What Does Lamentations 4:21 Mean?
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who settle in the land of Uz. The cup shall pass over to you also. You shall be drunk, and you shall make yourself bare.
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
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.THE KEY
The cup crosses from the one being watched to the one who rejoices, until the celebrant is the one laid bare.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader who feels outside another’s ruin: the cup keeps moving and reaches the celebrant too. Its arrival turns intoxication into exposure; what was covered is laid bare, and the observer becomes part of the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that delighting in another’s suffering leaves the delighted one untouched.
THE ROOT
וְתִתְעָרִי
ve-titʿari
GROWS FROM
ע־ר־ה
ʿ-r-h
To uncover or lay bare; in another verbal form, to pour out.
“make yourself bare” in this verse is ve-titʿari. The verse’s word for nakedness comes from a root that also means to pour out. Hebrew holds exposure and emptying in the same word-family: the final image is more than disrobing; the one who drinks is left uncovered.
ALSO GROWS
titʿari: Strip or make oneself bare.
תִּתְעָרִי
This is the form used here, where Edom’s exposure completes the cup’s arrival.
yeʿareh: Be poured out; used of the breath poured out from on high in Isaiah 32:15.
יֵעָרֶה
The same root joins being laid bare with outpouring, a connection that can carry either shame or renewal depending on the scene.
אֱדוֹם
ʾĔḏôm
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
ʾ-d-m
Red or reddish; this consonant family also names ground and the ground-being.
Edom means “Red,” so the addressee’s name carries a nature inside it rather than serving as a neutral place label. Its word-family also includes adamah, ground, and adam, the human or ground-being.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red, reddish.
אָדֹם
This is the color carried in the name Edom, resonating with the verse’s image of the cup and drunkenness.
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared consonants connect Edom’s name with the ground-word family and its human resonance.
adam: Human, the ground-being.
אָדָם
The same consonant family links Edom’s name with the human being formed from the ground.
THE PATTERN
The cup of judgment reaches each people in the measure prepared by their deeds.
For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams, full and mixed; he pours from it, but its dregs, all the wicked of the earth, drain and drink.For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me, Take this cup of burning wine from my hand, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.Give back to her as she gave, and double to her double according to her works; in the cup she mixed, mix her a double.THE THREAD
Until breath is poured out upon us from the heights, and the wilderness will become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be counted for a forest.Lamentations uses עָרָה (ʿarah) for making oneself bare; Isaiah uses the same root for the breath poured out from on high. The shared root holds exposure and outpouring together: here the result is shame, while Isaiah’s outpouring makes the wilderness fruitful.
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