What Does Lamentations 4:6 Mean in the King James?
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
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 image of Sodom being turned over makes the verse compare two forms of ruin: one arrives in a moment, while the other is greater still.
THE MEANING
The verse places two devastations before you now: Sodom’s overturning in a moment and a greater punishment borne by the daughter of this people. It keeps the suffering exposed and measures one ruin against another without making them interchangeable. The difference in scale does not soften either one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that ruin is worst when it strikes all at once: the verse places a greater punishment beside Sodom’s overthrow in a moment.
THE ROOT
הֲפוּכָה
haphukhah
GROWS FROM
הפך
הָפַךְ (hāphakh) means to turn over, overturn, or reverse.
“overthrown” in this verse is haphukhah. The verse does more than say Sodom disappears: הֲפוּכָה (haphukhah, overturned) carries an image of being turned over. That image makes the comparison concrete: Sodom’s ruin is complete in a moment, while the punishment set beside it is greater still.
ALSO GROWS
hāphakh: To turn over or overturn.
הָפַךְ
This verb names the action behind Sodom’s fate in the verse.
mahpekhah: An overthrow or upheaval.
מַהְפֵּכָה
This noun from the same consonants keeps the image of overturning visible as a kind of ruin.
חַטָּאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
חָטָא (ḥāṭāʾ) means to miss or err, carrying the image of missing a mark.
“sin” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. The comparison sets the daughter of the people’s עָוֹן (ʿāwōn, crookedness) beside Sodom’s חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, missing), so the Hebrew distinguishes a bent condition from a missed mark. It opens the verse beyond one English category of wrongdoing, even as both are held against the severity of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss or err.
חָטָא
The verb makes the root’s image of missing visible beneath the verse’s word for sin.
ḥōṭēʾ: One who misses or errs.
חוֹטֵא
This branch keeps the image attached to a person rather than leaving it as an abstract label.
THE PATTERN
One community’s ruin becomes a measure that exposes another community’s peril.
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.THE THREAD
And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.Lamentations uses הֲפוּכָה (haphukhah, overturned), from הָפַךְ (hāphakh, to overturn), the same root as Genesis’ verb for Sodom’s destruction. Genesis shows the scope carried by that image: the turning over reaches the cities, their inhabitants, and the ground.
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