What Does Lamentations 3:30 Mean in the King James?
He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.
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 renders reproach as what fills a person to satiety, turning public shame into a consuming portion.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a cheek exposed to a blow beside a person sated with reproach. It names humiliation as both bodily impact and a fullness that settles inside the one who bears it. The injury and contempt remain fully visible in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that bearing humiliation means the injury is small: the verse names the blow and says reproach fills the person.
THE ROOT
יִשְׂבַּע
yisbaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
To be sated or satisfied; to reach fullness.
“filled full” in this verse is yisbaʿ. The Hebrew verb means “be sated,” so reproach is what fills him. The wording gives disgrace the weight of a consuming portion, not a passing insult.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Sated, satisfied, full.
שָׂבֵעַ
This adjective shares the root’s sense of reaching fullness, echoing the state described in the verse.
śōvaʿ: Fullness, satiety.
שֹׂבַע
This noun names the condition the verb expresses: reproach becomes the fullness that surrounds him.
חֶרְפָּה
ḥerpāh
GROWS FROM
חרף
To reproach or taunt; disgrace directed at someone.
The Hebrew word names contempt aimed at a person, not merely a private feeling of embarrassment. Beside the verb for being sated, it pictures reproach as something that fills the one who bears it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāraph: To reproach, taunt.
חָרַף
The verb shows the act behind the noun: reproach is contempt directed toward someone.
ḥerpāh: Reproach, disgrace.
חֶרְפָּה
This noun also appears in Psalm 69:20, where reproach is said to break the heart.
לְמַכֵּהוּ
lemakkehu
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike, smite, or beat.
“smiteth” in this verse is lemakkehu. The phrase names a person in the act of striking and a cheek given to receive the blow. The root keeps the violence bodily even as reproach names its social wound.
ALSO GROWS
nākhāh: To strike, smite.
נָכָה
This is the verb root carried by the phrase “him that smiteth.”
makkāh: A blow, a strike.
מַכָּה
This related noun can name the impact itself, keeping the cheek’s exposure concrete.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, the struck cheek is where bodily violence and public shame meet.
They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.THE THREAD
Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.Psalm 69:20 uses the same Hebrew noun חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach). It says this reproach breaks the heart, opening the inward cost of the humiliation that Lamentations says fills a person.
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