What Does Lamentations 5:18 Mean in the King James?

Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

Lamentations 5:18 · 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

The foxes’ passage makes Zion’s desolation visible: the sacred height is now crossed by wild creatures.

THE MEANING

The reader meets desolation as a visible change in who occupies a place: foxes cross Zion’s mountain where human life has receded. Its sacredness does not shield it from being left exposed and empty. The word carries the shock of seeing a place become this.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that a place’s sacredness guarantees its visible protection is undone here: Zion itself stands desolate, with foxes crossing it.

THE ROOT

שָׁמֵם

shamem

GROWS FROM

שׁמם

To become desolate; related forms also carry the sense of being appalled or stunned.

The Hebrew root holds physical devastation and the shock of beholding it close together. Here that ruin is made concrete: foxes cross the mountain that stands desolate.

ALSO GROWS

shemamah: Desolation, waste

שְׁמָמָה

This noun from the same root names desolation as a condition of the land, not merely a passing feeling.

shammah: Desolation, horror, astonishment

שַׁמָּה

This related form carries the shock that devastation can provoke, echoing the force of seeing Zion left to wild creatures.

THE PATTERN

When a dwelling is emptied, its changed inhabitants make desolation visible.

And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

Isaiah 34:13 · KJVThe abandoned stronghold is visibly transformed as wild creatures and untended growth occupy its former human spaces.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Revelation 18:2 · KJVThe fallen city becomes a dwelling for creatures and spirits, making its collapse visible through what now inhabits it.

THE THREAD

And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

Jeremiah 9:11 · KJV

The word translated “desolate” in both passages comes from the Hebrew root ⁨שמם⁩ (shamem), meaning to become desolate. Jeremiah expands the image from foxes crossing Zion’s mountain to cities left without inhabitants.

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