Lamentations 3:20
in Lamentations 3Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed down within me.
KJV
My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
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This verse in Lamentations 3
Commentary
4 notes on this verseSecond, memory reduces itself to the benefits the people received. "My soul continually thinks of it," the benefits. And: "is bowed down within me." That is, memory fails from admiration, or desire. As Psalm 42:4 says: "These things I remember, as I pour out my …
This site's exposition
Remembering mine affliction and my misery
on Lamentations 3:19-21
Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall repeats the taste of the previous unit, memory at first only rehearsing the pain rather than relieving it. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me shows grief working its way down into humility before it becomes anything else. The turn arrives in one short sentence, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope, and the bench marks the pivot exactly here: something else is recalled to mind, unnamed until the next unit, hope following the recalling rather than replacing the grief that came before it.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
on Lamentations 3:19-20
It was an affliction that was misery itself. My affliction and my transgression (so some read it), my trouble and my sin that brought it upon me; this was the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the misery. It is sin that makes the cup of affliction a bitter cup.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
By soul - is humbled in me - It is evident that in the preceding verses there is a bitterness of complaint against the bitterness of adversity, that is not becoming to man when under the chastising hand of God; and, while indulging this feeling, all hope fled. Here we find a different feeling; he humbles himself under the mighty hand of God, and then his hope revives, Lam 3:21.
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| זָכ֣וֹר | zakhor | continually <remember> | H2142 → | 230 times |
| תִּזְכּ֔וֹר | tizkor | it remembers | H2142 → | 230 times |
| וְתָשׁ֥וֹחַ | vetashiach | so it may bow down | H7743 → | |
| עָלַ֖י | ʾalai | on me | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| נַפְשִֽׁי׃ | nafshi | self my | H5315 → | 754 times |
זָכ֣וֹרcontinually <remember>
zakhorH2142 →230 times
תִּזְכּ֔וֹרit remembers
tizkorH2142 →230 times
וְתָשׁ֥וֹחַso it may bow down
vetashiachH7743 →
עָלַ֖יon me
ʾalaiH5921 →5755 times
נַפְשִֽׁי׃self my
nafshiH5315 →754 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 42:11Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
it leads to
- Psalms 42:5
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Jeremiah 30:17
But I will restore your health and heal your wounds, declares the LORD, because they call you an outcast, Zion, for whom no one cares.”
- Jeremiah 33:6
Nevertheless, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal its people and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.
- Psalms 43:5
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
- Psalms 42:5
Through
Psalms 146:8the LORD opens the eyes of the blind, the LORD lifts those who are weighed down, the LORD loves the righteous.
it leads to
- Psalms 11:7
For the LORD is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.
- Psalms 145:14
The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.
- Acts 26:18
to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified…
- Matthew 9:30
And their eyes were opened. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one finds out about this!”
- Psalms 11:7
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Lamentations
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, Lamentations; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.