What Does Lamentations 2:1 Mean in the King James?
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!
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 depicts divine anger as the collapse of sacred regard: Zion is clouded, Israel’s splendor falls, and even the LORD’s footstool is not remembered.
THE MEANING
The verse names ruin without softening it: anger covers Zion like a cloud, Israel’s splendor is cast from heaven to earth, and the footstool is left outside remembrance. Even what is sacred can be brought low and left unremembered in the day of anger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the LORD’s presence makes Zion invulnerable: its beauty is cast down, and its footstool is not remembered.
THE ROOT
תִּפְאֶרֶת
tifʾeret
GROWS FROM
פ־א־ר
p-ʾ-r
To beautify, adorn, or make splendid.
“beauty” in this verse is tifʾeret. Tifʾeret names visible splendor, from a root about adorning or glorifying. What is cast from heaven to earth is Israel’s displayed adornment, now brought low.
ALSO GROWS
paʾar: To beautify or glorify.
פָּאַר
The verb shows that this splendor is something adorned or made glorious.
peʾer: Headdress or ornament.
פְּאֵר
This branch makes splendor concrete: an adornment that can be cast down.
זָכַר
zākhar
GROWS FROM
ז־כ־ר
z-k-r
To remember, recall, or bring to mind.
“remembered” in this verse is zākhar. The same root yields words for remembering and for a memorial. Beside the splendor cast down, the unremembered footstool makes the loss of active regard part of the devastation.
ALSO GROWS
zikkaron: Memorial or remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial keeps someone or something in view; the verse says the footstool is not remembered.
zeker: Remembrance or mention.
זֵכֶר
This branch links remembering with speaking of something, giving the verse’s silence around the footstool added weight.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, judgment can be pictured as sacred beauty being lowered and sacred space left desolate.
They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.THE THREAD
Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.Both verses turn on זָכַר (zākhar), meaning “remember”: Lamentations says the footstool is not remembered, while the psalm asks that the congregation and Mount Zion be remembered. The shared root sets the unremembered footstool beside a plea for Zion and its people to be held in view.
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