What Does Lamentations 3:29 Mean in the King James?
He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
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
Hope enters the verse before rescue: the mouth is already in the dust, and possibility is still open.
THE MEANING
Even with your mouth in the dust, hope remains possible before anything has changed. The verse holds open that possibility without claiming the lifting has already come.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that dignity or control must be restored before hope can exist. Here, hope is possible while the lowering is still real.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוָה
tiqvah
GROWS FROM
קוה
qavah
To wait for or look eagerly for; a related form also means to be gathered together.
The Hebrew word for hope comes from קוה, a root used for waiting and for waters being gathered together. Hope here is not completed rescue; it is expectation held open while the outcome is still unseen.
ALSO GROWS
qavah: To wait for, look eagerly for, or hope.
קָוָה
This verbal form shows hope as continued waiting, fitting the verse’s open-ended possibility.
yiqqavu: Be gathered together.
יִקָּווּ
The same root describes waters gathering to one place in Genesis 1:9, linking hope with what gathers toward an outcome.
יִתֵּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, or place.
The verb behind “putteth” also means “gives” or “places,” making the image a concrete placing of the mouth in the dust. The wording puts that lowered posture beside hope without saying the posture earns it.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the base verb behind the mouth being placed in the dust.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the give-and-place root, showing the range from placing something to giving something.
THE PATTERN
Hope can remain open in a low or waiting place before outward change appears.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.THE THREAD
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.Job uses the same Hebrew noun תִּקְוָה (tiqvah, hope) for a tree that is cut down yet may sprout again. The shared word holds possibility open in both images: a mouth in the dust and a tree reduced to a stump.
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