What Does Lamentations 1:11 Mean in the King James?
All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul: see, O LORD, and consider; for I am become vile.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse makes soul-restoration concrete: food returns the living self while scarcity consumes what it treasures.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks from scarcity: people groan and search for bread, surrendering what they prize for food that restores the living self. The speaker asks the LORD to look directly at the humiliation she names.
THE ROOT
לְהָשִׁיב
lehashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn or return; in this form, to bring back or restore.
“to relieve” in this verse is lehashiv. The word translated “relieve” carries the movement of bringing back. The food is given to restore the living self, joining bodily provision to the language of return.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn back, return
שׁוּב
The root’s basic movement is a return from distance or loss.
yeshovev: Restores, brings back
יְשׁוֹבֵב
Psalm 23:3 uses this same root for restoring the soul, linking this verse’s food to restoration.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נָפַשׁ
To be refreshed or rested; the noun names a living self or person.
The soul here is the living person whose need is exposed by hunger. Restoration reaches the whole vulnerable self, not an abstract inward part.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, living person
נֶפֶשׁ
The thing food restores is the living person herself.
naphash: To be refreshed, to rest
נָפַשׁ
This verbal branch connects the living self with renewal after strain.
מַחֲמַדֵּיהֶם
maḥămaddêhem
GROWS FROM
חָמַד
To desire or find desirable.
The phrase translated “pleasant things” comes from the language of what is desired and cherished. Their exchange measures the severity of hunger: what is precious is surrendered for what keeps life going.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmad: To desire, take pleasure in
חָמַד
The root names the desire that makes something prized.
maḥmād: A desirable or treasured thing
מַחְמָד
This branch names the precious things given away for food.
THE PATTERN
Food meets hunger as provision for the living person, making survival a matter of restoration.
For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.Give us this day our daily bread.THE THREAD
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.The verb translated “to relieve” comes from the same Hebrew root as “restoreth.” Lamentations places that restoring in the exchange for bread; Psalm 23 names the same return as the soul’s restoration.
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