Discovery BoxLamentations 3:52-58 
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
“Do not close your ears to my cry for relief!” 9
3:57 You came near 10 on the day I called to you;
you said, 11 “Do not fear!”
ר (Resh)
3:58 O Lord, 12 you championed 13 my cause, 14
you redeemed my life.
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.”
7 tn The verb could be understood as a precative, “hear my plea,” parallel to the following volitive verb, “do not close.”
8 tn Heb “my voice.”
9 tn The preposition ל (lamed) continues syntactically from “my plea” in the previous line (e.g. Ex 5:2; Josh 22:2; 1 Sam 8:7; 12:1; Jer 43:4).
10 tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Draw near”). The perspective of the poem seems to be that of prayer during distress rather than a testimony that God has delivered.
11 tn The verb could be understood as a precative (“Say”).
12 tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the
13 tn This verb, like others in this stanza, could be understood as a precative (“Plead”).
14 tn Heb “the causes of my soul.” The term נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is a synecdoche of part (= my soul) for the whole person (= me).
