Psalms 66:11-12

66:11 You led us into a trap;

you caused us to suffer.

66:12 You allowed men to ride over our heads;

we passed through fire and water,

but you brought us out into a wide open place.

Psalms 119:25

ד (Dalet)

119:25 I collapse in the dirt.

Revive me with your word!

Isaiah 51:23

51:23 I will put it into the hand of your tormentors

who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you.’

You made your back like the ground,

and like the street for those who walked over you.”

Lamentations 4:5

ה (He)

4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies

are now starving to death in the streets.

Those who grew up wearing expensive clothes 10 

are now dying 11  amid garbage. 12 


tn Heb “you brought us into a net.” This rare word for “net” also occurs in Ezek 12:13; 13:21; 17:20.

tn Heb “you placed suffering on our hips.” The noun מוּעָקָה (muaqah, “suffering”) occurs only here in the OT.

tc The MT reads רְוָיָה (“saturation”) but this should be emended to רְוָחָה (rÿvakhah, “wide open place”; i.e., “relief”), a reading supported by several ancient versions (LXX, Syriac, Jerome, Targum).

tn Heb “my soul clings to the dirt.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being; soul”) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

tn Heb “according to your word.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the plural “your words.”

tn That is, to make them drink it.

tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

tn Heb “are desolate.”

tn Heb “were reared.”

10 tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.

11 tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”

12 tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.