Lamentations 4:12

Verse 12 of 22. The 4th of 5 chapters in Lamentations, in The Major Prophets.

8Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

9They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

10The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

11The Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

12The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

13For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

14They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

15They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

16The anger of the Lord hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

Read Lamentations 4

Lamentations 4:12 in the World English Bible

The kings of the earth didn’t believe, neither did all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.
Read Lamentations 4:12 in the WEB

Matthew Henry on Lamentations 4:12

It is an amazing destruction, v. 12. It was a surprise to the kings of the earth, who are acquainted with, and inquisitive about, the state of their neighbours; nay, it was so to all the inhabitants of the world who knew Jerusalem, or had ever heard or read of it; they could not have believed that the adversary and enemy would ever enter into the gates of Jerusalem; for, (1.) They knew that Jerusalem was strongly fortified, not only…

Read Matthew Henry on Lamentations 4:1–12: Desolate Condition of Jerusalem; Effects of Famine in Jerusalem; Destruction of Jerusalem. (b. c. 588.)

Pray Lamentations 4:12 with someone reading it aloud.

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King James Version. Public domain. Set as prose throughout, including the poetry, because the text is published to us without its lines.