What Does Lamentations 3:56 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
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 voice is heard, yet the plea persists because the speaker asks for relief and room, not merely for sound to reach an ear.
THE MEANING
Your voice is heard, and still the need for relief remains; the cry is not erased by being received. The Hebrew word translated “breathing” carries a sense of respite and room, giving the prayer the shape of a plea for distress to loosen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being heard does not mean the distress is already over; the prayer holds both truths at once.
THE ROOT
לְרַוְחָתִי
ləravḥātî
GROWS FROM
רווח
To be spacious or to find relief and respite.
The KJV’s “breathing” here represents a plea for relief or room. The root’s spaciousness turns this line from a sound at the ear into a cry from constriction for room to open.
ALSO GROWS
rāvaḥ: To have room or find relief.
רָוַח
This verbal form makes relief a movement into room, illuminating what the speaker longs for.
revaḥ: Relief, respite, or enlargement.
רֶוַח
This is the word translated “enlargement” in Esther 4:14, linking the plea for relief with space opening where distress presses in.
שָׁמַעְתָּ
shāmaʿtā
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen.
English can leave “heard” as a completed sound event, but the verse immediately asks for an ear that does not withdraw. The שמע word family reaches from hearing toward heeding, so the plea is for attention that remains responsive.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear or listen; in an imperative, hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
The familiar command uses the same root, bringing out the responsive attention the speaker seeks.
shemuʿāh: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows the root’s reach from hearing itself to what is received and attended to.
THE PATTERN
A cry from distress is met with hearing that opens toward relief and deliverance.
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:THE THREAD
For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?Esther’s “enlargement” (רֶוַח) and the word behind this verse’s “breathing” (לְרַוְחָתִי) share the root רווח. The shared root shows the cry as a request for relief and space to open where distress has constricted it.
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