an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
down
תֵּרַ֣דte.Rad
H3381
to descend (literally · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
rivers
פַּלְגֵיpal.gei-
H6388
a rill (i.e. small channel of water · noun, common masculine plural construct
water
מַ֙יִם֙ma.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
destruction
שֶׁ֖בֶרShe.ver
H7667
a fracture · noun, common masculine singular construct
daughter
בַּתbat-
H1323
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms… · noun, common feminine singular construct
people
עַמִּֽי'a.Mi
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Jeremiah 9:18 And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
Lamentations 2:11 Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; b…
Psalms 119:136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.
Jeremiah 4:19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my sou…
Jeremiah 13:17 But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, becau…
Lamentations 1:16 For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my ch…
Lamentations 2:18 Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let no…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Lamentations 3:42-54
It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than to chide ourselves out of it. The prophet had owned that a living man should not complain, as if he checked himself for his complaints in the former part of the chapter; and yet here the clouds return after the rain and the wound bleeds afresh; for great pains must be taken with a troubled spirit to bring it into temper.
I. They confess the righteousness of God in afflicting them (Lam 3:42): We have transgressed and have rebelled. Note, It becomes us, when we are in trouble, to justify God, by owning our sins, and laying the load upon ourselves for them. Call sin a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not miscall it. This is the…
Mine eye runneth down with rivers of waters,.... Denoting the greatness of his grief and trouble at the afflictions of his people, and the vast profusion of tears on that account. Here the prophet speaks in his own person, expressing the anguish of his soul he felt, and the floods of tears he shed:
for the destruction of the daughter of my people; for those that were slain of them, or carried captive; see Jeremiah 9:1. The Targum is,
"for the destruction of the congregation of my people.''
John Calvin on Lamentations 3:48
Lamentations 3:48
48. Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
48. Rivi (hoc est, tanquam rivi) aquarum descendit oculus meus super contrione (vel, afflictione, est idem nomen svr) filii populi mei.
Interpreters give different explanations of the beginning of this verse: some render it thus, "My eye comes down unto rivers of waters;" others, "My eye flows down unto rivers of waters," or, "rivers of waters flow down." But as I have explained elsewhere, the Prophet rather means, that his eye came down like rivers; and to come down, or to descend, is a metaphor for flowing down; for water, as it is well known, descends when it flows. And th…
The Church Fathers
Differently to be admonished are those who deplore sins of deed, and those who deplore sins of thought. For those who deplore sins of deed are to be admonished that perfected lamentations should wash out consummated evils, lest they be bound by a greater debt of perpetrated deed than they pay in tears of satisfaction for it. For it is written, "He hath given us drink in tears by measure": which means that each person's soul should in its penitence drink the tears of compunction to such extent as it remembers itself to have been dried up from God through sins. They are to be admonished to bring back their past offences incessantly before their eyes, and so to live that these may not have to be viewed by the strict judge. Hence David, when he prayed, saying, "Turn away thine eyes from my sins," had said also a little before, "My fault is ever before me"; as if to say, I beseech thee not to regard my sin, since I myself cease not to regard it. Whence also the Lord says through the prophet, "And I will not be mindful of thy sins, but be thou mindful of them." They are to be admonished to consider singly all their past offences, and, in bewailing the defilements of their former wandering one by one, to cleanse at the same time even their whole selves with tears. Whence it is well said through Jeremiah, when the several transgressions of Judaea were being considered, "Mine eye hath shed divisions of waters." For indeed we shed divided waters from our eyes, when to our several sins we give separate tears. For the mind does not sorrow at one and the same time alike for all things; but, while it is more sharply touched by memory now of this fault and now of that, being moved concerning all in each, it is purged at once from all.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Judgments · Saints: Sympathise with those under — Saints: Sympathise with those under
River · .Of grief — .Of grief
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
God has not pardoned, but positively punished, the people for their misdeeds. "Thou hast covered with anger," Lam 3:43, corresponds to "Thou hast covered with a cloud," Lam 3:44; hence "Thou hast covered" is plainly used both times in the same meaning, in spite of the fact that לך is wanting in Lam 3:43. סכך means to "cover," here to "make a cover." "Thou didst make a cover with anger," i.e., Thou didst hide Thyself in wrath; there is no necessity for taking סכך as in itself reflexive. This mode of viewing it agrees also with what follows. The objection of J. D. Michaelis, qui se obtegit non persequitur alios, ut statim additur, which Bttcher and Thenius have repeated, does not hold good in…
The author focuses on the viciousness of the enemies and cries out to the Lord.
Rashi on Lamentations 3:47
Terror then the pit. When we fled because of the terror, we fell into the pit.35See Yeshayahuu 24:17-18.
Ruin. An expression of desolation, as in, “ruin.”36The last three words “as in ‘ruin’” is omitted from Rashi’s text. (Sifsei Chachomim)
