Lamentations 4:5-7

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Lamentations 4:5 tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”
2. Lamentations 4:5 tn Heb “are desolate.”
3. Lamentations 4:5 tn Heb “were reared.”
4. Lamentations 4:5 tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tolaʿ, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing, a metonymy of association where the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.
5. Lamentations 4:5 tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits”).
6. Lamentations 4:5 tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (ʾashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.
7. Lamentations 4:6 tn The noun עֲוֹן (ʿavon) has a basic, twofold range of meaning: (1) basic meaning: “iniquity, sin,” and (2) metonymical cause-for-effect meaning: “punishment for iniquity.”
8. Lamentations 4:6 tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”
9. Lamentations 4:6 tn Heb “the sin of.” The noun חַטָּאת (khattaʾt) often means “sin, rebellion,” but here it probably functions in a metonymical (cause for effect) sense: “punishment for sin” (e.g., Zech 14:19). The context focuses on the severity of the punishment of Jerusalem rather than the depths of its degradation and depravity that led to the judgment.
10. Lamentations 4:6 tn Heb “without a hand turned.” The preposition ב (bet) after the verb חוּל (khul) in Hos 11:6 is adversative: “the sword will turn against [Assyria’s] cities.” Other contexts with חוּל (khul) plus ב (bet) are not comparable (ב [bet] often being locative). However, it is not certain that hands must be adversarial, as the sword clearly is in Hos 11:6. The present translation pictures the suddenness of Sodom’s overthrow as an easier fate than the protracted military campaign and subsequent exile and poverty of Judah’s survivors.
11. Lamentations 4:7 tn Heb “Nazirites” (so KJV). The Nazirites were consecrated under a vow to refrain from wine, contact with the dead, and cutting their hair. In Gen 49:26 and Deut 33:16, Joseph, who was not a Nazirite, is called the “Nazir” of his brothers. From context, many translate this as “prince” (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), though the nuance is uncertain. If it is valid, then princes might be understood in this context as well.
12. Lamentations 4:7 tn The noun גִּזְרָה (gizrah) is used primarily in Ezekiel 41-42 (7 of its 9 uses), where it refers to a separated area of the temple complex described in Ezekiel’s vision. It is not used of people other than here. Probably based on the reference to a precious stone, BDB 160 s.v. 1 postulated that it refers to the cutting or polishing of precious stones, but this is conjecture. The English versions handle this variously. D. R. Hillers suggests beards, hair, or eyebrows, relying on other ancient Near Eastern comparisons between lapis lazuli and the body (Lamentations [AB], 81).
13. Lamentations 4:7 sn Lapis lazuli is a dark-blue semiprecious stone.