Lamentations 4

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The gold grown dim

¹ How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold has changed! The holy stones lie scattered at the head of every street. ² The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are counted as earthen jars, the work of a potter's hands! ³ Even jackals offer the breast and nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. ⁴ The tongue of the nursing infant clings to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the little children ask for bread, but no one breaks it for them. ⁵ Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those who were brought up in scarlet embrace ash heaps. ⁶ For the iniquity of the daughter of my people has been greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were turned against her.

⁷ Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than corals, their form like sapphire. ⁸ Now their appearance is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood. ⁹ Better off were those slain by the sword than those slain by famine, who waste away, pierced through for lack of the fruits of the field. ¹⁰ The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the brokenness of the daughter of my people.

¹¹ Yahweh has spent His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger. He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured her foundations. ¹² The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any of the inhabitants of the world, that adversary and enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem. ¹³ It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in her midst the blood of the righteous. ¹⁴ They wandered blind through the streets; they were so defiled with blood that no one could touch their garments. ¹⁵ "Depart! Unclean!" they cried to them. "Depart, depart! Do not touch!" So they fled and wandered; it was said among the nations, "They shall not sojourn here any longer." ¹⁶ The face of Yahweh has scattered them; He will regard them no more. They showed no respect for the priests, no favor to the elders.

A vain hope and a captured king

¹⁷ Our eyes still failed, looking in vain for help; in our watching we watched for a nation that could not save. ¹⁸ They dogged our steps, so that we could not walk in our squares. Our end drew near, our days were fulfilled, for our end had come. ¹⁹ Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they chased us hotly on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness. ²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was caught in their pits, he of whom we said, "Under his shadow we shall live among the nations."

The cup passes to Edom

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz! To you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare. ²² The punishment of your iniquity is complete, O daughter of Zion; He will no longer send you into exile. He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will uncover your sins.

Notes

• 4:1 Like chapters 1 and 2, this lament opens with "How" (ekhah) and runs through the Hebrew alphabet, one letter to a verse (see the note at 1:1). The "holy stones" may be the stones of the temple, or, as verse 2 suggests, the precious children of Zion themselves, now thrown out like rubble.
• 4:6 "Iniquity" (avon) and "sin" (chattat) can also mean the punishment that sin brings, and many translations read "punishment" here. Either way the comparison is the point: Sodom was overthrown in a moment, with no human hand against it (Genesis 19:24-25), while Jerusalem suffered a long siege, famine and slaughter at the hands of men.
• 4:7 "Consecrated ones" is nezireha, from nazir, the word for the Nazirite who vowed "to separate himself to Yahweh" (Numbers 6:2); Joseph is called nazir, "the one set apart from his brothers" (Genesis 49:26). So it may mean Nazirites or, as many take it, the nobles of Jerusalem; either way they were the healthiest and most honored, now blackened and shriveled (verse 8). The "sapphire" is probably lapis lazuli, a deep blue stone.
• 4:20 In context "the anointed of Yahweh" is most likely Zedekiah, the last king of David's line to reign in Jerusalem, who fled by night and was captured (2 Kings 25:4-7); so the TRB writes "anointed" in lowercase here. The king was the people's life-breath and their "shadow," their protection; even an unfaithful king bore the title of Yahweh's anointed (1 Samuel 24:6). Some later readers applied the verse to the Messiah, but here the lament is for the king who fell.
• 4:21 The call to Edom is bitter irony: rejoice now, for the cup is coming to you too. Edom, the people of Esau, rejoiced when Jerusalem fell (Psalm 137:7; Obadiah 1:10-14), and "the cup" is the cup of Yahweh's wrath that Jeremiah was sent to make the nations drink, Edom and "the land of Uz" among them (Jeremiah 25:15-21; compare 49:12). In verse 22 one verb, galah, works both ways: Zion will no longer be sent into exile, but Edom's sins will be uncovered.

Lamentations 3 · Lamentations 5

Open in the study app