Lamentations 3:56

3:56 You heard 1  my plea: 2 

“Do not close your ears to my cry for relief!” 3 

Lamentations 3:58

ר (Resh)

3:58 O Lord, 4  you championed 5  my cause, 6 

you redeemed my life.

1 tn The verb could be understood as a precative, “hear my plea,” parallel to the following volitive verb, “do not close.”

2 tn Heb “my voice.”

3 tn The preposition ל (lamed) continues syntactically from “my plea” in the previous line (e.g. Ex 5:2; Josh 22:2; 1 Sam 8:7; 12:1; Jer 43:4).

4 tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”) as in the following verse. See the tc note at 1:14.

5 tn This verb, like others in this stanza, could be understood as a precative (“Plead”).

6 tn Heb “the causes of my soul.” The term נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is a synecdoche of part (= my soul) for the whole person (= me).