What Does Lamentations 1:14 Mean in the King James?
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.
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 turns rebellion into a braided yoke: what breaks away becomes what winds around the neck until strength cannot rise.
THE MEANING
A burden can bind so tightly that it climbs to the neck, makes strength stumble, and leaves rising out of reach. The verse also names the terror of being delivered into others’ hands and having no power to stand back up.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being unable to rise always means you are not trying hard enough: the verse names being overpowered and handed into others’ control as part of the collapse.
THE ROOT
פְּשָׁעַי
peshaʿay
GROWS FROM
פשע
pashaʿ
To break away or revolt; rebellion.
“transgressions” in this verse is peshaʿay. The root carries the sense of rebellion, of breaking away. Here those breaks are not weightless: they are bound together and wound around the neck until standing fails.
ALSO GROWS
pashaʿ: To rebel, to break away.
פָּשַׁע
The verb makes “transgressions” an active break, fitting the verse’s image of entangled consequences.
posheaʿ: A rebel; one who breaks away.
פֹּשֵׁעַ
The same root names both the break and the one who enacts it, keeping the yoke tied to the condition of separation.
הִכְשִׁיל
hikhshil
GROWS FROM
כשל
kashal
To stumble, totter, or cause to stumble.
“to fall” in this verse is hikhshil. The line describes strength being made to stumble, not merely running low. The root connects the loss of strength to lost footing: the speaker cannot stand because standing itself has been interrupted.
ALSO GROWS
kashal: To stumble, totter, or fail.
כָּשַׁל
This is the action behind “made my strength to fall”: strength is thrown off balance.
mikshol: A stumbling block or obstacle.
מִכְשׁוֹל
The related noun shows how the same root can name both stumbling and what causes it.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures a constraining burden as a yoke that weighs on the neck and exceeds unaided strength, while also naming its release.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.The same Hebrew root behind “transgressions” appears in both verses. Here rebellion is pictured as a yoke winding around the neck; Isaiah places that same word beside wounding and healing, opening a line from binding toward repair.
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