What Does Lamentations 5:11 Mean in the King James?

They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

Lamentations 5:11 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The verb translated “ravished” also means to afflict and bring low, naming sexual violence as an act of domination.

THE MEANING

Women are violated in Zion, and young women in Judah’s towns; the verse names the bodily harm without hiding it behind a euphemism. The Hebrew verb also means to afflict and bring low, showing the assault as domination that reaches into communal life.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that a sacred place or community identity automatically protects women from violence breaks against this verse.

THE ROOT

עִנּוּ

ʿinnû

GROWS FROM

ענה

ʿānâ (⁨ענה⁩) means to afflict, humble, or bring low; in this form it names sexual violation.

“ravished” in this verse is ʿinnû. The Hebrew verb holds sexual violation and imposed humiliation within the same word. Its related words for affliction and the afflicted keep the focus on the harm done, not on mutual desire.

ALSO GROWS

ʿŏnî: affliction, misery

עֳנִי

This noun names the suffering of being brought low, keeping the violence tied to harm rather than intimacy.

ʿānî: an afflicted or oppressed person

עָנִי

This branch centers the person made to bear oppression, rather than the perpetrator’s desire.

THE PATTERN

Scripture names sexual violation as force imposed on a body, refusing to confuse domination with consent.

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

Genesis 34:2 · KJVThe Hebrew verb for “defiled” is ⁨ענה⁩, the same root used for “ravished” here, though English renders it differently.

But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die:

Deuteronomy 22:25 · KJVThe verse names the man’s force and distinguishes the woman who is overpowered from the one who commits the assault.

Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.

2 Samuel 13:14 · KJVThe verse makes her resistance and his use of power explicit; its verb ⁨ענה⁩ shares the root used for the violation in Lamentations.

THE THREAD

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

Genesis 34:2 · KJV

The Hebrew verb ⁨ענה⁩ also names what Shechem does to Dinah, though the KJV renders it “defiled” there and “ravished” here. The different English words share a root whose range holds affliction and sexual violation together.

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