What Does Lamentations 3:40 Mean?
Let us feel for our ways and search them out, and turn back to the LORD.
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
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.THE KEY
The way back to the LORD begins by looking straight at the path your own feet have made.
THE MEANING
The verse presents return as a shared movement: the paths being walked come into view through searching and probing, then turn toward the LORD. The way back is not abstract; it begins where the actual steps have gone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that returning to the LORD can be separated from honestly facing the path one is walking.
THE ROOT
וְנָשׁוּבָה
venashuvah
GROWS FROM
שׁוב
shuv
to turn back, return
“turn back” in this verse is venashuvah. This is a return with a destination: “unto the LORD.” The related word teshuvah also names a turning or return, so the searching is not an end in itself; it leads into a real change of direction.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: turn back, return
שׁוּב
It carries the same movement named in the verse: turning toward the LORD.
teshuvah: return, turning
תְּשׁוּבָה
It makes clear that return is a movement, not merely a feeling or conclusion.
דְּרָכֵינוּ
derakheinu
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
to tread, take steps
English “ways” can sound abstract, but derek is a path one walks and is related to darak, “to tread.” The verse’s examination reaches the actual tracks left by one’s steps.
ALSO GROWS
derek: way, path
דֶּרֶךְ
It names the walked path that the verse calls us to search and examine.
darak: tread, step
דָּרַךְ
It links a “way” to the steps that make and reveal it.
THE PATTERN
A return begins when the path being walked is brought into view.
Probe me, O God, and perceive my heart; test me, and perceive my burning thoughts. See if there is a way of pain in me, and lead me on the way of the ages.Level the track of your feet, and let all your ways stand firm.THE THREAD
Turn back, Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled in your crookedness.“Return” in both verses comes from the Hebrew root שוב (shuv). Hosea names the same return toward the LORD, while Lamentations shows the searching of one’s ways as the movement that precedes it.
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