What Does Lamentations 4:16 Mean?
The face of the LORD has divided them; he will no more gaze upon them. They do not lift up the faces of the priests; they do not favor the elders.
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 anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the word for “face” in the LORD’s presence and the priests’ “persons,” making withdrawn divine regard mirror the regard the people withheld.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s presence divides the community, and the gaze that once regarded it is withdrawn. Those who withhold regard from priests and elders meet the fracture their refusal brings into the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that contempt toward a community’s elders is only a private slight: withheld regard can become communal fracture, and office does not exempt anyone from judgment.
THE ROOT
פְּנֵי
pənê
GROWS FROM
פנה
To turn or face toward; to orient oneself toward someone.
The Hebrew repeats פְּנֵי (pənê, “faces of”) for the LORD and for the priests; the KJV renders those phrases as “anger” and “persons.” That shared face-language links the LORD’s withdrawn regard with the people’s refusal to lift their faces toward the priests.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face; presence or person
פָּנִים
The same face-word underlies the LORD’s presence and the priests’ persons, joining divine and human regard.
panah: Turn; turn toward or away
פָּנָה
The root’s sense of orientation illuminates the verse’s movement from the LORD’s presence to the people’s refusal of regard.
חִלְּקָם
ḥilleqām
GROWS FROM
חלק
To divide, apportion, or share out.
“divided” in this verse is ḥilleqām. The verb can carry the sense of dividing into shares, so the community’s fracture is also an apportioning under judgment. The same root can name a portion or share, connecting this division to what is allotted.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēleq: Portion; share
חֵלֶק
The shared root shows how division and an allotted share belong to the same word-family.
maḥălōqet: Division; dispute
מַחֲלֹקֶת
This branch names the division that emerges when separation becomes conflict among people.
חָנָנוּ
ḥānanū
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor or act graciously.
The elders are not merely overlooked; the verse says favor is withheld from them. That refusal belongs to the wider pattern of faces turned away and regard withdrawn.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor; acceptance
חֵן
This noun names the favor the people do not extend to the elders.
ḥannūn: Gracious; favor-giving
חַנּוּן
The word describes one who shows favor, sharpening the contrast with the people’s refusal to do so.
THE PATTERN
The divine regard sees past rank, and human partiality is incompatible with that unbent gaze.
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, the awe-inspiring, who does not lift up the face of any and does not take a bribe.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.The verb translated “divided” comes from חָלַק, whose noun חֵלֶק means “portion” or “share.” Psalm 16:5 uses that same root to name the LORD as the speaker’s portion, revealing the root’s range from an allotted share to a division that fractures a people.
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