What Does Lamentations 3:66 Mean?
Pursue them in the burning of anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the LORD.
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
Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the LORD.THE KEY
The prayer asks God not merely to stop the pursuers, but to chase them down until they are destroyed.
THE MEANING
The reader meets a live cry for God to pursue and destroy “them” in anger, until they are removed from beneath the heavens of the LORD. The paired verbs leave the requested violence in plain view: pursuit ends in destruction.
THE ROOT
רָדַף
rādaph
GROWS FROM
רדף
To pursue, chase, or press after.
“pursue” in this verse is rādaph. The Hebrew verb keeps the image of a pursuer closing in beneath the English word “persecute.” Here, that pursuit is joined directly to the request to destroy, so the prayer asks for judgment that does not stop at restraint.
ALSO GROWS
radaph: Pursue; in Exodus 14:9, the Egyptians pursue Israel.
רָדַף
The same verb shows the physical chase contained in “persecute.”
radaph: Persecute; in Psalm 7:1, the speaker asks to be delivered from those who persecute him.
רָדַף
English uses “persecute” here too, while the Hebrew keeps the same pursuing force.
וְתַשְׁמִידֵם
wətašmîdēm
GROWS FROM
שמד
To destroy or annihilate.
“Destroy” in this verse is wətašmîdēm. The verb names an outcome beyond stopping the enemy: their destruction. Following רדף (radaph, pursue), it makes the plea a sequence of pursuit ending in annihilation.
ALSO GROWS
hishmîd: Cause to be destroyed; a causative form of the root.
הִשְׁמִיד
It makes clear that the root can describe bringing destruction upon someone.
nishmad: Be destroyed; a passive form of the root.
נִשְׁמַד
The same root also describes the state of being destroyed, completing the movement from pursuit to its requested end.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives persecuted people a plain cry for judgment while locating vengeance in God’s hands.
Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the messenger of the LORD pursue them.And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the messenger of the LORD pursue them.Psalm 35:6 uses the same Hebrew verb רָדַף (radaph, pursue) in a parallel cry for the LORD’s messenger to pursue the enemy. The shared root reveals the image beneath “persecute”: relentless pursuit ending in judgment.
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