What Does Lamentations 5:4 Mean in the King James?
We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
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 constriction reaches the necessities themselves: water must be purchased, and even wood comes at a price.
THE MEANING
The verse places you where drinking water and wood for daily use both require money. When what sustains life has a price, even the simplest needs become a place of constriction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the comforting idea that hardship leaves basic necessities untouched: here, even water and wood carry a cost.
THE ROOT
יָבֹאוּ
yavo'u
GROWS FROM
בוא
boʾ, to come, enter, arrive
The Hebrew word beneath “sold unto us” says that the wood “comes” to them, with the price named in the same line. The root keeps the arrival in view: what they need reaches them only through a costly exchange.
ALSO GROWS
boʾ: come, enter
בּוֹא
This is the root verb; it makes arrival the image carried by the wood in the verse.
mavo: entrance, entryway
מָבוֹא
An entrance is a point through which something comes in, echoing the costly arrival of the wood.
tevu'ah: produce, yield
תְּבוּאָה
This word for produce belongs to the same “coming in” family, linking arrival with what the land yields.
שָׁתִינוּ
shatinu
GROWS FROM
שתה
shatah, to drink
“drunken” in this verse is shatinu. The root for drinking also forms מִשְׁתֶּה (mishteh), a drinking feast. Hebrew holds ordinary drinking and a feast of drinking in one word-family; here, the act is narrowed to water that must be bought.
ALSO GROWS
shatah: to drink
שָׁתָה
This is the root verb behind “we have drunken,” naming the basic act that now carries a price.
mishteh: drinking feast
מִשְׁתֶּה
This branch shows the same root opening into a feast, while this verse shows drinking reduced to paid necessity.
THE PATTERN
Under constriction, access to life’s necessities is converted into a priced or controlled exchange.
Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.THE THREAD
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.The Hebrew verb בוא (boʾ), “come,” appears in both verses: the wood comes at a price here, while Isaiah invites the thirsty to come to the waters without money. The same root of arrival frames both costly access and provision without price.
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