What Does Lamentations 1:2 Mean in the King James?
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.
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 betrayal cuts deepest because the people from whom she might expect comfort are the very ones who leave her alone.
THE MEANING
The grieving one weeps through the night, with no one to comfort her. Those she loves offer no comfort, and her friends betray her until they stand as enemies. The verse holds abandonment and betrayal together without softening either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that closeness guarantees comfort is undone: here, the beloved and trusted are the very ones who leave her without it.
THE ROOT
מְנַחֵם
menaḥēm
GROWS FROM
נחם
n-ḥ-m
To console or comfort; this root also has the related sense of relenting or being moved.
The Hebrew word for “comforter” belongs to a word family that includes consolation and being moved. The absence is more than company missing: no one responds to her grief with consolation.
ALSO GROWS
tanchumim: consolations
תַּנְחוּמִים
This related form names the consolation she has none of from among those she loves.
niḥam: was comforted; relented
נִחַם
This form shows the root’s range of consolation and change in response to distress.
THE PATTERN
Betrayal wounds by turning expected closeness into abandonment.
All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.And they all forsook him, and fled.THE THREAD
Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.The Hebrew word for “comforters” here shares the root נחם with the “comforter” missing in Lamentations. In both verses, the speaker looks for consolation and finds no one to give it.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us