Lamentations 3:7

ג (Gimel)

3:7 He has walled me in ¹  so that I cannot get out;

he has weighted me down with heavy prison chains. ² 

Lamentations 3:38

3:38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that everything comes –

both calamity and blessing? ³ 

Lamentations 1:6

ו (Vav)

1:6 All of Daughter Zion’s ⁴  splendor ⁵ 

has departed. ⁶ 

Her leaders became like deer;

they found no pasture,

so they were too exhausted to escape ⁷ 

from the hunter. ⁸ 

[3:7]  ¹ tn The verb גָּדַר (garad) has a two-fold range of meanings: (1) “to build up a wall” with stones, and (2) “to block a road” with a wall of stones. The imagery depicts the Lord building a wall to seal off personified Jerusalem with no way of escape out of the city, or the Lord blocking the road of escape. Siege imagery prevails in 3:4-6, but 3:7-9 pictures an unsuccessful escape that is thwarted due to blocked roads in 3:7 and 3:9.

[3:7]  ² tn Heb “he has made heavy my chains.”

[3:38]  ³ tn Heb “From the mouth of the Most High does it not go forth, both evil and good?”

[1:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “the daughter of Zion.” This phrase is used as an epithet for the city. “Daughter” may seem extraneous in English but consciously joins the various epithets and metaphors of Jerusalem as a woman, a device used to evoke sympathy from the reader.

[1:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “all her splendor.” The 3rd person feminine singular pronominal suffix (“her”) functions as a subjective genitive: “everything in which she gloried.” The noun הָדָר (hadar, “splendor”) is used of personal and impersonal referents in whom Israel gloried: Ephraim (Deut 33:17), Jerusalem (Isa 5:14), Carmel (Isa 35:2). The context focuses on the exile of Zion’s children (1:5c) and leaders (1:6bc). The departure of the children and leaders of Jerusalem going away into exile suggested to the writer the departure of the glory of Israel.

[1:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “It has gone out from the daughter of Zion, all her splendor.”

[1:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “they fled with no strength” (וַיֵּלְכוּ בְלֹא־כֹחַ, vayelÿkhu bÿlo’-khoakh).

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “the pursuer” or “chaser.” The term רָדַף (“to chase, pursue”) here refers to a hunter (e.g., 1 Sam 26:20). It is used figuratively (hypocatastasis) of military enemies who “hunt down” those who flee for their lives (e.g., Gen 14:15; Lev 26:7, 36; Judg 4:22; Ps 7:6; 69:27; 83:16; 143:3; Isa 17:13; Lam 5:5; Amos 1:11).