Discovery BoxLamentations 2:12 
Contextל (Lamed)
2:12 Children 1 say to their mothers, 2
“Where are food and drink?” 3
They faint 4 like a wounded warrior
in the city squares.
They die slowly 5
in their mothers’ arms. 6
Lamentations 4:15
Contextס (Samek)
4:15 People cry to them, “Turn away! You are unclean!
Turn away! Turn away! Don’t touch us!”
So they have fled and wander about;
but the nations say, 7 “They may not stay here any longer.”
1 tn Heb “they”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “to their mother,” understood as a collective singular.
3 tn Heb “Where is bread and wine?” The terms “bread” and “wine” are synecdoches of specific (= bread, wine) for general (= food, drink).
4 tn Heb “as they faint” or “when they faint.”
5 tn Heb “as their life is poured out.” The term בְּהִשְׁתַּפֵּךְ (bÿhishtappekh), Hitpael infinitive construct + the preposition בּ (bet), from שָׁפַךְ (shafakh, “to pour out”) may be rendered “as they expire” (BDB 1050 s.v. שָׁפַךְ), referring to the process of dying. Note the repetition of the word “pour out” with various direct objects in this poem at 2:4, 11, 12, and 19.
6 tn Heb “chest, lap.”
7 tn Heb “They say among the nations.”
