What Does Lamentations 2:20 Mean?
See, O LORD, and gaze upon whom you have done this. Shall women eat their fruit, the children of a handspan? Shall priest and prophet be struck down in the set-apart place of the Lord?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?THE KEY
The cry asks the LORD to look at the horror while naming the LORD as the one who has done it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks from the place where starvation reaches mothers and children, and slaughter reaches priests and prophets inside the sanctuary. It calls the LORD to look directly and asks whom God has treated this way, leaving divine agency inside the cry rather than smoothing the horror into an unnamed disaster.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A holy place and sacred office do not guarantee protection from violence; here, the priest and prophet are killed within the sanctuary.
THE ROOT
עוֹלַלְתָּ
ʿolalta
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ל
ʿ-l-l
To act upon or deal with someone; in some forms, to mock or treat abusively.
“done” in this verse is ʿolalta. The verb belongs to a word-family that can describe dealing with someone harshly. That sharper range keeps the question from sounding like an abstract “why did this happen?”: the verse directly asks whom the LORD has treated this way.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalilah: Deed or action
עֲלִילָה
This branch keeps the focus on what has been done to the people named in the cry.
hitʿallel: To mock or treat abusively
הִתְעַלֵּל
This form shows the harsher reach of the word-family behind the verse’s blunt question about the LORD’s action.
פְּרִיָם
piryam
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ה
p-r-h
To bear fruit or be fruitful.
The women are said to eat their own פְּרִי (peri, fruit), and the next phrase names little children. The word ties the horror to what a family bears and nourishes: what should be fruit becomes food amid starvation.
ALSO GROWS
peri: Fruit or produce
פְּרִי
This is the word the verse uses for what the women eat.
parah: To bear fruit or be fruitful
פָּרָה
This verb shares the seed with “fruit,” linking the image to life that is borne.
מִקְדַּשׁ
miqdash
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ש
q-d-sh
To set apart.
The sanctuary’s name comes from the root for setting something apart. The verse places the killing of priest and prophet inside that set-apart place, holding sacred designation and slaughter together in a single line.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Set-apartness or a set-apart place
קֹדֶשׁ
This branch makes clear what the sanctuary’s name carries.
qadosh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This related word echoes the sanctuary’s identity as a place marked out as sacred.
THE PATTERN
Lament makes suffering visible to God by naming bodies, places, and blood without concealing the devastation.
You see it, for you gaze at toil and grief, to place it in your hand. The weakened leaves himself to you; you have been the helper of the fatherless.And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone will eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the pressing, with which their enemies, and those who seek their living souls, will press them.And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?THE THREAD
Rise, cry out in the night, at the head of the watches. Pour out your heart like waters before the face of the Lord. Lift your palms toward him for the living soul of your little ones, who faint with hunger at the head of every street.The same Hebrew noun עוֹלֵל (ʿolēl, little child) appears in both verses. In verse 19, the young children are the subject of a plea for life; here, the same word stands inside the question about women eating their fruit.
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