What Does Psalm 80:5 Mean in the King James?

Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.

Psalm 80:5 · 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 verse makes sorrow the full ration: tears are set on the table as bread and poured into the cup as drink.

THE MEANING

The verse lets the charge stand in the present: God is addressed as the one feeding this grief and pouring it out. Sorrow fills both table and cup, becoming the ration set before you now; pain reaches the ordinary acts of eating and drinking.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that honest prayer must protect God from accusation: here, the lament names God as the giver of anguish.

THE ROOT

הֶאֱכַלְתָּם

he'ekhaltam

GROWS FROM

אכל

ʾ-k-l

Eat, consume

“feedest” in this verse is he'ekhaltam. The Hebrew verb belongs to the same root as the ordinary words for eating and food. Tears are not passing across the scene; they have become the people’s actual ration, entering the body as sustenance.

ALSO GROWS

ʾākhal: To eat

אָכַל

This is the root verb beneath the act of feeding, making the verse’s image bodily and direct.

maʾakhal: Food, something eaten

מַאֲכָל

This noun from the same root makes clear that sorrow has become what is set before the people as food.

וַתַּשְׁקֵמוֹ

wattashqēmō

GROWS FROM

שקה

sh-q-h

Give to drink, water, irrigate

The Hebrew root can describe giving someone drink and watering the ground. Here the usual image of watering life is filled with tears, so the drink that sustains the body also carries its grief.

ALSO GROWS

hishqah: Watered, gave to drink

הִשְׁקָה

This verb shows the root’s range from making someone drink to watering, sharpening the contrast between life-giving water and tears.

mashqeh: Drink, beverage; also a cupbearer

מַשְׁקֶה

This related word connects the act of giving drink with the drink itself, as the verse fills the cup with tears.

דִּמְעָה

dimʿah dimʿot

GROWS FROM

דמע

d-m-ʿ

Weep, shed tears

The same tear-root appears first in the bread of tears and again in the tears given to drink. Hebrew binds the whole ration with one repeated word: grief fills both the meal and the cup.

ALSO GROWS

damaʿ: To weep, shed tears

דָּמַע

The verb names the act behind the tears that now become food and drink.

dimʿah: A tear, weeping

דִּמְעָה

This noun supplies the bread’s source: the food is marked by weeping.

dimʿot: Tears

דִּמְעוֹת

This plural form names the tears poured out as drink, repeating the root across the whole image.

THE PATTERN

Scripture makes grief bodily when tears become food and drink, then marks wholeness by tears wiped away and thirst met.

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

Psalm 42:3 · KJVTears become the speaker’s food day and night, echoing the ration of sorrow in Psalm 80.

For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,

Psalm 102:9 · KJVThe speaker’s bread and drink are both mixed with grief, filling the whole table and cup.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

Revelation 7:17 · KJVThe food and drink imagery remains, but tears give way to living water and are wiped away.

THE THREAD

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

Psalm 42:3 · KJV

Psalm 42 uses the same Hebrew tear-root, ⁨דמע⁩ (dimʿah, tears), and makes tears the speaker’s meat day and night. The shared root and meal image show Psalm 80’s bread-and-cup as the fuller picture of sorrow occupying the whole ration.

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