What is the meaning of Lamentations 4:20?

The LORD’s anointed

• “The LORD’s anointed” points first to Judah’s king, Zedekiah, the divinely sanctioned ruler in David’s line (2 Kings 25:1–7; Jeremiah 37:17).

• God had promised that David’s throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:12–16), so the king served as a visible sign of God’s covenant care.

• The title also foreshadows the ultimate Anointed One, Christ (Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:25–27), reminding us that every Davidic king prefigures the Messiah’s perfect reign.

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the breath of our life

• The king was “the breath of our life,” meaning Judah saw him as the God-given channel through whom national life and security flowed (Proverbs 16:12; Lamentations 2:6, 9).

• Breath language echoes Genesis 2:7—life itself is God-breathed, so losing the king felt like suffocation of the nation (Isaiah 42:5; Acts 17:25).

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was captured in their pits

• Zedekiah’s flight ended in Babylonian snares—literally “pits” or traps (Jeremiah 39:4–7).

• His capture signaled that Judah’s defenses were powerless once God’s protective hand was lifted (Lamentations 2:2–3; Psalm 91:3).

• The scene prefigures Christ’s arrest, when “the rulers… laid hands on Him” (Luke 22:52–53), showing how human evil serves God’s redemptive plan.

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We had said of him

• The people confessed misplaced confidence; they had “said” or assumed the king would always secure them, yet ignored the covenant warnings (Deuteronomy 28:36; Jeremiah 21:5–7).

• Trusting a human shepherd more than the LORD led to shattered expectations (Psalm 146:3–4).

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Under his shadow we will live among the nations

• “His shadow” pictures royal protection (Psalm 91:1; Isaiah 32:2). Judah thought exile could be survivable so long as the king remained free, perhaps ruling as a vassal from abroad (Jeremiah 38:17).

• Instead, exile scattered them “among the nations” without that covering (Deuteronomy 4:27; Ezekiel 12:15), exposing their need for a greater Shepherd whose shadow extends worldwide (John 10:11, 16).

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summary

Lamentations 4:20 mourns the fall of Judah’s king—God’s “anointed” and “breath”—whose capture shattered the nation’s illusion of safety. Historically it recounts Zedekiah’s downfall; prophetically it anticipates Christ, the perfect Anointed One whose seeming defeat accomplished our redemption. The verse warns against trusting human saviors and invites us to find lasting refuge under the Messiah’s eternal shadow.