Discovery BoxLamentations 3:52-55 
Contextצ (Tsade)
3:52 For no good reason 1 my enemies
hunted me down 2 like a bird.
3:53 They shut me 3 up in a pit
and threw stones at me.
3:54 The waters closed over my head;
I thought 4 I was about to die. 5
ק (Qof)
3:55 I have called on your name, O Lord,
from the deepest pit. 6
1 tn Heb “without cause.”
2 tn The construction צוֹד צָדוּנִי (tsod tsaduni, “they have hunted me down”) is emphatic: Qal infinitive absolute of the same root of Qal perfect 3rd person common plural + 1st person common singular suffix.
3 tn Heb “my life.”
4 tn Heb “I said,” meaning “I said to myself” = “I thought.”
5 tn Heb “I was about to be cut off.” The verb נִגְזָרְתִּי (nigzarti), Niphal perfect 1st person common singular from גָּזַר (gazar, “to be cut off”), functions in an ingressive sense: “about to be cut off.” It is used in reference to the threat of death (e.g., Ezek 37:11). To be “cut off” from the hand of the living means to experience death (Ps 88:6).
6 tn Heb “from a pit of lowest places.”
