What Does Lamentations 3:49 Mean?
My eye trickles down and does not hush, without any pause,
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
Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,THE KEY
The tears are a current, not isolated drops: the verse names grief that keeps flowing without relief.
THE MEANING
When grief keeps coming, your eye becomes its stream: the tears continue without a pause or relief. The verse gives language to sorrow still moving through you now, before any quiet arrives.
THE ROOT
נִגְּרָה
nigrāh
GROWS FROM
נגר
nagar
to flow, pour out
“trickleth down” in this verse is nigrāh. The eye is described with a verb of flowing, so tears become a current rather than separate drops. Psalm 77:2 uses the same verb for an outpouring through the night: this root carries lament as sustained movement.
ALSO GROWS
nigrāh: Flows or pours out; the form used here.
נִגְּרָה
The eye does not release a single tear and stop; its grief keeps moving like a stream.
nigrāh: The same verb used in Psalm 77:2, which the KJV renders “my sore ran.”
נִגְּרָה
The root also gives lament the shape of an outpouring that continues through the night.
הֲפֻגוֹת
hafugot
GROWS FROM
פוג
pug
to slacken, grow numb, or ease; the noun form can mean respite
“pause” in this verse is hafugot. This root joins relief with slackening or numbness. With no פוג (pug, easing or respite), the verse describes sorrow that has not slackened and found an interval of relief.
ALSO GROWS
tafug: Slackens or grows numb; used in Psalm 77:2 in the phrase the KJV renders “and ceased not.”
תָפוּג
It describes an outpouring that does not ease through the night, echoing the unbroken flow here.
fugat: Relief or respite, as in Lamentations 2:18.
פוּגַת
The same root names the pause that the lament says is absent.
vayyāfag: Grew faint or numb, as in Genesis 45:26.
וַיָּפָג
This form shows how the root’s sense of easing or slackening can shade into numbness.
THE PATTERN
Grief without respite is pictured as an ongoing flow, with tears giving visible form to what keeps moving within.
And you shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not fall silent; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breaking, with a very grievous wound.In the day of my narrow place I seek the Lord. My hand runs in the night and does not go slack; my living soul refuses to be comforted.And when he drew near, perceiving the city, he wept over it.THE THREAD
In the day of my narrow place I seek the Lord. My hand runs in the night and does not go slack; my living soul refuses to be comforted.Psalm 77:2 uses נִגְּרָה (nigrāh, flows or pours out), the same verb used for the eye’s flow here, and תָפוּג (tafug, slacken), from the same root as “intermission.” The shared roots reveal lament as a sustained outpouring that does not ease through the night.
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