The Meaning of Lamentations 4:10 Explained

Lamentations 4:10

KJV: The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

YLT: The hands of merciful women have boiled their own children, They have been for food to them, In the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Darby: The hands of pitiful women have boiled their own children: they were their meat in the ruin of the daughter of my people.

ASV: The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

The hands  of the pitiful  women  have sodden  their own children:  they were their meat  in the destruction  of the daughter  of my people. 

What does Lamentations 4:10 Mean?

Verse Meaning

Previously compassionate women boiled their own children and ate them to sustain their lives during the rigors of the siege (cf. Lamentations 2:20; 2 Kings 6:25-29; Jeremiah 19:9).

Chapter Summary: Lamentations 4

1  Zion bewails her pitiful estate
13  She confesses her sins
21  Edom is threatened and Zion comforted

What do the individual words in Lamentations 4:10 mean?

The hands of the women compassionate have cooked their own children they became food for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people -
יְדֵ֗י נָשִׁים֙ רַחֲמָ֣נִיּ֔וֹת בִּשְּׁל֖וּ יַלְדֵיהֶ֑ן הָי֤וּ לְבָרוֹת֙ לָ֔מוֹ בְּשֶׁ֖בֶר בַּת־ עַמִּֽי ס

יְדֵ֗י  The  hands 
Parse: Noun, fdc
Root: יָד  
Sense: hand.
נָשִׁים֙  of  the  women 
Parse: Noun, feminine plural
Root: אִשָּׁה  
Sense: woman, wife, female.
רַחֲמָ֣נִיּ֔וֹת  compassionate 
Parse: Adjective, feminine plural
Root: רַחֲמָנִי  
Sense: compassionate, compassionate women.
בִּשְּׁל֖וּ  have  cooked 
Parse: Verb, Piel, Perfect, third person common plural
Root: בָּשַׁל  
Sense: to boil, cook, bake, roast, ripen, grow ripe.
יַלְדֵיהֶ֑ן  their  own  children 
Parse: Noun, masculine plural construct, third person feminine plural
Root: יֶלֶד  
Sense: child, son, boy, offspring, youth.
הָי֤וּ  they  became 
Parse: Verb, Qal, Perfect, third person common plural
Root: אֶהְיֶה 
Sense: to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.
לְבָרוֹת֙  food 
Parse: Preposition-l, Verb, Piel, Infinitive construct
Root: בָּרָא 
Sense: to eat, consume.
לָ֔מוֹ  for  them 
Parse: Preposition, third person masculine plural
בְּשֶׁ֖בֶר  in  the  destruction 
Parse: Preposition-b, Noun, masculine singular construct
Root: שֶׁבֶר 
Sense: breaking, fracture, crushing, breach, crash, ruin, shattering.
בַּת־  of  the  daughter 
Parse: Noun, feminine singular construct
Root: בַּת  
Sense: daughter.
עַמִּֽי  of  my  people 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular construct, first person common singular
Root: עַם 
Sense: nation, people.
ס  - 
Parse: Punctuation