What Does Lamentations 1:8 Mean in the King James?
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
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
Hebrew sets honor as weight against contempt as being made light, so Jerusalem’s exposure becomes a collapse in how others value her.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader’s present experience of exposure: those who once treated Jerusalem as weighty now despise her when they see her nakedness. Her sigh and backward turn make the cost of that reversal visible; the grief remains uncovered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being honored makes a person’s standing secure dissolves here: those who honored Jerusalem now despise her after seeing her nakedness.
THE ROOT
מְכַבְּדֶיהָ
mekhabdeha
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
“honoured” in this verse is mekhabdeha. The verb translated despise is הִזִּילוּהָ (hizziluha, they made her light), from זלל (zalal, to be light or contemptible). Hebrew frames the reversal as weight collapsing into lightness: the people who treated her as weighty now treat her with contempt.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
The adjective for heaviness makes the concrete sense beneath honor visible: esteem is weight.
kavod: Weight; honor.
כָּבוֹד
The word for honor carries the sense of weight, so those who honored Jerusalem treated her as weighty.
חָטְאָה
chat'ah
GROWS FROM
חטא
ch-t-ʾ
To miss, go wrong, or miss the mark.
“sinned grievously” in this verse is chat'ah. The clause repeats the root in חָטְאָה (chat’ah, she sinned) and חֵטְא (chet, missing), an emphatic construction the KJV renders as grievously sinned. The concrete sense of missing sits inside the moral word, while the verse names the consequences as removal, exposure, and contempt.
ALSO GROWS
chet: Missing; offense.
חֵטְא
The noun shares the verb’s root, showing the familiar word for sin also carries the sense of a miss.
chatta't: Offense; offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same root names both the failure and an offering associated with it, keeping the idea of the missing in view.
THE PATTERN
Exposure can overturn the weight others once gave a person, turning honor into contempt.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare.Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.THE THREAD
Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.Ezekiel uses the same word עֶרְוָה (ervah, nakedness), again exposing Jerusalem before those gathered around her. It opens Lamentations further by showing that this nakedness is public vulnerability, with the witnesses’ presence turning exposure into humiliation.
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