Lamentations 3:57

3:57 You came near ¹  on the day I called to you;

you said, ²  “Do not fear!”

Lamentations 3:56

3:56 You heard ³  my plea: ⁴ 

“Do not close your ears to my cry for relief!” ⁵ 

Lamentations 2:18

צ (Tsade)

2:18 Cry out ⁶  from your heart ⁷  to the Lord, ⁸ 

O wall of Daughter Zion! ⁹ 

Make your tears flow like a river

all day and all night long! ¹⁰ 

Do not rest;

do not let your tears ¹¹  stop!

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, ¹²  “They may not stay here any longer.”

[3:57]  ¹ tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Draw near”). The perspective of the poem seems to be that of prayer during distress rather than a testimony that God has delivered.

[3:57]  ² tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Say”).

[3:56]  ³ tn The verb could be understood as a precative, “hear my plea,” parallel to the following volitive verb, “do not close.”

[3:56]  ⁴ tn Heb “my voice.”

[3:56]  ⁵ tn The preposition ל (lamed) continues syntactically from “my plea” in the previous line (e.g. Ex 5:2; Josh 22:2; 1 Sam 8:7; 12:1; Jer 43:4).

[2:18]  ⁵ tc The MT reads צָעַק לִבָּם אֵל־אֲדֹנָי (tsa’aq libbam el-’adonay, “their heart cried out to the Lord”) which neither matches the second person address characterizing 2:13-19 nor is in close parallel to the rest of verse 18. Since the perfect צָעַק (tsa’aq, “cry out”) is apparently parallel to imperatives, it could be understood as a precative (“let their heart cry out”), although this understanding still has the problem of being in the third person. The BHS editors and many text critics suggest emending the MT צָעַק (tsa’aq), Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular, to צָעֲקִי (tsa’aqi), Qal imperative 2nd person masculine singular: “Cry out!” This restores a tighter parallelism with the two 2nd person masculine singular imperatives introducing the following lines: הוֹרִידִי (horidi, “Let [your tears] flow down!”) and אַל־תִּתְּנִי (’al-tittni, “Do not allow!”). In such a case, לִבָּם (libbam) must be taken adverbially. For לִבָּם (libbam, “their heart”) see the following note. The adverbial translation loses a potential parallel to the mention of the heart in the next verse. Emending the noun to “your heart” while viewing the verb as a precative perfect would maintain this connection.

[2:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “their heart” or “from the heart.” Many English versions take the ־ם (mem) on לִבָּם (libbam) as the 3rd person masculine plural pronominal suffix: “their heart” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NJPS, CEV). However, others take it as an enclitic or adverbial ending: “from the heart” (cf. RSV, NRSV, TEV, NJPS margin). See T. F. McDaniel, “The Alleged Sumerian Influence upon Lamentations,” VT 18 (1968): 203-4.

[2:18]  ⁷ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[2:18]  ⁸ tn The wall is a synecdoche of a part standing for the whole city.

[2:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “day and night.” The expression “day and night” forms a merism which encompasses everything in between two polar opposites: “from dawn to dusk” or “all day and all night long.”

[2:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the daughter of your eye.” The term “eye” functions as a metonymy for “tears” that are produced by the eyes. Jeremiah exhorts personified Jerusalem to cry out to the Lord day and night without ceasing in repentance and genuine sorrow for its sins.

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