What Does Lamentations 4:21 Mean in the King James?
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.
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 cup crosses from the one being watched to the one who rejoices, until the celebrant is the one laid bare.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader who feels outside another’s ruin: the cup keeps moving and reaches the celebrant too. Its arrival turns intoxication into exposure; what was covered is laid bare, and the observer becomes part of the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that delighting in another’s suffering leaves the delighted one untouched.
THE ROOT
וְתִתְעָרִי
ve-titʿari
GROWS FROM
ע־ר־ה
ʿ-r-h
To uncover or lay bare; in another verbal form, to pour out.
“make thyself naked” in this verse is ve-titʿari. The verse’s word for nakedness comes from a root that also means to pour out. Hebrew holds exposure and emptying in the same word-family: the final image is more than disrobing; the one who drinks is left uncovered.
ALSO GROWS
titʿari: Strip or make oneself bare.
תִּתְעָרִי
This is the form used here, where Edom’s exposure completes the cup’s arrival.
yeʿareh: Be poured out; used of the breath poured out from on high in Isaiah 32:15.
יֵעָרֶה
The same root joins being laid bare with outpouring, a connection that can carry either shame or renewal depending on the scene.
אֱדוֹם
ʾĔḏôm
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
ʾ-d-m
Red or reddish; this consonant family also names ground and the ground-being.
Edom means “Red,” so the addressee’s name carries a nature inside it rather than serving as a neutral place label. Its word-family also includes adamah, ground, and adam, the human or ground-being.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red, reddish.
אָדֹם
This is the color carried in the name Edom, resonating with the verse’s image of the cup and drunkenness.
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared consonants connect Edom’s name with the ground-word family and its human resonance.
adam: Human, the ground-being.
אָדָם
The same consonant family links Edom’s name with the human being formed from the ground.
THE PATTERN
The cup of judgment reaches each people in the measure prepared by their deeds.
For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.THE THREAD
Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.Lamentations uses עָרָה (ʿarah) for making oneself bare; Isaiah uses the same root for the breath poured out from on high. The shared root holds exposure and outpouring together: here the result is shame, while Isaiah’s outpouring makes the wilderness fruitful.
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