What Does Lamentations 3:51 Mean in the King James?
Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city.
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 Hebrew word for eye also means spring: what you witness flows inward until it reaches the living self.
THE MEANING
What your eyes take in does not stay at the surface; it reaches and affects your living self. The suffering of the daughters of your city enters you as grief because it is part of the world you see and share.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that witnessing suffering should leave you untouched: here, the eye’s effect on the living self is part of what seeing means.
THE ROOT
עֵינִי
ʿênî
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; also a spring or source.
The Hebrew word for “eye” is also used for a spring or source. The verse lets sight become an inward flow: what the eye encounters reaches the נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), the living self translated here as “heart.”
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye
עַיִן
The eye is the entry point for what the speaker sees in the city.
ʿēn: Spring, fountain
עֵין
This related form opens the image of sight as a source whose flow reaches inward.
עוֹלְלָה
ʿōlēlāh
GROWS FROM
עלל
ʿ-l-l
To act upon or deal with someone; in some uses, to treat harshly.
The verb behind “affecteth” carries the sense of acting upon someone. The eye is not a passive camera here: what it sees does something to the living self.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālal: To deal with or treat, sometimes harshly
עָלַל
This verb gives “affecteth” the force of an action upon the self.
ʿalīlāh: Deed, action
עֲלִילָה
The related noun keeps the emphasis on what is done, illuminating the eye’s active effect.
לְנַפְשִׁי
lə-nafshî
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self, life, or person.
The Hebrew beneath “heart” is nefesh: the living self, not only an inner emotional chamber. The eye’s impact reaches the whole living person, and the same root can also describe being refreshed.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh ḥayyah: Living soul, living being
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase shows nefesh as the living person, the self reached by what the eye sees.
nāphash: Be refreshed, rest
נָפַשׁ
The related verb connects the living self with refreshment, a striking counterpoint to the grief described here.
THE PATTERN
What the eye witnesses can pass inward and distress the living self.
Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)THE THREAD
Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.Both verses use עַיִן (ʿayin, “eye”): in the psalm, grief wears the eye down; here, the eye’s effect reaches the נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “living self”). The shared word ties what is seen to what is suffered.
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