Lamentations 1:12

ל (Lamed)

1:12 Is it nothing to you, ¹  all you who pass by on the road? ² 

Look and see!

Is there any pain like mine?

The Lord ³  has afflicted me, ⁴ 

he ⁵  has inflicted it on me

when ⁶  he burned with anger. ⁷ 

Lamentations 2:13

מ (Mem)

2:13 With what can I equate ⁸  you?

To what can I compare you, O Daughter Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you ⁹ 

so that ¹⁰  I might comfort you, O Virgin Daughter Zion?

Your wound is as deep ¹¹  as the sea. ¹² 

Who can heal you? ¹³ 

Lamentations 4:6

ו (Vav)

4:6 The punishment ¹⁴  of my people ¹⁵ 

exceeded that of ¹⁶  of Sodom,

which was overthrown in a moment

with no one to help her. ¹⁷ 

Ezekiel 5:9

5:9 I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. ¹⁸ 

Joel 2:2

2:2 It will be ¹⁹  a day of dreadful darkness, ²⁰ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ²¹ 

like blackness ²²  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ²³  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ²⁴ 

Amos 3:2

3:2 “I have chosen ²⁵  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Matthew 24:21

24:21 For then there will be great suffering ²⁶  unlike anything that has happened ²⁷  from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen.

Mark 13:19

13:19 For in those days there will be suffering ²⁸  unlike anything that has happened ²⁹  from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, or ever will happen.

Luke 21:22

21:22 because these are days of vengeance, ³⁰  to fulfill ³¹  all that is written.

[1:12]  ¹ tc The Heb לוֹא אֲלֵיכֶם (lo’ ’alekhem, “not to you”) is awkward and often considered corrupt but there is no textual evidence yet adduced to certify a more original reading.

[1:12]  ² tn The line as it stands is imbalanced, such that the reference to the passersby may belong here or as a vocative with the following verb translated “look.”

[1:12]  ³ tn Heb “He.” The personal pronoun “he” and the personal name “the Lord,” both appearing in this verse, are transposed in the translation for the sake of readability. In the Hebrew text, “He” appears in the A-line and “the Lord” appears in the B-line – good Hebrew poetic style, but awkward English style.

[1:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “which was afflicted on me.” The Polal of עָלַל (’alal) gives the passive voice of the Polel. The Polel of the verb עָלַל (’alal) occurs ten times in the Bible, appearing in agricultural passages for gleaning or some other harvest activity and also in military passages. Jer 6:9 plays on this by comparing an attack to gleaning. The relationship between the meaning in the two types of contexts is unclear, but the very neutral rendering “to treat” in some dictionaries and translations misses the nuance appropriate to the military setting. Indeed it is not at all feasible in a passage like Judges 20:45 where “they treated them on the highway” would make no sense but “they mowed them down on the highway” would fit the context. Accordingly the verb is sometimes rendered “treat” or “deal severely,” as HALOT 834 s.v. poel.3 suggests for Lam 3:51, although simply suggesting “to deal with” in Lam 1:22 and 2:20. A more injurious nuance is given to the translation here and in 1:22; 2:20 and 3:51.

[1:12]  ⁵ sn The delay in naming the Lord as cause is dramatic. The natural assumption upon hearing the passive verb in the previous line, “it was dealt severely,” might well be the pillaging army, but instead the Lord is named as the tormentor.

[1:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the day of.” The construction בְּיוֹם (bÿyom, “in the day of”) is a common Hebrew idiom, meaning “when” or “on the occasion of” (e.g., Gen 2:4; Lev 7:35; Num 3:1; Deut 4:15; 2 Sam 22:1; Pss 18:1; 138:3; Zech 8:9).

[1:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “on the day of burning anger.”

[2:13]  ⁸ tc The MT reads אֲעִידֵךְ (’a’idekh), Hiphil imperfect 1st person common singular + 2fs suffix from עָדָה (’adah, “to testify”): “[How] can I testify for you?” However, Latin Vulgate comparabo te reflects the reading אֶעֱרָךְ (’e’erakh), Qal imperfect 1st person common singular from עָרַךְ (’arakh, “to liken”): “[To what] can I liken [you]?” The verb עָרַךְ (’arakh) normally means “to lay out, set in rows; to get ready, set in order; to line up for battle, set battle formation,” but it also may denote “to compare (as a result of arranging in order), to make equal” (e.g., Pss 40:6; 89:6 [HT 7]; Job 28:17, 19; Isa 40:18; 44:7). The BHS editors suggest the emendation which involves simple orthographic confusion between ר (resh) and ד (dalet), and deletion of י (yod) that the MT added to make sense of the form. The variant is favored based on internal evidence: (1) it is the more difficult reading because the meaning “to compare” for עָרַךְ (’arakh) is less common than עָדָה (’adah, “to testify”), (2) it recovers a tight parallelism between עָרַךְ (’arakh, “to liken”) and דָּמָה (damah, “to compare”) (e.g., Ps 89:6 [HT 7]; Isa 40:18), and (3) the MT reading: “How can I testify for you?” makes little sense in the context. Nevertheless, most English versions hold to the MT reading: KJV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, TEV, CEV. This textual emendation was first proposed by J. Meinhold, “Threni 2,13,” ZAW 15 (1895): 286.

[2:13]  ⁹ tc The MT reads מָה אַשְׁוֶה־לָּךְ וַאֲנַחֲמֵךְ (mah ’ashveh-lakh va’anakhamekh, “To what can I compare you so that I might comfort you?”). The LXX reflects a Vorlage of מִי יוֹשִׁיעַ לָךְ וְנִחַמְךָ (mi yoshia’ lakh vÿnikhamÿkha, “Who will save you so that he might comfort you?”). This textual variant reflects several cases of orthographic confusion between similarly spelled words. The MT best explains the origin of the LXX textual variants. Internal evidence of contextual congruence favors the MT as the original reading.

[2:13]  ¹⁰ tn The ו (vav) prefixed to וַאֲנַחֲמֵךְ (va’anakhamekh, “I might comfort you”) denotes purpose: “so that….”

[2:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “as great as the sea.”

[2:13]  ¹² tc The MT reads כָּיָּם (kayyam, “as the sea”), while the LXX reflects a Vorlage of כּוֹס (kos, “a cup”). The textual variant is probably due to simple orthographic confusion between letters of similar appearance. The idiomatic expression favors the MT.

[2:13]  ¹³ sn The rhetorical question implies a denial: “No one can heal you!” The following verses, 14-17, present four potential healers – prophets, passersby, enemies, and God.

[4:6]  ¹⁴ tn The noun עֲוֹן (’avon) has a basic two-fold range of meanings: (1) basic meaning: “iniquity, sin” and (2) metonymical cause for effect meaning: “punishment for iniquity.”

[4:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the sin of.” The noun חַטָּאת (khatta’t) often means “sin, rebellion,” but here it probably functions in a metonymical (cause for effect) sense: “punishment for sin” (e.g., Zech 14:19). The context focuses on the severity of the punishment of Jerusalem rather than the depths of its degradation and depravity that led to the judgment.

[4:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “without a hand turned.” The preposition ב (bet) after the verb חוּל (khul) in Hos 11:6 is adversative “the sword will turn against [Assyria’s] cities.” Other contexts with חוּל (khul) plus ב (bet) are not comparable (ב [bet] often being locative). However, it is not certain that hands must be adversarial as the sword clearly is in Hos 11:6. The present translation pictures the suddenness of Sodom’s overthrow as an easier fate than the protracted military campaign and subsequent exile and poverty of Judah’s survivor’s.

[5:9]  ¹⁸ tn Or “abominable idols.”

[2:2]  ¹⁹ tn The phrase “It will be” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style.

[2:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “darkness and gloom.” These two terms probably form a hendiadys here. This picture recalls the imagery of the supernatural darkness in Egypt during the judgments of the exodus (Exod 10:22). These terms are also frequently used as figures (metonymy of association) for calamity and divine judgment (Isa 8:22; 59:9; Jer 23:12; Zeph 1:15). Darkness is often a figure (metonymy of association) for death, dread, distress and judgment (BDB 365 s.v. חשֶׁךְ 3).

[2:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ²² tc The present translation here follows the proposed reading שְׁחֹר (shÿkhor, “blackness”) rather than the MT שַׁחַר (shakhar, “morning”). The change affects only the vocalization; the Hebrew consonants remain unchanged. Here the context calls for a word describing darkness. The idea of morning or dawn speaks instead of approaching light, which does not seem to fit here. The other words in the verse (e.g., “darkness,” “gloominess,” “cloud,” “heavy overcast”) all emphasize the negative aspects of the matter at hand and lead the reader to expect a word like “blackness” rather than “dawn.” However, NIrV paraphrases the MT nicely: “A huge army of locusts is coming. They will spread across the mountains like the sun when it rises.”

[2:2]  ²³ tn Heb “A huge and powerful people”; KJV, ASV “a great people and a strong.” Many interpreters understand Joel 2 to describe an invasion of human armies, either in past history (e.g., the Babylonian invasion of Palestine in the sixth century b.c.) or in an eschatological setting. More probably, however, the language of this chapter referring to “people” and “armies” is a hypocatastic description of the locusts of chapter one. Cf. TEV “The great army of locusts advances like darkness.”

[2:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[3:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

[24:21]  ²⁶ tn Traditionally, “great tribulation.”

[24:21]  ²⁷ sn Suffering unlike anything that has happened. Some refer this event to the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. While the events of a.d. 70 may reflect somewhat the comments Jesus makes here, the reference to the scope and severity of this judgment strongly suggest that much more is in view. Most likely Jesus is referring to the great end-time judgment on Jerusalem in the great tribulation.

[13:19]  ²⁸ tn Traditionally, “tribulation.”

[13:19]  ²⁹ sn Suffering unlike anything that has happened. Some refer this event to the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. While the events of a.d. 70 may reflect somewhat the comments Jesus makes here, the reference to the scope and severity of this judgment strongly suggest that much more is in view. Most likely Jesus is referring to the great end-time judgment on Jerusalem in the great tribulation.

[21:22]  ³⁰ tn Or “of punishment.” This is a time of judgment.

[21:22]  ³¹ tn The passive construction with the infinitive πλησθῆναι (plhsqhnai) has been translated as an active construction for simplicity, in keeping with contemporary English style.