Lamentations 1

 

Reminder: the 3–2 qinah rhythm is key to recitation and reading. For an example, hover the mouse over the opening "Alas! …" verse.

Acrostic omissions: J, K, Q, X
 
1
Narrator:
Alas![1][2]
Alone she sits:[3] the city
once great with people.
She, once great among nations,
become now widow;
she, once princess among provinces,
become now drudge.[4]

2
Bitterly, night-long, she weeps;
tears wet her cheeks.
None there is to comfort her
from all who love her.[5]
All her friends have betrayed her—
have become her foes.

3
Cast into exile by force
is Judah to hard labour.
Among the nations she sits
but finds no repose.
All her pursuers overtake her:
dire her straits.[6]

4
Devoid of all pilgrims to her gatherings,
Zion roads mourn.
All her gateways are desolate,
her priests groan,
her young women grieve;
how bitter her fate.

5
Enemies now have mastered her;
her foes prosper,
since the Lord has afflicted her[7]
for her many transgressions.
Her youngsters are exiled, captive
before the enemy.

6
Fled from Daughter Zion
is all her splendour.
Her leaders wander like deer—
they find no pasture;
they run to exhaustion
pursued by the hunter.

7
Goodly treasures[8] once hers
in days of old[9]
Jerusalem calls to mind[10]
in her days of downfall.
When her people fell to enemy hand,
there was none to help.
Her enemies look on, mock
her fallen state.[11]

8
How grievously has Jerusalem sinned—
how become a soiled rag.[12]
Those who once honoured her, despise her,
seeing her nakedness.
She, aghast, cries out;
she recoils backwards.[13]

9
Impurity clings to her skirts;
no mind has she to her future.
Downfallen in jaw-dropping shock,
there is none to comfort her.
Daughter Zion:
"Look, O Lord: my affliction—
how the foe triumphs."

10
Narrator:
Lecherous enemy hands spread
all over her treasures;
she sees pagan nations
enter her sanctuary—
despite your commanded "no entry
to your community."[14]

11
Moaning in famine her people
all search for bread,
bartering treasures for food
to salvage their souls.
Daughter Zion:
"Look, O Lord, and notice—
how despised I've become."

12
Notice! And look, you passers-by;
is it nothing to you?
Is there any pain like my pain,
which he unleashed against me—
which the Lord inflicted
in the day of his anger?

13
Out from on high he hurled fire
down into my bones.
He spread a net for my feet;
recoiling me backwards.[15]
Desolate has he made me:
all day sickened.

14
Packed[16] in a yoke are my transgressions;
twisted tight by his hand,
mounted upon my neck,
sapping my strength.
My Lord hand-delivered me to those
whom I cannot withstand.[17]

15
Rejected by my Lord in my midst
are all my own warriors;
he called a gathering against me
to crush my young men.
In a winepress my Lord has trodden
virgin Daughter Judah.

16
Streaming with tears, my eyes—
my eyes weep for these things;
far distant one who might comfort me,[18]
who might salvage my soul.
Desolate are all my children;
the foe has prevailed.

17
Narrator:
Tautly Zion outspreads her hands—[19]
there is none to comfort her.
The Lord has commanded against Jacob:
his neighbours to be enemies;
Jerusalem in their midst has become
menstrually soiled.

18
Daughter Zion:
Upright in judgement is the Lord,
for I defied his command.
Listen up,[20] all you peoples;
look on my pain:
my maidens and my young men
hauled into captivity.

19
Vainly I called to my lovers—
they abandoned me.
In the city my priests and my elders
perish
when they search for food for themselves
to salvage their souls.

20
Wretched am I, Lord; look!
My stomach churns,
my heart within me turns over:
defiantly had I defied.[21][22]
Outdoors, the sword bereaves;
indoors, very death.[23]

21
Yearnings of anguish they heard:
there is none to comfort me.[24]
My foes all heard my malignant[25] state,
rejoiced that you caused it.
Oh, bring on the day you called forth—
let them be as me!

22
Zero in—their malignant ways all are before you;
unleash against them
as you unleashed against me
for all my transgressions.
For great[26] are my groans;
my heart is sick.

Throughout chapters one, two and four, Zion is not only the dwelling-place of God but is additionally personified by the hauntingly endearing term "Daughter Zion" and variants such as "Daughter Jerusalem" and "my Daughter People". The poems lament not merely an inanimate city; the city is a precious daughter, beloved of God.[27] This is set out within the very first verse.

Further, in this first poem all the cited human suffering is connected to, and filtered through, the persona of the city, from "her priests groan" (v.4) through to "my priests and my elders perish" (v.19).[28]

Observe that this first poem is in two "voices": a witness-narrator recites most of 1–11b; the city herself recites most of 11c–22. The two speeches, of similar length, provide two viewpoints on Daughter Zion's suffering: one observed; one experienced.[29] In each, though, the voice of the other occasionally appears, indeed, interrupts:

A contrast between the two voices can be seen. "The narrator's speech is dominated by the overtones of death even though Zion is not dead. Zion, however, is a survivor [speaking] a lament straining towards life, and not a dirge looking back to death."[30]

Section 7–10 is clearly female-intimate and the language heaps up with innuendo. But it contains a deep and unsettling ambiguity which has a significant bearing on how we receive it. At first sight, the section is strongly suggestive of Daughter Zion having been wilfully unfaithful and wantonly adulterous, including the accusation of "sin" (v.8).[31] Yet in contrast with forcefully direct language in the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets) the language of the Lamentations poet is non-specific: she is never here accused of "adultery" or "whoring".[32] And a totally different thread also emerges from behind this: that of victim of sexual defilement and rape, aligned with many other Lamentations passages focussed on the abuse and violation of the innocent. Both these contrasting threads, adulteress and rape victim, may be viewed as co-existing possibilities.[33] For us as readers, indeed as disciples and worshippers, inhabiting the poetic and disturbingly ambiguous both/and can be, and perhaps should be, more valuable than rushing into a falsely simplistic either/or.

Observe, too, the frequency of the word "all",[34] establishing and reinforcing the book's theme of the totality of the devastation and suffering—a totality given visual expression to the reader by the end-to-end A-to-Z alphabetic acrostic.

1. ^ "Alas!": Hebrew ekah, meaning "how", the name of the book itself, and beginning with the Hebrew letter 'aleph' equivalent to our 'A'.
2. ^ Despite the importance of the overall 3–2 qinah metre, the opening line seems 4–2, and its initial "Alas!" is probably a preamble 'anacrusis' external to that metre. See Goldingay (2022), p.49, note 'c'. This is probably also true of the "Alas!" of the second chapter although probably not of the fourth. This version adopts that model. It additionally follows that "Alas" with a further acrostic "A…" word.
3. ^ This verb "sit" runs as a thread through the book. Here at the start it describes the city; at almost the centre, 3:28, it describes a representative person; finally at almost the close, 5:19, it describes God himself.
4. ^ Almost the entire text of Lamentations is expressed as couplets. But here in 1:1 the Masoretic Text highly unusually hints at a different configuration. For various reasons, our rendering retains couplets. See the translation notes, section Qinah.
5. ^ In some translations, "her lovers". But this is not the same as "lovers" in v.19. This "who love her" follows Berlin (2004) p.51.
6. ^ The Hebrew "straits" (or "narrows") resonates strongly with their word for "Egypt"; Berlin (2004) p.51; Goldingay (2022) p.54 note 'e'. This prompts a powerful reminder of their ancestral enslavement there. On that occasion, her pursuers famously did not overtake her, instead being destroyed at Moses' parting of the sea. But on this occasion there is no such deliverance.
7. ^ Note overlapping verb sequences: "afflicted"/"inflicted" (same Hebrew verb) at 5b and 12c, then "unleashed against" at 12b and 22. Dobbs-Allsopp (2012) p.68.
8. ^ The Hebrew word, here rendered "treasures", has several shades of meaning. Its uses in vv.7, 10 and 11 (briefly: valuable goods; feminine privacy; children) seem to play the poetic ambiguity of their interaction to advantage. See translation notes.
9. ^ The term "days of old" will recur at almost the end of the book, 5:21. Assis (2009), p.322.
10. ^ Verses 7 and 9 share a common Hebrew verb root for past and future tenses. The English "remember" is close, but only works for the past (v.7), not prospectively for the future (v.9). The basis chosen here, and worded to try to preserve 3–2 qinah rhythm, is "calls to mind" (past) and "no mind…to" (future). See Berman (2023), p.34.
11. ^ This verse, like 2:19 and 4:15, has an extra line in the Hebrew. Some commentators consider an earlier marginal gloss to have been assimilated. See also Provan (2016), pp.41–42. Alternatively, prior to the finalisation of the text, this stanza may have circulated in different versions: see Dobbs-Allsopp (2023), p.240. For an overview of suggested variant readings and ideas, see Kotzé (2011), pp.61–63.
12. ^ The Hebrew is unclear and ambiguous, with three possibilities of meaning and interpretation: "mockery", "wanderer" and "menstruant", the last supported by its similarity to (although not sameness as) the closing phrase of the more certain v.17. There may well be an intentional interplay of them all. See Berlin (2004), pp.53–54 (and 58–59); also Goldingay (2022), pp.62–63. This version uses a common "soiled" at both verses to reflect this resonance.
13. ^ The narrator's words can be seen here to imply Daughter Zion's guilty reaction. But at v.13 she turns the same terminology to her defence.
14. ^ A prohibition from Deut.23:2–6 near-quoted back at God. Parry (2011a), p.71.
15. ^ See footnote at v.8.
16. ^ This is the only occurrence of this verb in the entire Bible, so any translation is conjectural.
17. ^ Original wording is something like "Delivers my Lord [to] hands [I am] not able to withstand". Expressing that within 3–2 qinah is tricky; even more so when trying to keep the resonance of the "his hand" earlier in the verse.
18. ^ Some Jewish commentators here see a comforter-Messiah being yearned for. Goldingay (2022), p.75.
19. ^ The narrator's earlier speech had used the verbs "spread" and "command" close to its culmination (v.10). The opening of their next speech re-deploys the same verbs with different slants. Linafelt (2000), p.51.
20. ^ This modern-sounding "listen up" idea from Mandolfo (2007), p.97.
21. ^ The doubled use of a "defy"-based word reflects the Hebrew text and can be regarded as emphasis. A more conventional English representation might be "very defiant" or "defiant indeed". The word resembles "churn" in the previous line. See Goldingay (2022), p.79.
22. ^ The "defy" (meaning rebel) is the same as in v.18. But here it might also mean "bitter"; Berlin (2004), pp.44,47; Mandolfo (2007), pp.93–94. This half-line might then read: "I am bitter; bitter." Mandolfo further suggests that this defy/bitter resonance and ambiguity might be intentional, giving this v.20 usage a very different, even satirical edge.
23. ^ The Hebrew syntax of this closing couplet is unclear. The verb "bereaved" from the first half seems carried across by implication into the second half; further, "Death" may be a personification, also supported by Jer. 9:20. This might then read as "indoors Death itself bereaves". See Berlin (2004), p.44 and Goldingay (2022), p.79. For deeper study, see Kotzé (2019a).
24. ^ Berlin (2004) pp.44,60 takes this half-line as vocalised utterance. Here that would be: Yearnings…they heard: "there is none to comfort me".
25. ^ In Hebrew this word, meaning something like "bad", can apply in two opposite directions: someone can be either on the receiving end (e.g. "I'm bad", such as distressed or injured: "in a bad way") or the performing end (e.g. "I'm bad", such as an evildoer's innate badness). Here the progression from v.21 to v.22 exploits this word's dual direction for a revengeful schadenfreude. See Goldingay (2022), pp.80–81. To reflect this "same but opposite" poetically whilst avoiding potential ambiguity, we use the near-rhymes "malignant state" and "malignant ways".
26. ^ The opening v.1 "great", there used twice positively, here returns, but in negative contrast, to bracket this chapter. See Dobbs-Allsopp (2012), p.74.
27. ^ Adelman (2021); Berlin (2004), pp.10–12.
28. ^ Dobbs-Allsopp (2012), p.62.
29. ^ Hens-Piazza (2017), p.3.
30. ^ Parry (2011b), p.177, footnote 7, itself referencing Linafelt (2000), pp.35–43.
31. ^ Several other linguistic resonances and wordplays across the whole chapter lead the surface reading in this direction.
32. ^ Dobbs-Allsopp (2012), p.64.
33. ^ Dobbs-Allsopp (2012), pp.63–67; Hens-Piazza (2017), pp.8–18.
34. ^ Goldingay (2022), pp.11, 41.