What Does Lamentations 1:21 Mean in the King James?
They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.
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
Those who rejoice at your suffering are only temporary spectators: the day God calls makes them share the condition they now celebrate.
THE MEANING
You can be heard and still have no comforter; those who know your trouble can even rejoice in it. Yet the verse places their delight under a summoned reversal: those who celebrate your condition come to share it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that people who celebrate your suffering stand outside its reach for good: the verse gives them a day in the same condition.
THE ROOT
מְנַחֵם
menaḥēm
GROWS FROM
נחם
to comfort or console; in related forms, to relent or be moved to pity
The comfort absent here is more than soothing: this root also names being moved enough to relent. The lament holds that absence beside enemies who hear the suffering and rejoice, then turns toward a day that changes who occupies that position.
ALSO GROWS
niḥam: to relent, be moved to pity
נִחַם
It shows the movement toward the sufferer that is missing when there is no comforter.
neḥāmāh: consolation, comfort
נֶחָמָה
This is the consolation the speaker says is absent.
נֶאֱנָחָה
neʾĕnāḥāh
GROWS FROM
אנח
to sigh or groan
The root names a groan, not a crafted announcement, yet the enemies have heard it. The same root appears in Exodus for the groaning under bondage, where the sigh accompanies a cry that rises to God.
ALSO GROWS
ʾānaḥ: to sigh, groan
אָנַח
It gives the sound beneath the verse: distress expressed without explanation.
ʾănāḥāh: a sigh, groaning
אֲנָחָה
This noun makes the groan itself the subject, a sound others can hear even when no comfort comes.
THE PATTERN
A groan can remain present to God when human comfort or clear speech is absent.
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.THE THREAD
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.The word translated “sigh” in Lamentations comes from the same Hebrew root אנח (ʾ-n-ḥ, sigh or groan) used in Exodus’s “sighed.” There, the sigh accompanies a cry that comes up to God, opening this lament’s sound as the groan of someone under constriction, even when no comforter is near.
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