Lamentations 2:16

פ (Pe)

2:16 All your enemies

gloated over you.

They sneered and gnashed their teeth;

they said, “We have destroyed her!

Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.

We have lived to see it!”

Lamentations 4:21

The Prophet Speaks:

ש (Sin/Shin)

4:21 Rejoice and be glad for now, O people of Edom,

who reside in the land of Uz.

But the cup of judgment will pass to you also;

you will get drunk and take off your clothes.


tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”

tn Heb “We have swallowed!”

tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsanu rainu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.

tn The phrase “for now” is added in the translation to highlight the implied contrast between the present joy of the Gentiles (4:21a) and their future judgment (4:21b).

tn Heb “O Daughter of Edom.”

tn Heb “the cup.” Judgment is often depicted as a cup of wine that God forces a person to drink, causing him to lose consciousness, red wine drooling out of his mouth – resembling corpses lying on the ground as a result of the actual onslaught of the Lord’s judgment. The drunkard will reel and stagger, causing bodily injury to himself – an apt metaphor to describe the devastating effects of God’s judgment. Just as a cup of poison kills all those who are forced to drink it, the cup of God’s wrath destroys all those who must drink it (e.g., Ps 75:9; Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 25:15, 17, 28; 49:12; 51:7; Lam 4:21; Ezek 23:33; Hab 2:16).

tn The imperfect verb “will pass” may also be a jussive, continuing the element of request, “let the cup pass…”