What Does Lamentations 3:42 Mean?
We have broken away and have rebelled; you have not released us.
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
We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.THE KEY
The Hebrew names rebellion through two distinct roots, then states just as plainly that pardon has not come.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the reader a present-tense confession: the breach is named twice, and pardon is named as absent. The admission and the absence of pardon occupy the same line, so the verse does not treat confession as pardon.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that admitting rebellion is itself the same thing as being pardoned.
THE ROOT
פָּשַׁעְנוּ
pāšaʿnû
GROWS FROM
פשע
p-sh-ʿ
to rebel, revolt, or break away
“broken away” in this verse is pāšaʿnû. The English “transgressed” can sound like crossing a boundary, while פשע (pāšaʿ, “rebel”) carries the sharper sense of revolt. The next verb comes from a different root for rebellion, so the confession accumulates two expressions of defiance.
ALSO GROWS
pešaʿ: rebellion, transgression, breach
פֶּשַׁע
The noun names the kind of breach the speakers confess.
pōšēaʿ: one who rebels
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This form makes the same root describe the person acting in rebellion.
מָרִינוּ
mārînû
GROWS FROM
מרה
m-r-h
to rebel, resist, or disobey
“rebelled” in this verse is mārînû. This is a second root, related in sense but not a repetition of פשע (pāšaʿ, “rebel”). The two verbs keep the confession cumulative: the speakers name rebellion in two distinct ways.
ALSO GROWS
merî: rebellion
מְרִי
The noun gathers the action of this verb into a named state of defiance.
mōrîm: rebels
מֹרִים
The plural form applies the same root to people characterized by rebellion.
סָלָחְתָּ
sālaḥtā
GROWS FROM
סלח
s-l-ḥ
to forgive or pardon
“released” in this verse is sālaḥtā. The final clause names pardon directly; the text does not leave it implied by the confession. Pardon is the release of the charge, and the verse says that this release has not occurred.
ALSO GROWS
sālaḥ: to forgive or pardon
סָלַח
This is the verb behind the verse’s direct statement that pardon has not been given.
selîḥāh: forgiveness, pardon
סְלִיחָה
The noun names the act the verse says is absent.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names the breach and the act of pardon separately, even when it places them side by side.
I make my falling short known to you, and my crookedness I do not cover. I say, I will speak my rebellion into the open before the LORD, and you release the crookedness of my falling short. Selah.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.Psalm 51:1 uses פְּשָׁעָי (pĕšāʿay, “my transgressions”), from the same root פשע (pāšaʿ, “rebel”) as “transgressed” here. Lamentations names that rebellion and says pardon is absent; Psalm 51 turns the same breach into a plea to have it blotted out.
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