Lamentations 4:5

ה (He)

4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies ¹ 

are now starving to death ²  in the streets.

Those who grew up ³  wearing expensive clothes ⁴ 

are now dying ⁵  amid garbage. ⁶ 

Lamentations 4:12

ל (Lamed)

4:12 Neither the kings of the earth

nor the people of the lands ⁷  ever thought ⁸ 

that enemy or foe would enter

the gates ⁹  of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ 

[4:5]  ¹ tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”

[4:5]  ² tn Heb “are desolate.”

[4:5]  ³ tn Heb “were reared.”

[4:5]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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.

[4:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “inhabitants of the mainland.”

[4:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “they did not believe that.” The verb הֶאֱמִינוּ (he’eminu), Hiphil perfect 3rd person common plural from אָמַן (’aman, “to believe”), ordinarily is a term of faith and trust, but occasionally it functions cognitively: “to think that” (Job 9:16; 15:22; Ps 116:10; Lam 4:12) and “to be convinced that” (Ps 27:13) (HALOT 64 s.v. I אמן hif.1). The semantic relationship between “to believe” = “to think” is metonymical, that is, effect for cause.

[4:12]  ⁹ sn The expression “to enter the gates” of a city is an idiom referring to the military conquest of that city. Ancient Near Eastern fortified cities typically featured double and sometimes triple city gates – the bulwark of the defense of the city. Because fortified cities were enclosed with protective walls, the Achilles tendon of every city was the city gates – the weak point in the defense and the perennial point of attack by enemies (e.g., Judg 5:8, 11; 1 Sam 17:52; Isa 29:6; Jer 17:27; 51:54; Ezek 21:20, 27; Mic 1:9, 12; Neh 1:3; 2:3, 13, 17).

[4:12]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.