Lamentations 1:3

ג (Gimel)

1:3 Judah ¹  has departed into exile

under ²  affliction and harsh oppression. ³ 

She ⁴  lives among the nations;

she has found no resting place.

All who pursued her overtook her

in ⁵  narrow straits. ⁶ 

Lamentations 4:15

ס (Samek)

4:15 People cry to them, “Turn away! You are unclean!

Turn away! Turn away! Don’t touch us!”

So they have fled and wander about;

but the nations say, ⁷  “They may not stay here any longer.”

Lamentations 4:20

ר (Resh)

4:20 Our very life breath – the Lord’s anointed king ⁸  –

was caught in their traps, ⁹ 

of whom we thought, ¹⁰ 

“Under his protection ¹¹  we will survive among the nations.”

Deuteronomy 28:36

28:36 The Lord will force you and your king ¹²  whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there.

Deuteronomy 28:2

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹³  if you obey the Lord your God:

Deuteronomy 24:12-16

24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. ¹⁴  24:13 You must by all means ¹⁵  return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just ¹⁶  deed by the Lord your God.

24:14 You must not oppress a lowly and poor servant, whether one from among your fellow Israelites ¹⁷  or from the resident foreigners who are living in your land and villages. ¹⁸  24:15 You must pay his wage that very day before the sun sets, for he is poor and his life depends on it. Otherwise he will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

24:16 Fathers must not be put to death for what their children ¹⁹  do, nor children for what their fathers do; each must be put to death for his own sin.

Deuteronomy 25:7

25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ²⁰  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

Jeremiah 52:8-9

52:8 But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, ²¹  and his entire army deserted him. 52:9 They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ²²  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there.

Ezekiel 12:13

12:13 But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans ²³  (but he will not see it), ²⁴  and there he will die. ²⁵ 

Ezekiel 17:20

17:20 I will throw my net over him and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and judge him there because of the unfaithfulness he committed against me.

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Judah.” The term “Judah” is a synecdoche of nation (= Judah) for the inhabitants of the nation (= people).

[1:3]  ² tn There is a debate over the function of the preposition מִן (min): (1) temporal sense: “after” (HALOT 598 s.v. 2.c; BDB 581 s.v. 4.b) (e.g., Gen 4:3; 38:24; Josh 23:1; Judg 11:4; 14:8; Isa 24:22; Ezek 38:8; Hos 6:2) is adopted by one translation: “After affliction and harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile” (NIV). (2) causal sense: “because” (HALOT 598 s.v. 6; BDB 580 s.v. 2.f) (e.g., Isa 5:13) is adopted by many English versions: “Judah has gone into exile because of misery and harsh oppression/servitude” (cf. KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NJPS). (3) instrumentality: “by, through” (BDB 579 s.v. 2.e): “Judah has gone into exile under affliction, and under harsh servitude” (NASB). The issue here is whether this verse states that Judah went into exile after suffering a long period of trouble and toil, or that Judah went into exile because of the misery and affliction that the populace suffered under the hands of the Babylonians. For fuller treatment of this difficult syntactical problem, see D. R. Hillers, Lamentations (AB), 6-7.

[1:3]  ³ tn Heb “great servitude.” The noun עֲבֹדָה (’avodah, “servitude”) refers to the enforced labor and suffering inflicted upon conquered peoples who are subjugated into slavery (Exod 1:14; 2:23; 5:9, 11; 6:9; Deut 26:6; 1 Kgs 12:4; 1 Chr 26:30; 2 Chr 10:4; 12:8; Isa 14:3; Lam 1:3).

[1:3]  ⁴ tn The antecedent of “she” is “Judah,” which functions as a synecdoche of nation (= Judah) for the inhabitants of the nation (= people). Thus, “she” (= Judah) is tantamount to “they” (= former inhabitants of Judah).

[1:3]  ⁵ tn The preposition בִּין (bin) is used in reference to a location: “between” (BDB 107 s.v. 1). The phrase בִּין הַמְּצָרִים (bin hammÿtsarim, “between the narrow places”) is unparalleled elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures; however, this line is paraphrased in “The Thanksgiving Psalm” from Qumran (Hodayoth = 1QH v 29) which adds the phrase “so I could not get away.” Following the interpretation of this line at Qumran, it describes a futile attempt to flee from the enemies in narrow straits which thwarted a successful escape.

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “distresses.” The noun מֵצַר (metsar, “distress”) occurs only here and in Ps 118:5 (NIV, “anguish”). Here, the plural form מְצָרִים (mÿtsarim, lit., “distresses”) is an example of the plural of intensity: “intense distress.” The phrase בִּין הַמְּצָרִים (bin hammÿtsarim, “between the narrow places”) is unparalleled elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures; however, this line is paraphrased in “The Thanksgiving Psalm” from Qumran (Hodayoth = 1QH v 29) which adds the phrase “so I could not get away.” Following the interpretation of this line at Qumran, it describes a futile attempt to flee from the enemies in narrow straits which thwarted a successful escape.

[4:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “They say among the nations.”

[4:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “the anointed one of the Lord.” The term “king” is added in the translation to clarify the referent of the phrase “the Lord’s anointed.”

[4:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “was captured in their pits.”

[4:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “of whom we had said.”

[4:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “under his shadow.” The term צֵל (tsel, “shadow”) is used figuratively here to refer the source of protection from military enemies. In the same way that the shade of a tree gives physical relief and protection from the heat of the sun (e.g., Judg 9:15; Job 40:22; Ps 80:11; Song 2:3; Ezek 17:23; 31:6, 12, 17; Hos 4:13; 14:8; Jon 4:5, 6), a faithful and powerful king can provide “shade” (= protection) from enemies and military attack (Num 14:19; Ps 91:1; Isa 30:2, 3; 49:2; 51:16; Jer 48:45; Lam 4:20).

[28:36]  ¹² tc The LXX reads the plural “kings.”

[28:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[24:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “may not lie down in his pledge.” What is in view is the use of clothing as guarantee for the repayment of loans, a matter already addressed elsewhere (Deut 23:19-20; 24:6; cf. Exod 22:25-26; Lev 25:35-37). Cf. NAB “you shall not sleep in the mantle he gives as a pledge”; NRSV “in the garment given you as the pledge.”

[24:13]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “by all means.”

[24:13]  ¹⁶ tn Or “righteous” (so NIV, NLT).

[24:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your brothers,” but not limited only to actual siblings; cf. NASB “your (+ own NAB) countrymen.”

[24:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “who are in your land in your gates.” The word “living” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[24:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB; twice in this verse). Many English versions, including the KJV, read “children” here.

[25:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister in law.” In the second instance the pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[52:8]  ²¹ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[52:9]  ²² sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.

[12:13]  ²³ tn Or “Babylonians” (NCV, NLT).

[12:13]  ²⁴ sn He will not see it. This prediction was fulfilled in 2 Kgs 25:7 and Jer 52:11, which recount how Zedekiah was blinded before being deported to Babylon.

[12:13]  ²⁵ sn There he will die. This was fulfilled when King Zedekiah died in exile (Jer 52:11).