Lamentations Chapter 3 verse 16 Holy Bible
He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he hath covered me with ashes.
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By him my teeth have been broken with crushed stones, and I am bent low in the dust.
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He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
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He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes.
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read chapter 3 in WBT
He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
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And He breaketh with gravel my teeth, He hath covered me with ashes.
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones; i.e. he hath (unnatural as it may seem in Israel's Father) given me stones instead of bread (comp. Matthew 7:9). The Jewish rabbi commonly called Rashi thinks that a historical fact is preserved in these words, and that the Jewish exiles were really obliged to eat bread mixed with grit, because they had to bake in pits dug in the ground. So too many later commentators, e.g. Grotius, who compares a passage of Seneca ('De Benefie.,' 2:7), "Beneficium superbe datum simile est pani lapidoso." He hath covered me with ashes; rather, he hath pressed me down into ashes. A figurative expression for great humiliation. So in the Talmud the Jewish nation is described as "pressed down into ashes" ('Bereshith Rabba,' 75).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott'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.