Ratapan 1:6

ו (Vav)

1:6 All of Daughter Zion’s ¹  splendor ² 

has departed. ³ 

Her leaders became like deer;

they found no pasture,

so they were too exhausted to escape ⁴ 

from the hunter. ⁵ 

Ratapan 2:12

ל (Lamed)

2:12 Children ⁶  say to their mothers, ⁷ 

“Where are food and drink?” ⁸ 

They faint ⁹  like a wounded warrior

in the city squares.

They die slowly ¹⁰ 

in their mothers’ arms. ¹¹ 

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “the daughter of Zion.” This phrase is used as an epithet for the city. “Daughter” may seem extraneous in English but consciously joins the various epithets and metaphors of Jerusalem as a woman, a device used to evoke sympathy from the reader.

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “all her splendor.” The 3rd person feminine singular pronominal suffix (“her”) functions as a subjective genitive: “everything in which she gloried.” The noun הָדָר (hadar, “splendor”) is used of personal and impersonal referents in whom Israel gloried: Ephraim (Deut 33:17), Jerusalem (Isa 5:14), Carmel (Isa 35:2). The context focuses on the exile of Zion’s children (1:5c) and leaders (1:6bc). The departure of the children and leaders of Jerusalem going away into exile suggested to the writer the departure of the glory of Israel.

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “It has gone out from the daughter of Zion, all her splendor.”

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “they fled with no strength” (וַיֵּלְכוּ בְלֹא־כֹחַ, vayelÿkhu bÿlo’-khoakh).

[1:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “the pursuer” or “chaser.” The term רָדַף (“to chase, pursue”) here refers to a hunter (e.g., 1 Sam 26:20). It is used figuratively (hypocatastasis) of military enemies who “hunt down” those who flee for their lives (e.g., Gen 14:15; Lev 26:7, 36; Judg 4:22; Ps 7:6; 69:27; 83:16; 143:3; Isa 17:13; Lam 5:5; Amos 1:11).

[2:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “they”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “to their mother,” understood as a collective singular.

[2:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “Where is bread and wine?” The terms “bread” and “wine” are synecdoches of specific (= bread, wine) for general (= food, drink).

[2:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “as they faint” or “when they faint.”

[2:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “as their life is poured out.” The term בְּהִשְׁתַּפֵּךְ (bÿhishtappekh), Hitpael infinitive construct + the preposition בּ (bet), from שָׁפַךְ (shafakh, “to pour out”) may be rendered “as they expire” (BDB 1050 s.v. שָׁפַךְ), referring to the process of dying. Note the repetition of the word “pour out” with various direct objects in this poem at 2:4, 11, 12, and 19.

[2:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “chest, lap.”