Lamentations 2:15

ס (Samek)

2:15 All who passed by on the road

clapped their hands to mock you. ¹ 

They sneered and shook their heads

at Daughter Jerusalem.

“Ha! Is this the city they called ² 

‘The perfection of beauty, ³ 

the source of joy of the whole earth!’?” ⁴ 

Lamentations 3:61

ש (Sin/Shin)

3:61 You have heard ⁵  their taunts, O Lord,

all their plots against me.

Nehemiah 1:3

1:3 They said to me, “The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable ⁶  adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!” ⁷ 

Nehemiah 4:4

4:4 Hear, O our God, for we are despised! Return their reproach on their own head! Reduce them to plunder in a land of exile!

Psalms 44:13-16

44:13 You made us ⁸  an object of disdain to our neighbors;

those who live on our borders taunt and insult us. ⁹ 

44:14 You made us ¹⁰  an object of ridicule ¹¹  among the nations;

foreigners treat us with contempt. ¹² 

44:15 All day long I feel humiliated ¹³ 

and am overwhelmed with shame, ¹⁴ 

44:16 before the vindictive enemy

who ridicules and insults me. ¹⁵ 

Psalms 74:10-11

74:10 How long, O God, will the adversary hurl insults?

Will the enemy blaspheme your name forever?

74:11 Why do you remain inactive?

Intervene and destroy him! ¹⁶ 

Psalms 79:4

79:4 We have become an object of disdain to our neighbors;

those who live on our borders taunt and insult us. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 79:12

79:12 Pay back our neighbors in full! ¹⁸ 

May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord! ¹⁹ 

Psalms 89:50-51

89:50 Take note, O Lord, ²⁰  of the way your servants are taunted, ²¹ 

and of how I must bear so many insults from people! ²² 

89:51 Your enemies, O Lord, hurl insults;

they insult your chosen king as they dog his footsteps. ²³ 

Psalms 123:3-4

123:3 Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!

For we have had our fill of humiliation, and then some. ²⁴ 

123:4 We have had our fill ²⁵ 

of the taunts of the self-assured,

of the contempt of the proud.

[2:15]  ¹ tn Heb “clap their hands at you.” Clapping hands at someone was an expression of malicious glee, derision and mockery (Num 24:10; Job 27:23; Lam 2:15).

[2:15]  ² tn Heb “of which they said.”

[2:15]  ³ tn Heb “perfection of beauty.” The noun יֹפִי (yofi, “beauty”) functions as a genitive of respect in relation to the preceding construct noun: Jerusalem was perfect in respect to its physical beauty.

[2:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the joy of all the earth.” This is similar to statements found in Pss 48:2 and 50:2.

[3:61]  ⁵ tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Hear”).

[1:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “great.”

[1:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “have been burned with fire” (so also in Neh 2:17). The expression “burned with fire” is redundant in contemporary English; the translation uses “burned down” for stylistic reasons.

[44:13]  ⁸ tn The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[44:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “an [object of] taunting and [of] mockery to those around us.”

[44:14]  ¹⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[44:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a proverb,” or “[the subject of] a mocking song.”

[44:14]  ¹² tn Heb “a shaking of the head among the peoples.” Shaking the head was a derisive gesture (see Jer 18:16; Lam 2:15).

[44:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “all the day my humiliation [is] in front of me.”

[44:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the shame of my face covers me.”

[44:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from the voice of one who ridicules and insults, from the face of an enemy and an avenger.” See Ps 8:2.

[74:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? From the midst of your chest, destroy!” The psalmist pictures God as having placed his right hand (symbolic of activity and strength) inside his robe against his chest. He prays that God would pull his hand out from under his robe and use it to destroy the enemy.

[79:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “an [object of] taunting and [of] mockery to those around us.” See Ps 44:13.

[79:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their lap.” The number seven is used rhetorically to express the thorough nature of the action. For other rhetorical/figurative uses of the Hebrew phrase שִׁבְעָתַיִם (shiv’atayim, “seven times”) see Gen 4:15, 24; Ps 12:6; Prov 6:31; Isa 30:26.

[79:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “their reproach with which they reproached you, O Lord.”

[89:50]  ²⁰ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read here יְהוָה (yehvah, “the Lord”).

[89:50]  ²¹ tn Heb “remember, O Lord, the taunt against your servants.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the singular here, “your servant” (that is, the psalmist).

[89:50]  ²² tn Heb “my lifting up in my arms [or “against my chest”] all of the many, peoples.” The term רַבִּים (rabbim, “many”) makes no apparent sense here. For this reason some emend the text to רִבֵי (rivey, “attacks by”), a defectively written plural construct form of רִיב (riv, “dispute; quarrel”).

[89:51]  ²³ tn Heb “[by] which your enemies, O Lord, taunt, [by] which they taunt [at] the heels of your anointed one.”

[123:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “for greatly we are filled [with] humiliation.”

[123:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “greatly our soul is full to it.”