Lamentations 3:60

Lamentations 3:60, in plain English

God has witnessed all the malice and every plot against him—nothing has escaped God's notice, and God knows the full extent of the conspiracy to destroy him.

Why it's here

The speaker is reassuring himself that his suffering isn't hidden from God or overlooked. God sees it all—the hatred, the schemes, the deliberate plans to eliminate him.

Who's speaking

Jeremiah, affirming God's perfect knowledge of everything that has been done against him.

Where it sits in the story

This is comforting theology: when we're wronged or persecuted, we can trust that God sees what we see and knows what we know. Nothing escapes God's attention.

The scholarly reading

The speaker appeals to God's omniscience as the grounds for vindication: God knows all the enemies' malice and plotting. No deception is possible before the divine eye; God possesses complete knowledge of the conspiracies against the speaker.

Language and setting

The verse uses doubled verbs—רָאִיתָ אֶת־כָּל־נִקְמָתָם וְאֶת־כָּל־עֲשׁוֹתָם ('You have seen all their vengeance and all their doings')—creating what scholars call anaphoric repetition, where the doubled structure emphasizes totality. The term נִקְמָה ('vengeance,' or here more narrowly 'malice/harm') comes from the same root as the requital concept in biblical theology. The phrase עַל־כֻּלָּם ('against all of them,' referring to enemies) suggests they act as an organized conspiracy rather than isolated malefactors. God's knowledge is absolute—nothing hidden, no excuse or extenuation possible. This is the first step toward the vindication requested in verse 59: God's seeing precedes God's acting.

Voice

The individual, now mobilizing God's omniscience as the foundation for confidence in coming justice.

Significance

This echoes the psalmist's confidence in Psalm 139 ('O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me') and becomes a theological basis for confidence in divine judgment. It also anticipates the revelation of hidden things in eschatological judgment (1 Corinthians 4:5, 'the Lord will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart'). The speaker's trust rests not on apparent circumstances but on God's capacity to perceive what human judges cannot.

58You defend my cause, O Lord; You redeem my life.

59You have seen, O LORD, the wrong done to me; vindicate my cause!

60You have seen all their malice, all their plots against me.

61O LORD, You have heard their insults, all their plots against me—

62the slander and murmuring of my assailants against me all day long.

Read all of Lamentations 3 — I am the man who has seen affliction. From the pit, the poet reaches for the only hope left: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies are new every morning.