‭שוב‬ in the Psalms— Shame or Disappointment?

Honour and Shame in the Hebrew Bible are commonly discussed within the framework of a pan-Mediterranean social-scientific approach. In order to evaluate this model, this article seeks to understand the meaning of the verbal forms of ‭שוב‬, as found in Lament Psalms, where more than one third of its occurrences appear. The meaning of the root is determined on the basis of contextual analysis as well as the synonymous and antonymous roots. Such investigation demonstrates that the meaning of ‭שוב‬ is often ‘disappointment’ rather than ‘shame’. The application of the pan-Mediterranean model for passages that include the verbal forms of ‭שוב‬ would therefore need to be re-evaluated in future studies. Thus, this study demonstrates the importance of close investigation of any term in the native language before the employment of external models on the text.