What Does Lamentations 3:63 Mean?
Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their song.
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
Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.THE KEY
Their scorn turns the speaker’s ordinary movements into a tune, and he names himself as its refrain.
THE MEANING
When your ordinary movements become material for ridicule, the harm follows you through the day: the speaker is made into their repeated song. He names that humiliation plainly, without dressing their mockery up as praise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that ridicule is only a passing remark: it reaches into the speaker’s sitting and rising, making his daily presence its refrain.
THE ROOT
מְנִגִינָתָם
meniginatam
GROWS FROM
נגן
n-g-n
To play an instrument or make music.
“song” in this verse is meniginatam. This word belongs to the N-G-N family of making music; the speaker is not merely near a tune but is what their tune is about. Beside “sitting down” and “rising up,” the music reaches across the rhythm of his day.
ALSO GROWS
nagan: To play music on an instrument.
נָגַן
The verb behind the word shows that their “music” is something made and repeated.
neginah: Music, melody, or song.
נְגִינָה
This related noun makes clear that the speaker has become the subject of their song.
menaggen: A musician or one who plays an instrument.
מְנַגֵּן
This branch names the player, sharpening the contrast: here the speaker is the tune others play.
THE PATTERN
Mockery can turn an afflicted person’s ordinary life into a public refrain.
I am laughter to all my people, and their song all the day.And now I am their song, yea, I am their saying.And the people stood watching. And the rulers with them also turned up their noses at him, saying, He delivered others; let him deliver himself, if he is the Anointed One, the chosen of God.THE THREAD
I am laughter to all my people, and their song all the day.The word translated “song” belongs to the same N-G-N root family as “musick” here. This nearby line names the derision directly, letting the music in this verse sound as the repeated tune of scorn.
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