Ratapan 5:8-16

5:8 Slaves ¹  rule over us;

there is no one to rescue us from their power. ² 

5:9 At the risk ³  of our lives ⁴  we get our food ⁵ 

because robbers lurk ⁶  in the countryside. ⁷ 

5:10 Our skin is hot as an oven

due to a fever from hunger. ⁸ 

5:11 They raped ⁹  women in Zion,

virgins in the towns of Judah.

5:12 Princes were hung by their hands;

elders were mistreated. ¹⁰ 

5:13 The young men perform menial labor; ¹¹ 

boys stagger from their labor. ¹² 

5:14 The elders are gone from the city gate;

the young men have stopped playing their music.

5:15 Our hearts no longer have any joy; ¹³ 

our dancing is turned to mourning.

5:16 The crown has fallen from our head;

woe to us, for we have sinned!

[5:8]  ¹ tn Heb “slaves.” While indicating that social structures are awry, the expression “slaves rule over us” might be an idiom for “tyrants rule over us.” This might find its counterpart in the gnomic truth that the most ruthless rulers are made of former slaves: “Under three things the earth quakes, under four it cannot bear up: under a slave when he becomes king” (Prov 30:21-22a).

[5:8]  ² tn Heb “hand.”

[5:9]  ³ tn Heb “at the cost of our lives.” The preposition ב (bet) here denotes purchase price paid (e.g., Gen 30:16; Exod 34:20; 2 Sam 3:14; 24:24) (BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3.a). The expression בְּנַפְשֵׁנוּ (bÿnafshenu) means “at the risk of our lives.” Similar expressions include בְנַפְשׁוֹ (bÿnafsho, “at the cost of his life,” 1 Kgs 2:23; Prov 7:23) and בְּנַפְשׁוֹתָם (bÿnafshotam, “at peril of their lives,” 2 Sam 23:17).

[5:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “our soul.” The noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is used as a metonymy (= soul) of association (= life) (e.g., Gen 44:30; Exod 21:23; 2 Sam 14:7; Jon 1:14).

[5:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” is a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for the general (= food).

[5:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “because of the sword.” The term “sword” is a metonymy of instrument (= sword) for the persons who use the instrument (= murderers or marauders).

[5:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “the wilderness.”

[5:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “because of the burning heat of famine.”

[5:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “ravished.”

[5:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “elders were shown no respect.” The phrase “shown no respect” is an example of tapeinosis, a figurative expression of understatement: to show no respect to elders = to terribly mistreat elders.

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn The text is difficult. Word by word the MT has “young men hand mill(?) they take up” Perhaps it means “they take [our] young men for mill grinding,” or perhaps it means “the young men take up [the labor of] mill grinding.” This expression is an example of synecdoche where the mill stands for the labor at the mill and then that labor stands for performing menial physical labor as servants. The surface reading, “young men carry hand mills,” does not portray any great adversity for them. The Vulgate translates as an abusive sexual metaphor (see D. R. Hillers, Lamentations [AB], 99), but this gives no known parallel to the second part of the verse.

[5:13]  ¹² tc Heb “boys trip over wood.” This phrase makes little sense. The translation adopts D. R. Hillers’ suggestion (Lamentations [AB], 99) of בְּעֶצֶב כָּשָׁלוּ (bÿ’etsev kashalu). Due to letter confusion and haplography the final ב (bet) of בְּעֶצֶב (bÿ’etsev) which looks like the כ (kaf) beginning the next word, was dropped. This verb can have an abstract noun after the preposition ב (bet) meaning “from, due to” rather than “over.”

[5:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “the joy of our heart has ceased.”