What Does Lamentations 3:62 Mean?
The lips of those who rise against me, and their muttering against me all the day.
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
The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.THE KEY
The “device” against you grows from a root of murmuring and meditation, joining what reaches the lips with what is rehearsed in thought.
THE MEANING
When you are the subject of opposition, this verse names both the words spoken against you and the hostile thought kept turning against you all day. It sees the strain as sustained pressure, not a single remark.
THE ROOT
הֶגְיוֹנָם
hegyonam
GROWS FROM
הגה
hagah
To murmur, utter, or meditate, to make a low sound or turn thought over.
“muttering” in this verse is hegyonam. The Hebrew word behind “device” belongs to a root whose range includes murmuring, uttering, and meditating. The verse joins inward rehearsal to the lips: the hostility is spoken and kept in thought all day.
ALSO GROWS
hegyon: Musing, meditation, or murmuring.
הֶגְיוֹן
This related noun can describe inward or voiced rumination, making the “device” more than a finished plan: it is a thought being turned over.
yehgu: They imagine, meditate, or mutter.
יֶהְגּוּ
The same root appears in Psalm 2:1, where people “imagine” a vain thing; their plotting shares the texture of thought repeatedly rehearsed.
THE PATTERN
Hostility is carried by repeated thought and speech, taking shape in the mouth and in counsel.
Why do the nations churn, and the peoples mutter emptiness?For I hear the whispering of many; terror is all around, as they sit down together against me, and plot to take my living soul.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.THE THREAD
Why do the nations churn, and the peoples mutter emptiness?Psalm 2:1’s verb rendered “imagine” comes from the same root as the word rendered “device” here. The parallel brings a murmuring, meditative texture into both verses: hostile plotting is thought repeatedly rehearsed.
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