3:48 Streams 1 of tears flow from my eyes 2
because my people 3 are destroyed. 4
ע (Ayin)
3:49 Tears flow from my eyes 5 and will not stop;
there will be no break 6
צ (Tsade)
2:18 Cry out 7 from your heart 8 to the Lord, 9
O wall of Daughter Zion! 10
Make your tears flow like a river
all day and all night long! 11
Do not rest;
do not let your tears 12 stop!
1 tn Heb “canals.” The phrase “canals of water” (eye water = tears) is an example of hyperbole. The English idiom “streams of tears” is also hyperbolic.
2 tn Heb “my eyes flow down with canals of water.”
3 tn Heb “the daughter of my people,” or “the Daughter, my people.”
4 tn Heb “because of the destruction of [the daughter of my people].”
5 tn Heb “my eye flows.” The term “eye” is a metonymy of association, standing for the “tears” which flow from one’s eyes.
6 tn Heb “without stopping.” The noun הַפוּגָה (hafugah, “stop”) is a hapax legomenon (word that occurs only once in Hebrew scriptures). The form of the noun is unusual, probably being derived from the denominative Hiphil verbal stem of the root פּוּג (pug, “to grow weary, ineffective; numb, become cold”).
7 tc The MT reads צָעַק לִבָּם אֵל־אֲדֹנָי (tsa’aq libbam el-’adonay, “their heart cried out to the Lord”) which neither matches the second person address characterizing 2:13-19 nor is in close parallel to the rest of verse 18. Since the perfect צָעַק (tsa’aq, “cry out”) is apparently parallel to imperatives, it could be understood as a precative (“let their heart cry out”), although this understanding still has the problem of being in the third person. The BHS editors and many text critics suggest emending the MT צָעַק (tsa’aq), Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular, to צָעֲקִי (tsa’aqi), Qal imperative 2nd person masculine singular: “Cry out!” This restores a tighter parallelism with the two 2nd person masculine singular imperatives introducing the following lines: הוֹרִידִי (horidi, “Let [your tears] flow down!”) and אַל־תִּתְּנִי (’al-tittni, “Do not allow!”). In such a case, לִבָּם (libbam) must be taken adverbially. For לִבָּם (libbam, “their heart”) see the following note. The adverbial translation loses a potential parallel to the mention of the heart in the next verse. Emending the noun to “your heart” while viewing the verb as a precative perfect would maintain this connection.
8 tn Heb “their heart” or “from the heart.” Many English versions take the ־ם (mem) on לִבָּם (libbam) as the 3rd person masculine plural pronominal suffix: “their heart” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NJPS, CEV). However, others take it as an enclitic or adverbial ending: “from the heart” (cf. RSV, NRSV, TEV, NJPS margin). See T. F. McDaniel, “The Alleged Sumerian Influence upon Lamentations,” VT 18 (1968): 203-4.
9 tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the
10 tn The wall is a synecdoche of a part standing for the whole city.
11 tn Heb “day and night.” The expression “day and night” forms a merism which encompasses everything in between two polar opposites: “from dawn to dusk” or “all day and all night long.”
12 tn Heb “the daughter of your eye.” The term “eye” functions as a metonymy for “tears” that are produced by the eyes. Jeremiah exhorts personified Jerusalem to cry out to the