What Does Lamentations 3:30 Mean?
He gives his cheek to the one who strikes him; he is filled with reproach.
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
He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.THE KEY
Hebrew renders reproach as what fills a person to satiety, turning public shame into a consuming portion.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a cheek exposed to a blow beside a person sated with reproach. It names humiliation as both bodily impact and a fullness that settles inside the one who bears it. The injury and contempt remain fully visible in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that bearing humiliation means the injury is small: the verse names the blow and says reproach fills the person.
THE ROOT
יִשְׂבַּע
yisbaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
To be sated or satisfied; to reach fullness.
“filled” in this verse is yisbaʿ. The Hebrew verb means “be sated,” so reproach is what fills him. The wording gives disgrace the weight of a consuming portion, not a passing insult.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Sated, satisfied, full.
שָׂבֵעַ
This adjective shares the root’s sense of reaching fullness, echoing the state described in the verse.
śōvaʿ: Fullness, satiety.
שֹׂבַע
This noun names the condition the verb expresses: reproach becomes the fullness that surrounds him.
חֶרְפָּה
ḥerpāh
GROWS FROM
חרף
To reproach or taunt; disgrace directed at someone.
The Hebrew word names contempt aimed at a person, not merely a private feeling of embarrassment. Beside the verb for being sated, it pictures reproach as something that fills the one who bears it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāraph: To reproach, taunt.
חָרַף
The verb shows the act behind the noun: reproach is contempt directed toward someone.
ḥerpāh: Reproach, disgrace.
חֶרְפָּה
This noun also appears in Psalm 69:20, where reproach is said to break the heart.
לְמַכֵּהוּ
lemakkehu
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike, smite, or beat.
“smiteth” in this verse is lemakkehu. The phrase names a person in the act of striking and a cheek given to receive the blow. The root keeps the violence bodily even as reproach names its social wound.
ALSO GROWS
nākhāh: To strike, smite.
נָכָה
This is the verb root carried by the phrase “him that smiteth.”
makkāh: A blow, a strike.
מַכָּה
This related noun can name the impact itself, keeping the cheek’s exposure concrete.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, the struck cheek is where bodily violence and public shame meet.
They have gaped their mouths wide against me. They have struck my cheek in scorn. They have gathered together against me.I have given my back to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who pluck out the hair. I have not hidden my face from shame and spitting.But I say to you, do not stand against evil. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.THE THREAD
Reproach has broken my heart, and I am frail. I wait for one to shake with me, and there is none. I wait for comforters, and I find none.Psalm 69:20 uses the same Hebrew noun חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, reproach). It says this reproach breaks the heart, opening the inward cost of the humiliation that Lamentations says fills a person.
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