Nehemiah 1:3

1:3 They said to me, “The remnant that remains from the exile there in the province are experiencing considerable ¹  adversity and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem lies breached, and its gates have been burned down!” ² 

Psalms 102:14

102:14 Indeed, ³  your servants take delight in her stones,

and feel compassion for ⁴  the dust of her ruins. ⁵ 

Psalms 137:6

137:6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,

if I do not remember you,

and do not give Jerusalem priority

over whatever gives me the most joy. ⁶ 

Lamentations 2:9

ט (Tet)

2:9 Her city gates have fallen ⁷  to the ground;

he smashed to bits ⁸  the bars that lock her gates. ⁹ 

Her king and princes were taken into exile; ¹⁰ 

there is no more guidance available. ¹¹ 

As for her prophets,

they no longer receive ¹²  a vision from the Lord.

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “great.”

[1:3]  ² tn Heb “have been burned with fire” (so also in Neh 2:17). The expression “burned with fire” is redundant in contemporary English; the translation uses “burned down” for stylistic reasons.

[102:14]  ³ tn Or “for.”

[102:14]  ⁴ tn The Poel of חָנַן (khanan) occurs only here and in Prov 14:21, where it refers to having compassion on the poor.

[102:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “her dust,” probably referring to the dust of the city’s rubble.

[137:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “if I do not lift up Jerusalem over the top of my joy.”

[2:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “have sunk down.” This expression, “her gates have sunk down into the ground,” is a personification, picturing the city gates descending into the earth, as if going down into the grave or the netherworld. Most English versions render it literally (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NJPS); however, a few paraphrases have captured the equivalent sense quite well: “Zion’s gates have fallen facedown on the ground” (CEV) and “the gates are buried in rubble” (TEV).

[2:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “he has destroyed and smashed her bars.” The two verbs אִבַּד וְשִׁבַּר (’ibbad vÿshibbar) form a verbal hendiadys that emphasizes the forcefulness of the destruction of the locking bars on the gates. The first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense: “he has smashed to pieces.” Several English versions render this expression literally and miss the rhetorical point: “he has ruined and broken” (RSV, NRSV), “he has destroyed and broken” (KJV, NASB), “he has broken and destroyed” (NIV). The hendiadys has been correctly noted by others: “smashed to pieces” (TEV, CEV) and “smashed to bits” (NJPS).

[2:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “her bars.” Since the literal “bars” could be misunderstood as referring to saloons, the phrase “the bars that lock her gates” has been used in the present translation.

[2:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “are among the nations.”

[2:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “there is no torah” or “there is no Torah” (אֵין תּוֹרָה, ’en torah). Depending on whether תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction, law”) is used in parallelism with the preceding or following line, it refers to (1) political guidance that the now-exiled king had formerly provided or (2) prophetic instruction that the now-ineffective prophets had formerly provided (BDB 434 s.v. תּוֹרָה 1.b). It is possible that the three lines are arranged in an ABA chiastic structure, exploiting the semantic ambiguity of the term תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction”). Possibly it is an oblique reference to the priests’ duties of teaching, thus introducing a third group of the countries leaders. It is possible to hear in this a lament in reference to the destruction of Torah scrolls that may have been at the temple when it was destroyed.

[2:9]  ¹² tn Heb “they cannot find.”