What Does Lamentations 3:54 Mean in the King James?

Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off.

Lamentations 3:54 · 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

“I am cut off” is a severance word: the verse gives drowning the language of being cut away.

THE MEANING

When the waters rise over your head, everything you can manage feels submerged. “I am cut off” names the conclusion as severance, not a passing inconvenience. The verse lets that extreme inner declaration be heard plainly.

THE ROOT

נִגְזָרְתִּי

nigzarti

GROWS FROM

גזר

The Hebrew root ⁨גזר⁩ (gazar) means to cut, sever, or divide; this form means “I am cut off.”

“cut off” in this verse is nigzarti. The root names an actual cutting apart, so the speaker’s words carry more than the sense of feeling overwhelmed. They give that experience the force of severance.

ALSO GROWS

gazar: to cut or divide

גָּזַר

This verb belongs to the same root as “I am cut off,” making the speaker’s condition a picture of severance.

gezērāh: decree or fixed decision in Biblical Aramaic

גְּזֵרָה

The related word can name a ruling that fixes an outcome, echoing the sense of a boundary decisively drawn.

THE PATTERN

Scripture gives overwhelming distress the language of engulfing waters while preserving the speaker’s words at the edge of collapse.

To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, A Psalm of David. Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.

Psalm 69:1 · KJVThe waters enter the speaker’s whole living self, giving distress the same image of being overwhelmed.

The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

Jonah 2:5 · KJVWaters close around the speaker and reach the head, making the threat of submersion explicit.

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

2 Corinthians 4:9 · KJVThe verse names the feeling of being cast down while distinguishing it from being destroyed.

THE THREAD

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

Isaiah 53:8 · KJV

Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root, ⁨גזר⁩ (gazar), “to cut or sever,” in the phrase “he was cut off.” The shared verb lets Lamentations’ declaration carry the full force of being cut away.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us