What Does Lamentations 1:21 Mean?
They hear that I groan, and there is no comforter for me. All my enemies hear my harm, and they leap, for you have done it. You bring the day you have called, and let them be like me.
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
They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.THE KEY
Those who rejoice at your suffering are only temporary spectators: the day God calls makes them share the condition they now celebrate.
THE MEANING
You can be heard and still have no comforter; those who know your trouble can even rejoice in it. Yet the verse places their delight under a summoned reversal: those who celebrate your condition come to share it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that people who celebrate your suffering stand outside its reach for good: the verse gives them a day in the same condition.
THE ROOT
מְנַחֵם
menaḥēm
GROWS FROM
נחם
to comfort or console; in related forms, to relent or be moved to pity
“comforter for me” in this verse is menaḥēm. The comfort absent here is more than soothing: this root also names being moved enough to relent. The lament holds that absence beside enemies who hear the suffering and rejoice, then turns toward a day that changes who occupies that position.
ALSO GROWS
niḥam: to relent, be moved to pity
נִחַם
It shows the movement toward the sufferer that is missing when there is no comforter.
neḥāmāh: consolation, comfort
נֶחָמָה
This is the consolation the speaker says is absent.
נֶאֱנָחָה
neʾĕnāḥāh
GROWS FROM
אנח
to sigh or groan
The root names a groan, not a crafted announcement, yet the enemies have heard it. The same root appears in Exodus for the groaning under bondage, where the sigh accompanies a cry that rises to God.
ALSO GROWS
ʾānaḥ: to sigh, groan
אָנַח
It gives the sound beneath the verse: distress expressed without explanation.
ʾănāḥāh: a sigh, groaning
אֲנָחָה
This noun makes the groan itself the subject, a sound others can hear even when no comfort comes.
THE PATTERN
A groan can remain present to God when human comfort or clear speech is absent.
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.Lord, all my longing lies open before you, and my groaning is not hidden from you.Likewise the breath also takes hold alongside our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the breath itself approaches on our behalf with groans too deep for speech.THE THREAD
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.The word translated “sigh” in Lamentations comes from the same Hebrew root אנח (ʾ-n-ḥ, sigh or groan) used in Exodus’s “sighed.” There, the sigh accompanies a cry that comes up to God, opening this lament’s sound as the groan of someone under constriction, even when no comforter is near.
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