What Does Lamentations 3:31 Mean in the King James?
For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
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 gives rejection an endpoint: what feels like being cast aside does not define the Lord’s final relation to you.
THE MEANING
The Lord does not leave you in rejection forever. Grief and the feeling of being cast aside can be real now, without becoming the final truth of your relationship with God. This verse places a limit around abandonment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that feeling rejected now means you are rejected for good.
THE ROOT
זָנַח
zānaḥ
GROWS FROM
ז־נ־ח
z-n-ḥ
To reject, spurn, or cast aside.
“cast off” in this verse is zānaḥ. The root names the experience directly: being pushed away or rejected. Here, the verse does not deny that this can be felt; it says the Lord’s rejection does not become the lasting condition.
ALSO GROWS
zənaḥtānî: You have cast me off.
זְנַחְתָּנִי
Psalm 43:2 uses this form for one person’s felt rejection; Lamentations places a limit on that state.
zənaḥtānû: You have cast us off.
זְנַחְתָּנוּ
Psalm 44:9 uses the same root for a shared experience of rejection, showing how the root can name both personal and communal pain.
לְעוֹלָם
ləʿolām
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ם
ʿ-l-m
To hide or conceal; the root is often associated with what lies beyond sight.
“for ever” in this verse is ləʿolām. עוֹלָם (ʿolām, “age” or “ages”) can name a span whose limits are not visible from within it. The verse speaks into that unseen stretch and says that being cast off does not fill it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālam: To be hidden or concealed.
עָלַם
This verb carries the root’s sense of what is out of view, echoing how the end of a painful stretch may be impossible to see from inside it.
heʿlīm: To hide or conceal.
הֶעְלִים
This form keeps the same root idea of concealment alongside עוֹלָם (ʿolām, “age” or “ages”), whose full span remains unseen.
THE PATTERN
The Lord’s rejection and the grief around it are bounded; they do not erase compassion or presence.
For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.THE THREAD
Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?Psalm 77:7 uses the same root זָנַח (zānaḥ, “cast off” or “reject”) and the same word עוֹלָם (ʿolām, “age” or “ages”), but frames them as a question. Lamentations 3:31 answers that fear: rejection does not last forever.
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