Lamentations 4:3-5
Contextג (Gimel)
4:3 Even the jackals 1 nurse their young
at their breast, 2
but my people 3 are cruel,
like ostriches 4 in the desert.
ד (Dalet)
4:4 The infant’s tongue sticks
to the roof of its mouth due to thirst;
little children beg for bread, 5
but no one gives them even a morsel. 6
ה (He)
4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies 7
are now starving to death 8 in the streets.
[4:3] 1 tn The noun תַּנִּין (tannin) means “jackals.” The plural ending ־ִין (-in) is diminutive (GKC 242 §87.e) (e.g., Lam 1:4).
[4:3] 2 tn Heb “draw out the breast and suckle their young.”
[4:3] 3 tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”
[4:3] 4 tc The MT Kethib form כִּי עֵנִים (ki ’enim) is by all accounts a textual corruption for כַּיְעֵנִים (kay’enim, “like ostriches”) which is preserved in the Qere and the medieval Hebrew
[4:4] 5 tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” might function as a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for general (= food); however, the following parallel line does indeed focus on the act of breaking bread in two.
[4:4] 6 tn Heb “there is not a divider to them.” The term פָּרַשׂ (paras), Qal active participle ms from פָּרַס (paras, “to divide”) refers to the action of breaking bread in two before giving it to a person to eat (Isa 58:7; Jer 16:7; Lam 4:4). The form פָּרַשׂ (paras) is the alternate spelling of the more common פָּרַס (paras).
[4:5] 7 tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”
[4:5] 8 tn Heb “are desolate.”
[4:5] 10 tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.
[4:5] 11 tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”
[4:5] 12 tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.