What Does Lamentations 1:12 Mean?
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass over the way? Look and see if there is any pain like my pain, which is pressed upon me, which the LORD wounds me with in the day of the burning of his anger.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.THE KEY
The verse asks the passerby to stop crossing past another’s pain long enough to see it.
THE MEANING
The voice places its pain before you and asks whether any sorrow compares with it. It names the LORD as the one who has inflicted this pain in the day of his fierce anger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Another’s pain can be nothing to me as long as I keep passing by.
THE ROOT
מַכְאֹבִי
makh'ovi
GROWS FROM
כאב
to hurt; to be in pain
The word translated “my sorrow” carries the root for hurting. The verse joins the pain itself to the act of being hurt, giving the speaker’s anguish a bodily immediacy.
ALSO GROWS
kāʾav: to hurt; to feel pain
כָּאַב
The same root moves from the noun naming the speaker’s pain to the act of hurting.
makh'ov: pain; sorrow
מַכְאוֹב
This is the pain word without the first-person ending, linking the speaker’s particular sorrow to a shared word for pain.
עֹבְרֵי
ʿovrê
GROWS FROM
עבר
to cross over; to pass across
“pass over” in this verse is ʿovrê. The people addressed are named by their motion: they are passersby. The verse sets that movement beside the call to behold and see, turning passage past suffering into a moment of witness.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: to pass over; to cross
עָבַר
This is the verb behind the verse’s description of those passing by.
maʿavār: passage; crossing
מַעֲבָר
The same consonants name a crossing or passage, making movement the shared image behind the passersby.
ʿēver: beyond; the other side
עֵבֶר
The root also names what lies across from someone, echoing the distance between the passerby and the one in pain.
רְאוּ
re'u
GROWS FROM
ראה
to see; to perceive
“see” in this verse is re'u. The verse pairs a command to look closely with a second verb for seeing, so the passerby’s motion meets sustained attention. The same root also names appearance and the one who sees, linking what is seen to the witness.
ALSO GROWS
rāʾāh: to see; to perceive
רָאָה
This is the verb behind the verse’s command to see.
marʾeh: appearance; vision
מַרְאֶה
The root names what comes into view, placing the visible thing beside the act of seeing.
rōʾeh: seer; one who sees
רֹאֶה
The same root names the witness, connecting the command to see with the person who receives it.
THE PATTERN
Suffering becomes visible through the gaze of a witness, and that sight changes the relation.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.And she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, You are El Roi, the God who sees me. For she said, Have I also here looked after the one who sees me?But a certain Samaritan, walking the road, came where he was, and when he saw him, his insides moved over him.THE THREAD
When you cross through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not kindle upon you.Both verses use עבר (ʿavar, to pass or cross): one names people passing the sufferer, while the other describes someone passing through waters with divine presence. The shared root makes passing the hinge between distance from pain and being accompanied through danger.
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