Lamentations 4:4-5

ד (Dalet)

4:4 The infant’s tongue sticks

to the roof of its mouth due to thirst;

little children beg for bread, ¹ 

but no one gives them even a morsel. ² 

ה (He)

4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies ³ 

are now starving to death ⁴  in the streets.

Those who grew up ⁵  wearing expensive clothes ⁶ 

are now dying ⁷  amid garbage. ⁸ 

[4:4]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

[4:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “are desolate.”

[4:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “were reared.”

[4:5]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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.