Discovery BoxLamentations 2:5 
Contextה (He)
2:5 The Lord, 1 like an enemy,
destroyed 2 Israel.
He destroyed 3 all her palaces;
he ruined her 4 fortified cities.
He made everyone in Daughter Judah
mourn and lament. 5
Lamentations 2:16
Contextפ (Pe)
2:16 All your enemies
gloated over you. 6
They sneered and gnashed their teeth;
they said, “We have destroyed 7 her!
Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.
We have lived to see it!” 8
1 tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the
2 tn Heb “swallowed up.”
3 tn Heb “swallowed up.”
4 tn Heb “his.” For consistency this has been translated as “her.”
5 tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”
6 tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”
7 tn Heb “We have swallowed!”
8 tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsa’nu ra’inu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.
