Psalms 78:64

78:64 Their ¹  priests fell by the sword,

but their ²  widows did not weep. ³ 

Jeremiah 22:18

22:18 So ⁴  the Lord has this to say about Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah:

People will not mourn for him, saying,

“This makes me sad, my brother!

This makes me sad, my sister!”

They will not mourn for him, saying,

“Poor, poor lord! Poor, poor majesty!” ⁵ 

[78:64]  ¹ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ² tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ³ sn Because of the invading army and the ensuing panic, the priests’ widows had no time to carry out the normal mourning rites.

[22:18]  ⁴ sn This is the regular way of introducing the announcement of judgment after an indictment of crimes. See, e.g., Isa 5:13, 14; Jer 23:2.

[22:18]  ⁵ tn The translation follows the majority of scholars who think that the address of brother and sister are the address of the mourners to one another, lamenting their loss. Some scholars feel that all four terms are parallel and represent the relation that the king had metaphorically to his subjects; i.e., he was not only Lord and Majesty to them but like a sister or a brother. In that case something like: “How sad it is for the one who was like a brother to us! How sad it is for the one who was like a sister to us.” This makes for poor poetry and is not very likely. The lover can call his bride sister in Song of Solomon (Song 4:9, 10) but there are no documented examples of a subject ever speaking of a king in this way in Israel or the ancient Near East.