Lamentations 3:16 — Word Study
WLCוַיַּגְרֵ֤ס בֶּֽחָצָץ֙ שִׁנָּ֔י הִכְפִּישַׁ֖נִי בָּאֵֽפֶר׃
BSAHe has groundgâraç▸ [broken, crushed] my teethshên with gravelchâtsâts [small stones, sharp grit] and trampled mekâphash△■ [cowered, humiliated] in the dustʼêpher [ashes, worthlessness]
| Greek | English | Parsing |
|---|---|---|
| וַיַּגְרֵ֤ס | and he has broken | Verb, Hiphil, sequential imperfect third person masculine singular |
| בֶּֽחָצָץ֙ | with gravel | Preposition, noun common masculine singular absolute |
| שִׁנָּ֔י | teeth my | Noun common feminine dual construct, suffix |
| הִכְפִּישַׁ֖נִי | he has made cower me | Verb hiphil perfect third person masculine singular, suffix |
| בָּאֵֽפֶר׃ | in ash[es] | Preposition, noun common masculine singular absolute |
Every word in the verse. Click a row to open it in the panel on the left.
| BSB | He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust. |
| KJV | He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. |
| ASV | He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes. |
| YLT | And He breaketh with gravel my teeth, He hath covered me with ashes. |
| WEB | He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes. |
| BBE | By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust. |
The translations agree on the rendering of the key terms, particularly גָּרַס as ground.
The verse contains two main clauses linked by 'and', with additional phrases providing context and detail about the actions described.
8 commentators on this verse
Gill, Jamieson, Poole, Trapp & more — read them ›
clause
verbגָּרַס
The sentence as the grammar sees it Open the tree ›
1 of 5 occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament — a word chosen on purpose.
Bars are logarithmic — אֵת, the commonest word in the Hebrew Bible, stands about 11,000 times, so a linear scale would leave everything else invisible. Click a row to open that word.
Deep Study — Lamentations 3:16
Sections marked generated are written from the data on this page rather than by a named author. Everything else — the lexicon entries, the cross references, the manuscript readings, the counts — is quoted from its source unchanged.
Context — The Lament of the Sufferinggenerated
Lamentations 3:16 captures the profound sorrow of the speaker, who feels ground down by their circumstances. This verse is part of a larger lament where the speaker recounts their suffering and the bitterness they experience, as seen in the preceding verse Lamentations 3:15. The imagery used reflects a deep emotional and physical pain, resonating with the themes of loss and despair throughout the book of Lamentations.
Cross References
| Reference | Text (BSB) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Job 4:10 | The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken. |
| 2 | Psalm 3:7 | Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. |
| 3 | Psalm 58:6 | O God, shatter their teeth in their mouths; O LORD, tear out the fangs of the lions. |
| 4 | Proverbs 20:17 | Food gained by fraud is sweet to a man, but later his mouth is full of gravel. |
| 5 | Matthew 7:9 | Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? |
The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — 10 references, hung on the phrase they belong to
The Key Word — גָּרַס, vai.yag.Resgenerated
The verb גָּרַס (garas) is a Hiphil form meaning to break or crush. It conveys the action of destroying something, often with a sense of force. In this context, it illustrates the speaker's feeling of being crushed under the weight of their suffering.
This word can also imply a loss of strength or vitality, emphasizing the depth of despair. The use of this verb in the Hiphil form indicates that the speaker is not just experiencing a passive state but is actively being subjected to this crushing force.
How Translations Differ — measured against the Berean Standard Biblegenerated
This study reads the verse in the Berean Standard Bible, so the BSB is the wording every comparison below is made against.
Sentence Structuregenerated
The main verb גָּרַס governs the structure, indicating the action of breaking. The sentence then includes a prepositional phrase בֶּֽחָצָץ֙ (with gravel) describing the means of this action, followed by a noun phrase שִׁנָּ֔י (my teeth) as the object of the verb.
The second part of the verse introduces another verb הִכְפִּישַׁ֖נִי (he has made cower me), which is linked to a prepositional phrase בָּאֵֽפֶר׃ (in the dust). This structure emphasizes the duality of physical and emotional humiliation.
Septuagint Backgroundgenerated
In the Septuagint, the Hebrew verb גָּרַס is rendered as ἐχέβαλεν (he has cast out), which suggests a slightly different nuance of being thrown down rather than just crushed. This choice highlights a broader interpretation of the speaker's suffering.
The use of ψήφῳ for חָצָץ reflects a focus on the small, sharp nature of the gravel, maintaining the imagery of pain.
In plain words — the whole versegenerated
Lamentations 3:16 expresses a deep sense of anguish. The speaker feels as if their teeth are being crushed with gravel, symbolizing intense suffering. They also feel trampled in the dust, indicating humiliation and worthlessness. This verse is part of a lament that conveys the pain of loss and despair experienced during a difficult time.
Frequently Asked Questionsgenerated
This imagery suggests a painful experience, where the speaker feels as if they are being crushed or harmed, reflecting their emotional and physical suffering.
Being trampled in the dust symbolizes humiliation and worthlessness, indicating the depth of the speaker's despair.
This verse illustrates the themes of suffering and despair that permeate Lamentations, highlighting the pain of the speaker and the collective experience of loss.
The verse invites reflection on our own experiences of pain and the importance of expressing and acknowledging such feelings.
Reflection Questionsgenerated
- How do I respond to feelings of despair and humiliation in my own life?
- What are some ways I can support others who are experiencing deep suffering?
- In what ways can I find hope amid feelings of being crushed or trampled?
- How does this imagery resonate with my understanding of suffering in the world?
Commentators on this verse — 8 expositors, verse by verse
Each of these wrote on Lamentations 3:16 itself, not merely on the chapter around it.
John Gill1697–1771Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleHe hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones,.... With gritty bread, such as is made of corn ground with new millstones, the grit of which mixes with the flour; or with stony bread, as Seneca (n)
Read John Gill on Lamentations 3 →Robert Jamieson1802–1880Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's CommentaryHe hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
Read Robert Jamieson on Lamentations 3 →Matthew Poole1624–1679Matthew Poole's Commentary on the Holy BibleThese are but more metaphorical expressions, signifying the unpleasant difficult condition into which God had brought this people. They were like men that lived upon gritty bread, more fit to break their teeth than to nourish them; they were in the state of mourners, and no ordinary mourners, who were wont to throw ashes on their heads, they were all over covered with ashes.
Read Matthew Poole on Lamentations 3 →John Trapp1601–1669Trapp's Complete Commentary on the Old and New TestamentsLamentations 3:16 He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.Ver. 16. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones.] Comminuit scrupis dentes meos - i.e., With gritty bread. See Proverbs 20:17. He hath covered me with ashes.] The Greek and Latin have it, He hath fed me with ashes, which was worse than that bread made most of sawdust, wherewith they fed the martyrs in the Marian times.
Read John Trapp on Lamentations 3 →Charles John Ellicott1819–1905Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) He hath also broken my teeth.—The metaphor of food is continued. The mourner eats bread that is gritty, as if made of sand instead of flour. (Comp. Proverbs 20:17.) Here, again, we are reminded of Dante (Parad. xvii. 58), when he speaks of the bitterness of the bread which comes as the grudging gift of strangers.
Read Charles John Ellicott on Lamentations 3 →AdamClarkeAdam Clarke's Commentary on the BibleVerse 16. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones] What a figure to express disgust, pain, and the consequent incapacity of taking food for the support of life; a man, instead of bread, being obliged to eat small pebbles till all his teeth are broken to pieces by endeavouring to grind them. One can scarcely read this description without feeling the toothache. The next figure is not less expressive. He hath covered me with ashes.] הכפישני באפר hichphishani beepher, "he hath plunged me into the dust." To be thrown into a mass or bed of perfect dust, where the eyes are blinded by it, the ears stopped, and the mouth and lungs filled at the very first attempt to respire after having been…
Read AdamClarke on Lamentations 3 →CambridgeThe Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges16. broken my teeth with gravel stones] The metaphor from food is continued. The prophet is like one whose teeth are worn away by the continued action of grit mixed with his bread. Cp. Proverbs 20:17.
Read Cambridge on Lamentations 3 →Daniel Denison Whedon1808–1885Whedon's Commentary on the Bible16. Broken my teeth with gravel stones — Either mixed with bread, or rather, as Keil prefers, stones given instead of bread. He hath covered me with ashes — Literally, hath pressed me down in ashes.
Read Daniel Denison Whedon on Lamentations 3 →The verse in English, compared — 17 translations, and where they part company
Every translation on this page is a decision someone had to make and commit to. Read down a column and you see one translator's judgement; read across a row and you see the range the Greek actually allows. The BSB is the wording the rest of this page is measured against, so it is listed first.
Modern formal
He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust.
He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.
He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust.
He ground my teeth in gravel; he trampled me in the dust.
Tyndale line
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
He hath also broken my teeth with stones, and hath couered me with ashes.
Strictly literal
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
And He breaketh with gravel my teeth, He hath covered me with ashes.
And He breaks with gravel my teeth, || He has covered me with ashes.
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel-stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
He has made my teeth grind with gravel, and he made me cower in the ashes.
From the Latin
Vau. And he hath broken my teeth one by one, he hath fed me with ashes.
Simplified
He has broken my teeth with grit; he has trampled me in the dust.
By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.
Counted from the translations carried on this site, not from a survey of every English Bible. A rendering shared by many versions is usually inherited rather than independently arrived at — the Tyndale line in particular runs through most of them.
The sentence as the grammar sees it — from the MACULA Hebrew treebank
This is not our own analysis: it is the scholarly syntax tree for the verse, showing how the clause actually holds together.
Boxes are the grammarian's groupings — clause, noun phrase, prepositional phrase.
The four witnesses to this verse — Masoretic, Septuagint, Samaritan, Qumran
The Masoretic Text of Lamentations 3:16 states, "וַיַּגְרֵ֤ס בֶּֽחָצָץ֙ שִׁנָּ֔י הִכְפִּישַׁ֖נִי בָּאֵֽפֶר׃" which translates to "He has ground my teeth with gravel and trampled me in the dust." The Septuagint agrees with the Masoretic Text in its word-by-word correspondence, indicating that both texts convey the same imagery and meaning. There are no significant differences noted in the surviving versions from the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Dead Sea Scrolls for this verse, reinforcing the consistency of the text across these ancient witnesses.
וַיַּגְרֵ֤ס בֶּֽחָצָץ֙ שִׁנָּ֔י הִכְפִּישַׁ֖נִי בָּאֵֽפֶר׃
5 of the 5 words are matched. This is the word-by-word correspondence, not the Septuagint's own sentence — its word order and its articles are its own.
Four traditions, not one. “On the leather” means the letters physically survive on the scroll, as against letters an editor has supplied to fill a hole in it — a restoration is a scholar’s reading, not a reading of the manuscript. Words in [square brackets] are supplied; the notes count them apart from what survives.
The map of this verse — what each word keeps company with
This is a map of two things, both counted rather than judged. Company kept: which words stand within three words of each of these, anywhere in the Hebrew Bible — the thicker the line, the more often the pair meet compared with chance. Built from: the words a word is made out of, taken from its own Strong’s entry. It is not a map of meaning: nothing here claims two words mean the same thing. Click any circle to see the numbers behind it.
Lexicons — every word in Lamentations 3:16
One dossier per word, with every reference work grouped by kind — Hebrew lexicons, morphology, Bible dictionaries, topical chains and the English of the translators themselves. The verse sits at the head of each block with the word under study lit, so you never lose your place. The panel above gives the short answer; this is the long one, and it is the part of the page worth indexing.
Every entry below is the lexicographer's own text. On the Hebrew: Brown-Driver-Briggs entire and its gloss set, Strong's Hebrew Dictionary, and Tyndale House's Translators Brief lexicon. Where a cell says a work has no entry, that work genuinely has none for this word.
גָּרַס (garas) is a Hebrew verb meaning to crush or break. It can refer to being crushed or broken in a physical or figurative sense, such as in the context of longing or divine punishment. The entries highlight its use in both Qal and Hiphil forms, illustrating its application in different contexts.
[גָּרַס] vb. be crushed
Qal my soul is crushed (i.e. perisheth: cf. Syr.) with longing for
Hiph. and he hath crushed my teeth with gravel, fig. of divine chastisement.
base
H1638 גָּרַס
1638 garac gaw-ras'
a primitive root; to crush; also (intransitively and
figuratively) to dissolve:--break.
גָּרַס (ga.ras) — to break.
1) to be crushed, be broken
1a) (Qal) to be crushed
1b) (Hiphil) to crush, break (the teeth)
Conj | V-Hiphil-ConsecImperf-3ms — Verb · Hiphil · sequential imperfect third person masculine singularHc/Vhw3ms
bro'-k'-n: Occurs both as past participle of the verb translated "to break" and as an adjective, the former use will be dealt with here only so far as verbs occur which are thus translated but do not present the non-participial forms. Such are: meroach = "bruised," "emasculated" (Le 21:20); chathath = "to frustrate," hence, "to break down" either by violence or by confusion and fear (1Sa 2:10; Jer 48:20,39); dakhah = "to collapse" (Ps 44:19; 51:8); ratsats = "to crack in pieces" "crush" (Ec 12:6); kathath = "to bruise or violently strike," "break in pieces" (Isa…
חָצָץ (chatsats) refers to gravel, described as something that is cut or divided. The word is built from the root meaning 'to cut' and can also denote an arrow. The entries consistently focus on its meaning related to gravel and do not present any significant disagreements.
חָצָץ n.[m.] gravel (as divided, comminuted)
base
H2687 חָצָץ
2687 chatsats khaw-tsawts'
from 2687; properly, something cutting; hence, gravel (as
grit); also (like 2671) an arrow:--arrow, gravel (stone).
see HEBREW for 02687
see HEBREW for 02671
חָצָץ (cha.tsats) — gravel.
gravel
Prep | N-ms — Preposition · noun common masculine singular absoluteHRd/Ncmsa
grav'-el (chatsats, from root chatsats, "to divide." Kindred roots have the meaning of "to cut," "to hew," "to sharpen," hence chets, "arrow" (2Ki 13:17; Ps 64:7 and often); compare Arabic chacca, "to fall to the lot of," chiccah, "portion"): In Pr 20:17, we have:
"Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man;
But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel."
And in La 3:16:
"He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he
hath covered me with ashes."
The only other occurrence of the word is in Ps 77:17, where it is the equivalent of chets, "arrow" (see supra):
"The clouds poured out water;
The skies sent out a sound:
→ FIGURATIVE Pr 20:17
The Hebrew word שֵׁן (shen) primarily means 'tooth' and can also refer to 'ivory.' It is derived from the root associated with sharpness, and it can figuratively denote a cliff or crag. The entries highlight various contexts, including its use in legal terms (lex talionis) and as a material in commerce.
שֵׁן n.f. tooth, ivory
base
H8127 שֵׁן tooth, ivory
8127 shen shane
from 8150; a tooth (as sharp); specifically (for 8143) ivory;
figuratively, a cliff:--crag, X forefront, ivory, X sharp,
tooth.
see HEBREW for 08150
see HEBREW for 08143
שֵׁן (shen) — tooth.
: tooth
1) tooth, ivory
1a) tooth
1a1) of man, lex talionis, beast
1b) tooth, tine (of fork)
1c) ivory
1c1) as material
1c2) of commerce
1d) sharp pointed rock
שֵׁן (shen) — tooth: ivory.
: ivory
1) tooth, ivory
1a) tooth
1a1) of man, lex talionis, beast
1b) tooth, tine (of fork)
1c) ivory
1c1) as material
1c2) of commerce
1d) sharp pointed rock
שֵׁן (shen) — tooth: crag.
: crag
1) tooth, ivory
1a) tooth
1a1) of man, lex talionis, beast
1b) tooth, tine (of fork)
1c) ivory
1c1) as material
1c2) of commerce
1d) sharp pointed rock
שֵׁן (shen) — tooth: prong.
: prong
1) tooth, ivory
1a) tooth
1a1) of man, lex talionis, beast
1b) tooth, tine (of fork)
1c) ivory
1c1) as material
1c2) of commerce
1d) sharp pointed rock
N-cd | Suff — Noun common feminine dual construct · suffixHNcfdc/Sp1bs
כָּפַשׁ (kaphash) is a Hebrew verb meaning to tread down or humiliate. It can also imply bending or pressing together, particularly in the Hiphil form, which indicates causing something to bend down or trample. The entries suggest a focus on physical and metaphorical connotations of bending and humiliation.
[כָּפַשׁ] vb. only Hiph. make bent, press or bend together
base
H3728 כָּפַשׁ
3728 kaphash kaw-fash'
a primitive root; to tread down; figuratively, to
humiliate:--cover.
כָּפַשׁ (ka.phash) — to cower.
1) (Hiphil) to make bent, press or bend together
2) (CLBL) to bend down
2a) (Hiphil) to cause to bend down, trample
V-Hiphil-Perf-3ms | Suff — Verb hiphil perfect third person masculine singular · suffixHVhp3ms/Sp1bs
The Hebrew word אֵ֫פֶר (*epher*) means 'ashes' and is derived from an unused root meaning to bestrew. It primarily refers to ashes, but can also imply worthlessness in a figurative sense. The entries suggest a connection to the light and flying nature of ashes.
אֵ֫פֶר n.[m.] ashes (as light, flying?)
base
H665 אֵ֫פֶר ashes (as light, flying?)
665 'epher ay'-fer
from an unused root meaning to bestrew; ashes:--ashes.
אֵ֫פֶר (e.pher) — ashes.
1) ashes
2) (CLBL) worthlessness (fig.)
Prep | N-ms — Preposition · noun common masculine singular absoluteHRd/Ncmsa