I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
Parallel Translations
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I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
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I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.
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I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Lamentations 3:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 20:7 Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me.
- Lamentations 3:63 You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
- Psalms 22:6-7 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,
- Nehemiah 4:2-4 He spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, since they are burned?” Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, “What they are building, if a fox climbed up it, he would break down their stone wall.” “Hear, our God; for we are despised. Turn back their reproach on their own head. Give them up for a plunder in a land of captivity.
- Job 30:1-9 “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief; So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles . They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land. “Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
- Psalms 35:15-16 But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease. Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.
- Psalms 44:13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.
- Psalms 69:11-12 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.
- Psalms 79:4 We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.
- Psalms 123:3-4 Have mercy on us, Yahweh, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.
- Psalms 137:3 For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
- Jeremiah 48:27 For wasn’t Israel a derision to you? Was he found among thieves? For as often as you speak of him, you shake your head.
- Matthew 27:39-44 Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” The robbers also who were crucified with him cast on him the same reproach.
- 1 Corinthians 4:9-13 For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor. Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet again complains of the reproaches to which…
The Prophet again complains of the reproaches to which God had exposed the Jews. We have said that of all evils the most grievous is reproach, and experience teaches us that sorrow is greatly embittered when scoffs and taunts are added to it; for he who silently bears the most grievous sorrows, becomes broken in heart when he finds himself contumeliously treated. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet again amplifies the miseries of the people, because they were exposed to the scoffs of all men. But it may seem a strange thing that the Jews were derided by their own people. This is the reason why some think that the Prophet complains of his own private evils, and that he does not represent the whole people or the public condition of the Church. But it may also be said in reply, that the Prophet does not mean that the people were derided by themselves, which could not be; but it is the same as though he had said, that their state was so disgraceful, that while they looked on one another, they had a reason for taunting, if this their condition was allowed to continue.
In short, the Prophet does not mean what was actually done, but he simply complains that their calamity was liable to all kinds of reproaches, so that any one looking on Jerusalem might justly deride such a disgraceful spectacle. And it was, as we have said, a most equitable reward, for they had not ceased to reproach God. Then rendered to them was what they had deserved, when God loaded them in turn with dishonor.
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He afterwards adds, that he was their song, that is, of derision; for it is a confirmation of the former clause, and the same complaint is also formal in Job. He says that he was their song daily or all the day. This constancy, as it has been said, proved more clearly the grievousness of the evil.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lam 3:14 I was a derision to all my…
Lam 3:14 I was a derision to all my people; [and] their song all the day.
Ver. 14. I was a derision, to all my people.] Or, To all peoples. Our Saviour suffered all this and much more for us.
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And their song all the day.] Or, Their lute, or kit, whom they played on at pleasure, and desired no better sport.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Though some think the prophet speaks this of himself,…
Though some think the prophet speaks this of himself, yet, considering he hath all along spoken in the name of the people, it is not probable, which makes a difficulty, how the people could be a derision to themselves? It seemeth therefore ill translated, and that it should have been,
I was a derision to all people, leaving out my, that is, to all foreigners, to whom the Jews were made a derision and a hissing; there only wants the last letter in עמי and it is well observed by the learned author of the English Annotations, that the like defect is to be found, as to the same word, 2Sa 22:41, compared with Psa 18:43, so that is not a pronoun affix, (upon which supposal our translators go,) but one of the letters that form the plural number, the other being left out, and צמי put for יזמים.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain I was a derision to all my people,.... So…
I was a derision to all my people,.... So Jeremiah was to the people of the Jews, and especially to his townsmen, the men of Anathoth, Jer 20:7; but if he represents the body of the people, others must be intended; for they could not be a derision to themselves. The Targum renders it, to the spoilers of my people; that is, either the wicked among themselves, or the Chaldeans; and Aben Ezra well observes, that "ammi" is put for "ammim", the people; and so is to be understood of all the people round about them, the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, that laughed at their destruction; though some interpret it of the wicked among the Jews, to whom the godly were a derision; or of those who had been formerly subject to the Jews, and so their people, though not now:
and their song all the day; beating on their tabrets, and striking their harps, for joy; for the word (l) used signifies not vocal, but instrumental music; of such usage of the Messiah, see Psa 69:12.
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(l) a "pulsare istrumentum musicum".
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lam 3:14-19. I was a derision to all my…
Lam 3:14-19. I was a derision to all my people — To all the wicked among them, who made themselves merry with the prophet’s griefs and the public judgments; and their song all the day — Hebrew, נגינתם, their instrument of music. The word, says Blaney, “is commonly rendered their song; but I rather think it means a subject upon which they played, as upon a musical instrument, for their diversion.” He hath filled me with bitterness — A bitter sense of these calamities. God has access to the spirit, and can so imbitter it, as thereby to imbitter all enjoyments; as when the stomach is foul, whatever is eaten becomes acid in it. He hath made me drunken with wormwood — That is, so intoxicated me with the sense of my afflictions, that I know not what to say or do. He hath broken my teeth with gravel- stones — Hath mingled gravel with my bread, so that my teeth are broken with it, and what I eat is neither pleasant nor nourishing. He hath covered me with ashes — As mourners were wont to be; or, as some render הכפישׁני אפר, he hath laid me low, or made me wallow, in ashes, namely, because of great sorrow and grief. These expressions imply the height of misery; that he received no comfort or refreshment from any thing. I said, My strength, my hope is gone — I even began to despair of God’s mercy; remembering my affliction — Reflecting on all the miseries and hardships I had suffered. Without doubt it was his infirmity to think and speak thus, (Psa 77:10,) for with God there is everlasting strength, and he is his people’s never-failing hope, whatever they may suspect to the contrary.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Song. True prophets were derided on account of impostors,…
Song. True prophets were derided on account of impostors, and because of their declarations were unpleasant, &c., chap. xvii. 15., and Ezechiel xii. 22.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain (Jer 20:7).
(Jer 20:7).
their song-- (Psa 69:12). Jeremiah herein was a type of Messiah. "All my people" (Joh 1:11).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 14. My people — “There is no reason, but…
14. My people — “There is no reason, but the contrary, for changing (with Ewald) ‘my people’ into peoples.” — R. PAYNE SMITH, in the Speaker’s Commentary. So also Keil, Nagelsbach, Gerlach, and others.
That even these fearful judgments, so clearly foretold and fully identified as from God, did not subdue and turn the people from their obstinacy and rebellion, and bring them to see the prophet in his true character, is sufficiently evident from Jer_41:1, etc., Jer_43:2, and numerous other passages. In the case of such as Jeremiah the bitterness of personal hate and persecution was added to the common burden of sorrow and disappointment.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 14. a derision] See on Jer_20:7 f., and cp.…
14. a derision] See on Jer_20:7 f., and cp. Job_12:4; Job_30:1-9; Psa_69:12.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (14) I was a derision.—The personal experience of the…
(14) I was a derision.—The personal experience of the prophet breaks through the succession of imagery. The arrows that pierced to the quick were the taunts of the mockers who derided him (Jer_20:7). “Their song.” (Comp. Job_30:9.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain A derision to all my people. If the text-reading…
A derision to all my people. If the text-reading is correct, these are the words of Jeremiah (or one like Jeremiah), describing the ill return accorded to his friendly admonitions. But the Massora mention Psa_144:2 2Sa_22:44 Lam_3:14, as passages in which "my people" is used, whereas we should expect "peoples." The Syriac Version of our passage actually translates "to all peoples," and the prefixed "all" certainly favours the plural, and so, in a far higher degree, does the view we have been led to adopt of the speaker of this Lamentation (see Introduction). The correction ("ammim for "ammi) has been received by Archbishop Seeker, by Ewald, and by J. Olshausen. Their song. A reminiscence of Job_30:9.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Lam_3:14. The figure is hardly changed. Perhaps a laughing-stock…
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
Lam_3:14. The figure is hardly changed. Perhaps a laughing-stock to all my people, their song all the day, may be regarded as the shaft which went to the quick. Jeremiah calls a deceiving tongue a deadly arrow (Jer_9:8). They who should have stood by him, as partaking of the same afflictions, hurled at him bolts of ridicule in jaunty songs. Another reading ascribes the mocking to all peoples, not to his fellow-countrymen.
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Lam_3:15. The nutriment and comfort which I needed were replaced by adversities which I endured to the utmost extent bearable. He has filled me with bitternesses—different kinds of sufferings—and sated me with wormwood.
(ו) Lam_3:16. In respect to means of nourishment, I have been still further exasperated. Also he has broken my teeth with gravel; either that which was chewed was full of gritty sand, or for bread he had stones given him. A strange work for the Father! He has covered me with ashes, I am one who mourneth in bitterness.
Lam_3:17. Notwithstanding all my afflictions, I might have been calm and hopeful, but the culminating point of all I have to sustain is the conviction that I am put far from God. Is it not a piteous condition which may extort complaint of Thyself? Thou hast cast off my soul from peace. So dense is this outer darkness, that any recollection of ever being in comfort has faded away, I forget good.
HOMILETICS
COMPLEX PHASES OF DISTRESS
(Lam_3:14-17)
I. The sufferer is the subject of ridicule. “I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day” (Lam_3:14). Dropping the use of metaphor for the nonce, the prophet plainly indicates in these words what the arrows were that pierced him to the quick. They were the darts of ridicule, sharpened with envy and poisoned with rancour—a ridicule all the keener as coming from his own people, and revealing the base treachery that had been all along cherished under the mask of professed friendship. It is a deep wound to a sensitive heart to discover the fickleness of perverse human nature. The very people who smile upon and flatter us in our prosperity are the first to curl the lip of scorn and to join those who make sport over our misfortunes. The idol of the crowd to-day may be the execration of the crowd to-morrow. It is a part of the suffering of the unfaithful to have to endure the contempt of God and man, and the sting of the distress is the consciousness that it is self-induced and richly deserved. Where shall he look for sympathy and help? Not from man. His only refuge is in God.
II. The sufferer is satiated with pain and sunk in abject humiliation. “He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath covered me with ashes” (Lam_3:15-16). He is as one glutted with bitter food and stupified with nauseous drinks. An Arabic poet describes a man grievously afflicted as “a pounder of wormwood”. His food is so mingled with the grit of the ashes in which it is baked that his teeth are broken in eating it, and he is himself smothered with the ashes into the midst of which he has been thrown down. To the Oriental mind this is a graphic description of acute suffering and shame. Vanity, pride, and disobedience end in humiliation and trouble. “It seems appointed,” says Lange, “that much of the highest instruction should come to us, even in the Bible, through the sufferings and struggles of individual men.” The anguish of the prophet was a type of the sufferings of a rebellious nation.
III. The sufferer is robbed of happiness. “Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace” (Lam_3:17). Peace in Hebrew has the wider signification of welfare, happiness. Hence it was their salutation in life, “Peace be to thee,” and in death was engraved upon their sepulchres, “In peace.” Peace with God is the source of permanent and overflowing happiness, and its possession is conditioned on the obedience of faith, for “being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” How great is the loss when our peace is gone and our happiness takes wing! It is the loss of that we most highly prize and diligently seek after, for happiness is the object of universal search. Rob a man of his peace, and what is there left to live for? The soul, unloosed from her old moorings, is tossed about like a helpless ship in the troubled sea which cannot rest. Life is an intolerable burden, and, swung in a whirl of black despair, the soul cries out with the distracted patriarch, “Oh, that I might have my request,” &c. (Job_6:8-10).
IV. The sufferer loses the very idea of good. “I forgot prosperity” (Lam_3:17). I forgot what good is, lost the very idea of what it means. There is no enjoyment in the present; there is no hope in the future. It is impossible to conceive a more pitiable and forlorn condition. The prophet has surely reached the bottom of his despair; there is no lower depth. This is the fate of the man who tries to live without God. His views of right and wrong, of liberty and bondage, of prosperity and adversity, are utterly confounded. It is a dangerous experiment for any man to try. Christ is the Hope of humanity. To be without Him is to be without God, and to be in the condition of the Ephesians of a former age, “Having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph_2:12).
LESSONS.—
1. It is a painful experience to meet with scorn where we expected sympathy.
2. There is always something to modify the happiness of life.
3. It is one of the saddest results of suffering when the soul loses faith in goodness.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam_3:14-15. Ridicule:
1. Is hard to bear when coming from our enemies. II. Has a special aggravation when it is exultingly employed against us by those we had loved and trusted. III. Overwhelms its victim by its bitterness and ceaseless outflow.
Lam_3:17. The loss of happiness: I. Is the loss of peace. II. Is the loss of true notions of goodness. III. Is the fate of the obstinately unbelieving.
ILLUSTRATIONS—Triumph over ridicule. A pious poor man was much ridiculed on account of his religion. Being asked if these daily persecutions did not make him ready to give up his profession, he replied, “No! Our minister once said in his sermon that if we were so foolish as to permit such people to laugh us out of religion till at last we dropped into hell, they could not laugh us out again.”
—What would the nightingale care if the toad despised her singing? She would still sing on, and leave the cold toad to his dank shadows. And what care I for the sneers of men who grovel upon earth? I will still sing on in the ear and bosom of God.—Beecher.
Treachery has no pity. Sir Anthony Kingston, the provost-marshal of the Protector, the Earl of Hertford, sent word to the mayor of Bodmin that he would dine with him. He had a man to hang too, he said, and a stout gallows must be ready. The dinner was duly eaten and the gallows prepared. “Think you,” said Kingston as they stood looking at it, “think you is it strong enough?” “Yea, sir,” quoth the mayor, “it is.” “Well, then,” said Sir Anthony, “get up; it is for you.” The mayor, greatly abashed, exclaimed and protested. “Sir,” said Kingston, “there is no remedy; ye have been a busy rebel, and this is appointed for your reward;” and so, without respite or stay, the mayor was hanged.
Suffering and its compensations. Should the Empress determine to banish me, let her banish me; “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” If she will cast me into the sea, let her cast me into the sea; I will remember Jonah. If she will throw me into a burning fiery furnace, the three children were there before me. If she will throw me to the wild beasts, I will remember that Daniel was in the den of lions. If she will condemn me to be stoned, I shall be an associate of Stephen, the proto-martyr. If she will have me beheaded, the Baptist has submitted to the same punishment. If she will take away my substance, “naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return to it.”—Chrysostom.
The best work comes out of distress. The people of Verona, when they saw Dante in the streets, used to say, “See, there is the man that was in hell!” Ah yes! he had been in hell—in hell enough, in long severe sorrow and struggle, as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. Commedias that come out divine are not accomplished otherwise. Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind; true effort, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is thought. In all ways we are to become perfect through suffering.—Carlyle.
Happiness depends on God. Solon said, “No man ought to be called happy till he dies, because he knows not what his life is to be.” But the Christian may always call himself happy here because wherever his tent is carried, he need never pitch it where the cloud does not move and where he is not surrounded by a wall of fire. “I will be a wall of fire round about them, and their glory in the midst.” They cannot dwell where God is not householder, warder, and bulwark of salvation.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.