What Does Lamentations 5:1 Mean?
Remember, O LORD, what has come upon us; gaze, and see how we are taunted.
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
Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.THE KEY
The plea piles up remembering, looking, and seeing because both what happened and the reproach it brought must remain in view.
THE MEANING
You stand within the “us” naming what has come upon them before the LORD. The prayer asks that the harm and the reproach it carries remain fully in view, remembered, considered, seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that shame must be hidden from God: the reproach is named directly and placed before the LORD’s attention.
THE ROOT
זְכֹר
zekhor
GROWS FROM
זכר
To remember, call to mind.
The imperative זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) stands beside “consider” and “behold,” pressing for sustained attention rather than passing recall. Its noun branches connect remembering with remembrance and with a memorial, something that keeps what happened present to view.
ALSO GROWS
zeker: Remembrance, mention.
זֵכֶר
This branch links the plea to memory made present through naming.
zikkaron: Memorial, reminder.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial keeps what happened in view, echoing the prayer’s insistence that the calamity not be overlooked.
חֶרְפָּתֵנוּ
ḥerpāṯēnū
GROWS FROM
חרף
To reproach, taunt, expose to disgrace.
“taunted” in this verse is ḥerpāṯēnū. The root reaches beyond a private feeling: חֶרְפָּה (ḥerpāh, “reproach”) names dishonor borne by people. The prayer places both the calamity and its public humiliation before God.
ALSO GROWS
ḥerpāh: Reproach, shame.
חֶרְפָּה
This noun names the disgrace the community asks the LORD to see.
ḥērēf: He reproached, taunted.
חֵרֵף
This verbal branch shows reproach as an act directed at someone, illuminating the humiliation carried by “us.”
THE PATTERN
What is suffered and publicly shamed can be brought into God’s view without being concealed.
Remember, Lord, the taunt of your servants, which I carry in my bosom, from all the many peoples.All day my disgrace stands opposite me, and the shame of my face covers me.For even the Anointed One did not please himself, but, as it is written, The insults of those who insult you have fallen upon me.THE THREAD
Remember, Lord, the taunt of your servants, which I carry in my bosom, from all the many peoples.The same roots appear here: זכר (zakar, “remember”) and חרף (charaph, “reproach”). Their pairing keeps the community’s humiliation in view as part of what is being brought before the LORD.
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