What Does Lamentations 3:55 Mean?
I call upon your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit.
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
I called upon thy name, O LORD, out of the low dungeon.THE KEY
From the lowest place, the speaker calls on the LORD’s name as the LORD’s nature, so the cry addresses who the LORD is.
THE MEANING
The name the speaker calls is the LORD’s nature, the character by which the LORD is known. The cry comes from the lowest place itself, so depth and address coexist in the present. The verse leaves the distress visible while keeping the LORD directly addressed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the lowest place makes address impossible dissolves here: the call begins inside the dungeon.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְךָ
shimkha
GROWS FROM
שֵׁם
shem
Name; reputation; the nature by which someone is known.
Here, the name is the LORD’s nature as it is known and encountered, not a detached label. Calling the LORD’s name from the dungeon is addressing who the LORD is from within the depth.
ALSO GROWS
shemo: His name.
שְׁמוֹ
This possessive form shows the name belongs to the one being addressed.
shemot: Names.
שֵׁמוֹת
The plural keeps the same word-family visible while the verse focuses on the LORD’s singular nature.
קָרָאתִי
qara'ti
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call, summon, or proclaim aloud.
“called” in this verse is qara'ti. The root qara joins calling aloud with proclamation and reading. This is voiced address rising from the pit, a call made audible from within the depth.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: A convocation or public reading.
מִקְרָא
What is called aloud can gather others or make a message heard.
qeri'ah: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
This noun preserves the same movement from voice to audible address.
תַּחְתִּיּוֹת
taḥtiyyot
GROWS FROM
תחת
taḥat
Under, beneath, or in the place below.
“lowest” in this verse is taḥtiyyot. The word places the speaker in the lower places, beneath the surface of safety. The text keeps the depth concrete while the voice rises from inside it.
ALSO GROWS
taḥat: Under, beneath; also in place of.
תַּחַת
The same root can mark what lies below or what takes another’s place.
taḥton: Lower or beneath.
תַּחְתּוֹן
This form carries the same downward position named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A cry to the LORD can rise from inside distress and enter the language of hearing or deliverance.
In my narrow place I call out to the LORD, and I cry out to my God. From his temple he hears and answers my voice, and my cry comes into his ears.I called out to the LORD from my narrow place, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried out, and you heard and responded to my voice.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will slip free, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors whom the LORD calls.Joel joins the same Hebrew ideas found here: calling (קרא, qara) and the LORD’s name (שֵׁם, shem). Lamentations locates that call in the low pit; Joel joins calling the name with deliverance, letting the cry open toward what follows.
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