2:7 I brought you 1 into a fertile land
so you could enjoy 2 its fruits and its rich bounty.
But when you entered my land, you defiled it; 3
you made the land I call my own 4 loathsome to me.
9:21 ‘Death has climbed in 5 through our windows.
It has entered into our fortified houses.
It has taken away our children who play in the streets.
It has taken away our young men who gather in the city squares.’
1 sn Note how contemporary Israel is again identified with her early ancestors. See the study note on 2:2.
2 tn Heb “eat.”
3 sn I.e., made it ceremonially unclean. See Lev 18:19-30; Num 35:34; Deut 21:23.
4 tn Heb “my inheritance.” Or “the land [i.e., inheritance] I gave you,” reading the pronoun as indicating source rather than possession. The parallelism and the common use in Jeremiah of the term to refer to the land or people as the
sn The land belonged to the
5 sn Here Death is personified (treated as though it were a person). Some have seen as possible background to this lament an allusion to Mesopotamian mythology where the demon Lamastu climbs in through the windows of houses and over their walls to kill children and babies.