What Does Lamentations 3:13 Mean in the King James?

He hath caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my reins.

Lamentations 3:13 · KJV

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 KJV’s “reins” are kidneys, so anguish here is an arrow wound in the body’s hidden vital center.

THE MEANING

The pain is experienced as aimed: the one named “He” sends arrows into the speaker’s hidden vital center. “Reins” means kidneys, placing the wound deep within the body rather than at its surface. The violence in the image remains stark.

THE ROOT

הֵבִיא

hēvî

GROWS FROM

בוא

b-w-ʾ

Come, arrive, enter; in the causative form, bring or cause to enter.

“caused to enter” in this verse is hēvî. The verb makes the arrows come all the way into the kidneys. The KJV’s “reins” names that hidden vital center, so the sentence presents anguish as penetration, not a vague affliction.

ALSO GROWS

bāʾ: Came, arrived.

בָּא

The simple verb names the movement that the verse makes causative: something comes inward.

māvōʾ: Entrance, entry.

מָבוֹא

This branch names the point of entry, sharpening the verse’s image of a wound crossing into the body.

bîʾāh: Coming, entry.

בִּיאָה

This noun preserves the root’s sense of arrival inside, the movement at the center of the verse.

THE PATTERN

Scripture gives invisible assault the image of arrows aimed at or reaching a person’s inward life.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.

Job 6:4 · KJVThe arrows are explicitly within the speaker, making inner anguish a bodily image of attack.

For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

Psalm 38:2 · KJVThe arrows lodge in the speaker, turning suffering into a wound that remains.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Ephesians 6:16 · KJVThe image becomes fiery darts, a danger pictured as projectiles aimed at a person.

THE THREAD

His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.

Job 16:13 · KJV

Both verses use ⁨כִּלְיוֹתַי⁩ (kilyotai, “my kidneys”), rendered “reins” in the KJV. Job makes the same hidden organs the target of archers who split them apart, turning Lamentations’ inward arrow wound into an even more explicit image of bodily violence.

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