What Does Lamentations 1:16 Mean?
For these I weep. My eye, my eye, runs down with waters, for the comforter is far from me, the one who turns back my living soul. My children are stunned, for the enemy grows mighty.
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
For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.THE KEY
The comfort this verse longs for is pictured as the return of the living soul, and the one who could bring it back is far away.
THE MEANING
Tears flow while the comforter feels distant, and the devastation remains plain: the children are desolate, and the enemy has prevailed. The living soul longs to be restored, even as the verse names the absence of the one who might bring that restoration.
THE ROOT
מֵשִׁיב
meshiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn back, return, or bring back.
“turns back my living soul” in this verse is meshiv. The Hebrew word translated “relieve” comes from shuv, the root of turning or bringing back. Comfort here reaches the living soul as restoration: a turning back toward wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
This is the root beneath the comforter’s work of bringing the soul back.
teshuvah: Return or turning.
תְּשׁוּבָה
It carries the same movement of coming back that the verse associates with relief.
מְנַחֵם
menachem
GROWS FROM
נחם
To console or comfort; in another verbal form, to be comforted or relent.
“comforter” in this verse is menachem. The verse makes comfort a presence: the menachem who could meet the grief is far away. The root can describe consolation given and received, so the absence is relational as well as inward.
ALSO GROWS
nechamah: Consolation or comfort.
נֶחָמָה
This names the comfort the verse mourns as distant.
nicham: To be comforted or to relent.
נִחַם
The branch shows comfort as something received, not merely an idea.
THE PATTERN
The living soul is restored as comfort returns, and received comfort can become comfort for others.
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. I will lead him, and I will return comforts to him and to those who mourn for him.Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.THE THREAD
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.The Hebrew phrase “restoreth my soul” uses the same shuv root as “relieve my soul” here. Psalm 23 gives the return that this lament longs for: the living soul turned back toward restoration.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us