
Bible in Basic English
By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath made me to wallow in ashes.
King James Version (1611)
He hath also broken my teeth with grauell stones, hee hath couered me with ashes.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
He hath smitten my teeth in peeces with stones, and roulled me in the dust.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And he has dashed out my teeth with gravel, he has fed me with ashes.
English Revised Version
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Vau. He brak at noumbre my teeth; he fedde me with aische.
Update Bible Version
He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
Webster's Bible Translation
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
New King James Version
He has also broken my teeth with gravel, And covered me with ashes.
New Living Translation
He has made me chew on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust.
New Life Bible
He has broken my teeth with rocks, and has covered me with dust.
New Revised Standard
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And he hath crushed, with gravel-stones, my teeth, hath made me cower in ashes;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Vau. And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes.
Revised Standard Version
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
Young's Literal Translation
And He breaketh with gravel my teeth, He hath covered me with ashes.
THE MESSAGE
He ground my face into the gravel. He pounded me into the mud. I gave up on life altogether. I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause."

Contextual Overview

1

א (Alef)

I am the man who has experienced affliction from the rod of his wrath. 2 He drove me into captivity and made me walk in darkness and not light. 3 He repeatedly attacks me, he turns his hand against me all day long. 4

ב (Bet)

He has made my mortal skin waste away; he has broken my bones. 5 He has besieged and surrounded me with bitter hardship. 6 He has made me reside in deepest darkness like those who died long ago. 7

ג (Gimel)

He has walled me in so that I cannot get out; he has weighted me down with heavy prison chains. 8 Also, when I cry out desperately for help, he has shut out my prayer. 9 He has blocked every road I take with a wall of hewn stones; he has made every path impassable. 10

ד (Dalet)

To me he is like a bear lying in ambush, like a hidden lion stalking its prey.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

broken: Job 4:10, Psalms 3:7, Psalms 58:6

gravel: Proverbs 20:17, Matthew 7:9, Luke 11:11

he hath: Psalms 102:9

covered me with ashes: or, rolled me in the ashes, Job 2:8, Jeremiah 6:26, Jonah 3:6

Reciprocal: Isaiah 51:20 - full Nahum 3:6 - I will cast

Cross-References

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Is it really true that God said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard'?"
Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:7
Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:8
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.
Genesis 3:9
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"
Genesis 3:10
The man replied, "I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."
Genesis 3:11
And the Lord God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
Genesis 3:12
The man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."
Genesis 3:16
To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you."
Genesis 3:17
But to Adam he said, "Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,' cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones,.... With gritty bread, such as is made of corn ground with new millstones, the grit of which mixes with the flour; or with stony bread, as Seneca n calls a benefit troublesome to others; with bread that has little stones mixed with it, by eating of which the teeth are broken, as Jarchi observes: the phrase signifies afflictions and troubles, which are very grievous and disagreeable, like gravel in the mouth, as sin in its effects often proves, Proverbs 20:17;

he hath covered me with ashes; as mourners used to be; the word rendered "covered" is only used in this place. Aben Ezra renders it, "he hath defiled me"; and Jarchi and Ben Melech, from the Misnah, "he hath pressed me", without measure; see Luke 6:38; and so the Targum,

"he hath humbled me:''

but the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it, "he hath fed me with ashes"; which version is defended by Castel o and Noldius p, and best agrees with the preceding clause; the sense is the same with Psalms 102:9.

n "Pane lapidoso", Seneca De Beneficiis, l. 7. o Lexic. Polyglott, col. 1791. p Concordant. Ebr. Part. p. 168. No. 763.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Having dwelt upon the difficulties which hemmed in his path, he now shows that there are dangers attending upon escape.

Lamentations 3:11

The meaning is, “God, as a lion, lying in wait, has made me turn aside from my path, but my flight was in vain, for springing upon me from His ambush lie has torn me in pieces.”

Desolate - Or, astonied, stupefied that he cannot flee. The word is a favorite one with Jeremiah.

Lamentations 3:12

This new simile arises out of the former one, the idea of a hunter being suggested by that of the bear and lion. When the hunter comes, it is not to save him.

Lamentations 3:14

Metaphor is dropped, and Jeremiah shows the real nature of the arrows which rankled in him so deeply.

Lamentations 3:15

“He hath” filled me to the full with bitterness, i. e. bitter sorrows Job 9:18.

Lamentations 3:16

Broken my teeth with gravel stones - His bread was so filled with grit that in eating it his teeth were broken.

Lamentations 3:17

Prosperity - literally, as in the margin, i. e. I forgot what good was, I lost the very idea of what it meant.

Lamentations 3:18

The prophet reaches the verge of despair. But by struggling against it he reaches at length firm ground.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 16. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones — What a figure to express disgust, pain, and the consequent incapacity of taking food for the support of life; a man, instead of bread, being obliged to eat small pebbles till all his teeth are broken to pieces by endeavouring to grind them. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. The next figure is not less expressive.

He hath covered me with ashes. — הכפישני באפר hichphishani beepher, "he hath plunged me into the dust." To be thrown into a mass or bed of perfect dust, where the eyes are blinded by it, the ears stopped, and the mouth and lungs filled at the very first attempt to respire after having been thrown into it-what a horrible idea of suffocation and drowning! One can scarcely read this without feeling a suppression of breath, or a stricture upon the lungs! Did ever man paint sorrow like this man?


 
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