Lamentations 4

Look how the gold has lost its shine! Look how the purest gold has gone dull! The stones of the temple lie dumped at the head of every street.

1How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

NoteIn Hebrew this poem is an alphabet acrostic: each of the twenty-two verses begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is why the chapter has exactly twenty-two verses. The gold and the stones belong to the temple, its inner walls and fittings were overlaid with gold, and its cut stonework was the pride of the building. "At the head of every street" means where the streets opened out, the public places where rubble and refuse were tipped.

2The precious sons of Zion were once worth their weight in the finest gold. Now look at them, valued no higher than clay jars, the work of a potter's hands.

2The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

NoteZion was originally the name of the fortified hill in Jerusalem; it came to stand for the city itself and for its people. "Sons of Zion" means simply the men of Jerusalem. Clay jars were the cheapest household goods there were, mass-produced, easily smashed, thrown away without a thought. That is the force of the comparison with gold.

3Even jackals hold out their breasts and nurse their young. But the daughter of my people has turned cruel, like an ostrich in the desert.

3Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

NoteThe King James "sea monsters" translates a Hebrew word that can mean a serpent or sea creature, but here means jackals (desert scavengers, yet even they nurse their young. Ostriches were proverbially thought to abandon their eggs on the ground and forget them (the same idea appears in Job 39:13-17); the bird stands for a mother without natural feeling. "Daughter of my people" is a set Hebrew phrase for a city and its population pictured as a woman) it does not mean anyone's actual daughter.

4The nursing baby's tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth from thirst. The little children beg for bread, and no one breaks off a piece for them.

4The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

NoteBread was baked in flat round loaves and torn by hand rather than cut, so "breaking bread" for someone simply means giving them a share of food.

5People who once ate the finest food now have nothing, out in the streets. People raised in expensive scarlet clothes now huddle on heaps of ashes and trash.

5They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

NoteScarlet and crimson dyes were expensive and marked out the wealthy; being "brought up in scarlet" means raised in luxury. The King James "dunghills" refers to the ash and refuse heaps outside a town where rubbish was dumped and where the destitute slept for warmth.

6The punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom. Sodom was overthrown in a moment, and no hand was lifted to help her.

6For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

NoteSodom was the city destroyed suddenly by fire in Genesis 19. The comparison is about manner, not amount: Sodom's end came in a moment, while Jerusalem's came through months of siege and slow starvation. The Hebrew of the last phrase is uncertain: it may mean that no hand was raised to help her, or that no hands were wrung over her, or that she was overthrown without an army laying a hand on her.

7Her consecrated men were brighter than snow, whiter than milk. Their bodies were redder than coral, and their form was like polished sapphire.

7Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

NoteThe King James "Nazarites" translates a Hebrew word for men set apart by a vow, who let their hair grow and abstained from wine and from contact with the dead (the rules are in Numbers 6); many translators take the word here more generally as nobles or dignitaries. The gem words are uncertain: the stone rendered "rubies" is probably red coral or pearl, and "sapphire" almost certainly means lapis lazuli, the deep blue stone flecked with gold, since true sapphire was not worked in that period.

8Now their faces are blacker than soot, and no one recognizes them in the streets. Their skin has shriveled onto their bones, dried out and stiff as a stick.

8Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

9Those killed by the sword are better off than those killed by hunger. The starving waste away, pierced through with pain, because the fields produced no food.

9They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

10The hands of tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. Their children became their food when the daughter of my people was destroyed.

10The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

NoteThis describes what happened during the long Babylonian siege, when the food inside the walls ran out. Cannibalism under siege is named as a horror in the curse lists of Deuteronomy 28:53-57 and reported at Samaria in 2 Kings 6:28-29; the poet is pointing to that language deliberately.

11The LORD has fully carried out his fury. He has poured out his burning anger. He lit a fire in Zion, and it burned the city down to its foundations.

11The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

NoteThe event behind the whole book: Babylonian forces under Nebuchadnezzar broke into Jerusalem in 587/586 BC after a siege of about eighteen months, burned the temple, the palace and the houses, pulled down the walls, and deported much of the surviving population.

12The kings of the earth would not have believed it, and neither would anyone else in the world: that an enemy, a foe, could walk in through the gates of Jerusalem.

12The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

NoteJerusalem had held out against earlier attacks, most famously the Assyrian siege of 701 BC, and a widespread belief had grown up that the city and its temple could not be captured. That assumption is what verse 12 says the whole world shared.

13It happened because of the sins of her prophets and the wrongdoing of her priests, who spilled the blood of innocent people right there inside the city.

13For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

Note"The blood of the just" means the killing of innocent people. Jeremiah, a contemporary, accuses the prophets and priests of Jerusalem of exactly this, and records the murder of the prophet Uriah (Jeremiah 26:20-23).

14Those prophets and priests wandered through the streets like blind men. They were so stained with blood that no one could even touch their clothes.

14They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

NoteContact with blood or a corpse made a person ritually unclean, and the uncleanness passed on to anything and anyone they touched, a disqualifying condition for priests in particular, since it barred them from serving. The picture is of men so contaminated that nobody could come near their clothing.

15People shouted at them, "Get away! Unclean! Away, away, don't touch us!" So they ran off and wandered, and among the other nations people said, "They cannot stay here any longer."

15They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

NoteThe shouted warning is the cry the law required of a person with an infectious skin disease, who had to live outside the camp and call out "Unclean, unclean" to keep others away (Leviticus 13:45-46). Applying it to the priests and prophets is a deliberate reversal: the men who once declared others clean or unclean are now the ones being driven off.

16The LORD himself, in his anger, has scattered them; he pays them no attention now. No one shows the priests any honor, and no one treats the elders with respect.

16The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

NoteThe Hebrew reads literally "the face of the LORD has scattered them", the face or presence standing for God acting in person. In the second half it is the conquerors, not the priests, who show no respect: the King James wording can be misread as though the priests were the ones failing to honor someone.

17As for us, our eyes wore out from looking for help that never came. From our watchtowers we kept watching for a nation that could not save us.

17As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

NoteThe nation watched for was Egypt. Judah's king had appealed to Pharaoh for help; an Egyptian force did march out and briefly lifted the siege, but withdrew and left Jerusalem to fall (Jeremiah 37:5-11).

18They tracked every step we took, so we could not walk in our own streets. Our end was near, our time was up, for our end had come.

18They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

19The men chasing us were faster than eagles in the sky. They ran us down on the mountains and lay in wait for us in the desert.

19Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

NoteThe Hebrew word covers both eagles and the large vultures of the region, birds known for dropping on prey at great speed. "Wilderness" means open, unfarmed country, scrub and rock rather than sand dunes.

20The breath of our life, the LORD's anointed king, was caught in their pit. He was the one we had spoken of, saying, "In his shade we will live among the nations."

20The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

Note"The breath of our nostrils" is an idiom for the one on whom a people's life depends. "The LORD's anointed" is a standing title for the king, who was installed by having oil poured over his head; here it means Zedekiah, who fled the falling city, was run down on the plains near Jericho and taken to Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:4-7). Being "caught in their pit" is hunting language, pits were dug and covered to trap large animals. "Living in his shadow" is a common phrase for living under someone's protection.

21Go ahead and be glad, daughter of Edom, you who live in the land of Uz. But the cup will be passed to you too. You will drink until you are drunk, and you will strip yourself naked.

21Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

NoteEdom was the neighboring kingdom southeast of Judah, descended from Esau; it was widely accused of cheering on the Babylonian sack and profiting from it (Obadiah 10-14; Psalm 137:7). Uz was a region associated with Edom's territory, and also named as Job's homeland. The "cup" is the standard prophetic image of a cup of wine handed round the nations, which leaves whoever drinks it staggering and helpless; stripping naked is what a drunk man does without knowing it, and stands for total public humiliation.

22Daughter of Zion, your punishment is finished; he will not send you into exile again. But he will punish your sin, daughter of Edom; he will uncover what you have done.

22The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

NoteThe Hebrew of the middle line can mean either that God will not send Zion into exile again, or that he will not prolong the exile she is already in. "Discover thy sins" in the King James means uncover or expose them, bring them into the open, not find them out.