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Lamentations 4:3-5

Context

ג (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.

Those who grew up 9  wearing expensive clothes 10 

are now dying 11  amid garbage. 12 

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[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 (kienim) is by all accounts a textual corruption for כַּיְעֵנִים (kayenim, “like ostriches”) which is preserved in the Qere and the medieval Hebrew mss, and reflected in the LXX.

[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]  9 tn Heb “were reared.”

[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.



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