1 Samuel 4:17-22

4:17 The messenger replied, “Israel has fled from ¹  the Philistines! The army has suffered a great defeat! Your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, are dead! The ark of God has been captured!”

4:18 When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli ²  fell backward from his chair beside the gate. He broke his neck and died, for he ³  was old and heavy. He had judged Israel for forty years.

4:19 His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant and close to giving birth. When she heard that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she doubled over and gave birth. But her labor pains were too much for her. 4:20 As she was dying, the women who were there with her said, “Don’t be afraid! You have given birth to a son!” But she did not reply or pay any attention. ⁴ 

4:21 She named the boy Ichabod, ⁵  saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” referring to the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband. 4:22 She said, “The glory has departed from Israel, because the ark of God has been captured.”

Ezra 10:1

The People Confess Their Sins

10:1 While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites – men, women, and children alike – gathered around him. The people wept loudly. ⁶ 

Psalms 69:9-10

69:9 Certainly ⁷  zeal for ⁸  your house ⁹  consumes me;

I endure the insults of those who insult you. ¹⁰ 

69:10 I weep and refrain from eating food, ¹¹ 

which causes others to insult me. ¹² 

Psalms 102:13-14

102:13 You will rise up and have compassion on Zion. ¹³ 

For it is time to have mercy on her,

for the appointed time has come.

102:14 Indeed, ¹⁴  your servants take delight in her stones,

and feel compassion for ¹⁵  the dust of her ruins. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 137:1

Psalm 137 ¹⁷ 

137:1 By the rivers of Babylon

we sit down and weep ¹⁸ 

when we remember Zion.

Daniel 9:3

9:3 So I turned my attention ¹⁹  to the Lord God ²⁰  to implore him by prayer and requests, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. ²¹ 

Zephaniah 3:18

3:18 “As for those who grieve because they cannot attend the festivals –

I took them away from you;

they became tribute and were a source of shame to you. ²² 

Romans 12:15

12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

[4:17]  ¹ tn Heb “before.”

[4:18]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ³ tn Heb “the man.”

[4:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “and she did not set her heart.”

[4:21]  ⁵ sn The name Ichabod (אִי־כָבוֹד) may mean, “Where is the glory?”

[10:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “with much weeping.”

[69:9]  ⁷ tn Or “for.” This verse explains that the psalmist’s suffering is due to his allegiance to God.

[69:9]  ⁸ tn Or “devotion to.”

[69:9]  ⁹ sn God’s house, the temple, here represents by metonymy God himself.

[69:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me.”

[69:10]  ¹¹ sn Fasting was a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.

[69:10]  ¹² tn Heb “and it becomes insults to me.”

[102:13]  ¹³ tn The imperfect verbal forms are understood as expressing the psalmist’s confidence in God’s intervention. Another option is to take them as expressing the psalmist’s request or wish, “You, rise up and have compassion!”

[102:14]  ¹⁴ tn Or “for.”

[102:14]  ¹⁵ tn The Poel of חָנַן (khanan) occurs only here and in Prov 14:21, where it refers to having compassion on the poor.

[102:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “her dust,” probably referring to the dust of the city’s rubble.

[137:1]  ¹⁷ sn Psalm 137. The Babylonian exiles lament their condition, vow to remain loyal to Jerusalem, and appeal to God for revenge on their enemies.

[137:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “there we sit down, also we weep.”

[9:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “face.”

[9:3]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew phrase translated “Lord God” here is אֲדֹנָי הָאֱלֹהִים (’adonay ha’elohim).

[9:3]  ²¹ sn When lamenting, ancient Israelites would fast, wear sackcloth, and put ashes on their heads to show their sorrow and contrition.

[3:18]  ²² tn Heb “The ones grieving from an assembly I gathered from you they were, tribute upon her, a reproach.” Any translation of this difficult verse must be provisional at best. The present translation assumes three things: (1) The preposition מִן (min) prefixed to “assembly” is causal (the individuals are sorrowing because of the assemblies or festivals they are no longer able to hold). (2) מַשְׂאֵת (mas’et) means “tribute” and refers to the exiled people being treated as the spoils of warfare (see R. D. Patterson, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah [WEC], 385-86). (3) The third feminine singular suffix refers to personified Jerusalem, which is addressed earlier in the verse (the pronominal suffix in “from you” is second feminine singular). For other interpretive options see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 146.