David's love for Jonathan

Epilogue

Jonathan, in thy death hast thou wounded me! 26I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan ! Thou wert surpassingly dear to me,

Thy love to me was far more than the love of woman!

How have the mighty fallen,

And the weapons of war perished!

§ 17. David's Lament over Abner, II Sam. 333, 34

II Sam. 3 33 And the king sang a dirge for Abner and said:

Must Abner die as dies the impious fool?

34Thy hands were not bound,

Thy feet were not put into fetters;

As one falls before ruthless men, thou didst fall.

§ 18. Jeremiah's Lament over the Fate of Jehoahaz, Jer. 2210
Jer. 22 10Weep not for him who is dead, nor wail for him;

Weep rather for him who is gone, for he shall not return,
And never again shall he see the land of his birth.

Call

to the mourn

ing

women

II

DIRGES OVER THE FALLEN NATION

Am. 51, 2, Jer. 917-22, Lam. 2, 4, 1, 5, 3

§ 19. Amos's Dirge over the Impending Fall of Northern Israel, Am. 51. 2 Am. 5 1Hear the word which I take up against you, even a dirge, O house of Israel:

2Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel!

Hurled down upon her own soil she lies, with none to raise her!

§ 20. Jeremiah's Lament over the Impending Fall of Judah, Jer. 917-22

Jer. 9 17Summon the mourning women that they may come;

And send for the wise women 18that they may quickly raise for us their

voices in wailing;

That our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids flow with water. 19 For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, 'How are we ruined!

§ 17 This is an excellent example of the popular dirge.

18 Cf., for a more highly developed dirge, Ezek. 19.

19 In these dirges the object of the lament is not an individual but the nation.

a fitting prologue to the longer dirges in Lam. which deal with the same theme.

They are

§ 20 Cf. Vol. III, § 79. for detailed notes. Cf. also Jer. 127-12, Vol. III, § 94, for a similar dirge over sinful Judah.

JEREMIAH'S LAMENT OVER JUDAH

We are greatly confounded, because they have cast down our dwellings!' 20 Hear, O women, and let your ears receive my words;

And teach your daughters wailing, and each her neighbor a dirge:

The dirge

21' Death is come up into our windows, it has entered into our palaces, Cutting off the children from the streets, the young men from the open that

spaces.

they

22The dead bodies of men fall as dung upon the open field,
And as the handful after the harvester, with none to gather them.'

are to

sing

hovah's dire

judg

§ 21. Jehovah's Overwhelming Judgment upon Jerusalem, Lam. 2 Lam. 2 1How the Lord hath beclouded in his anger the daughter of Zion! 1. JeHe hath cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel," And he hath not kept in remembrance his footstool in the day of his anger. ment "The Lord hath swallowed up without mercy every habitation of Jacob,b He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, He hath struck to the ground, he hath polluted her king and her princes. 21-5) "He hath cut off in the fierceness of his angerd all of Israel's strength,

He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,

He hath burnt in Jacob like a flame, which devours on all sides.
'He hath bent his bow as an enemy, he hath stood' as an adversary,
He hath slain all the desirable men in the tent of Zion,"

He hath poured out his fury as fire [on the daughter of Judah].
"The Lord hath become like an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all of his palaces, he hath destroyed his fortresses,
And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah sighing and lamentation.

upon

Judah

(Lam.

"He hath torn down as a vine his dwelling, he hath destroyed his assem- 2. Also bling place,

He hath caused to be forgotten in Zion, the fast day and the sabbath,
And hath spurned in his indignant anger, both king and priest.
"The Lord hath rejected his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary,

§ 21 The metrical structure of this poem is remarkably symmetrical. Only a few later glosses have crept in to disturb the regular rhythm of the five-beat measure. It falls naturally into two great divisions. Vss. 1-12 describe the fate of the different classes in the community upon whom the calamity had fallen with greatest severity. In the second general division, 13-22, the cause of the great judgment is presented and the nation is called upon to raise its voice in petition to Jehovah for pity, not because divine mercy is deserved but because of the overwhelming character of the judgment. As has been stated in the Introd., p. 19, the date of this poem is between 586 and 561 B.C.

21 Either the temple or the ark.

b22 The metrical structure of this vs. is unusual, but no satisfactory reconstruction has been found.

e2 So Syr. Heb., the kingdom.

d23 So. Syr. and Lat. Heb., in fierce anger.

e23 Lit., horn, as the symbol of strength.

124 The Heb. adds, interrupting the sense and metrical structure, his right hand.

24 Lit., the desires of the eye, in the tent of the daughter of Zion, i. e., the citizens of Jerusalem. b24 The last part of this vs. that has been lost and is supplied according to the demands of the parallelism from 5.

126 So Gk. Heb., garden.

12 Heb., hut; the reference, however, is clearly to the temple and the original probably read as above.

26 The Heb. adds Jehovah, but to preserve the metre in the Eng. it has been omitted.

upon

the

temple and its service

(6, 7)

3. Upon

Jerusalem

and its defences (8-10)

The help

less vic

tims

Jerusalem betrayed by her prophets

Taunted by heathen foes

He hath given up into the hands of the enemy the ark of the covenant,' They have made a din in the house of Jehovah, as in the solemn feast day.

Jehovah hath determined to destroy the wall of Zion,"

He hath stretched out the line, he hath not held back his hand from destroying,

He hath made rampart and wall lament, they mourn together,

'Sunk to the ground are her gates," broken her bars.

Her king and her princes are among the heathen, and there is no law.
Moreover her prophets receive from Jehovah no vision.

10Silent, on the earth sit the elders of the daughter of Zion;
Dust they cast on their heads; they are girded with sackcloth;
With heads bowed to earth are the daughters of Jerusalem.

"Mine eyes are wasted with tears, my compassions are stirred,
My heart is poured upon the earth for the wreck of my people,
For the swooning of infant and suckling on the streets of the city.
12They say to their mothers, 'Alas! Where is grain and wine?'
While they swoon like those who are wounded in the streets of the city,
And pour out their soul in deaths on their mothers' bosom.

13 To what shall I comparet and liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
What comparison can I find" to comfort thee, O daughter of Zion?
For great as the sea is thy wreck: Who then can heal thee?

14 For thee thy prophets have predicted both falsehood and delusion,"
And they have not laid bare thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity,
But for thee they have beheld oracles that are false and misleading.

15 All who pass by clap their hands over thee in derision,
They hiss and wag their head o'er the daughter of Jerusalem:
'Is this the city they called the perfection of beauty?'

16Against thee they open their mouth, even all thine enemies,

They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, 'We have swallowed her up;
Certainly this is the day we looked for; we have found it, we see it!'

127 So conjecturally with Budde. Heb. reads wall and her palaces, but the Heb. word for temple is masculine, and palaces are only used in connection with a city. The context supports the above, which may well be the basis of the present Heb.

m28 Heb., daughter of Zion.

29 Heb. adds and he hath destroyed; but this is not compatible with the regular metre of the chapter.

0211 Lit., bowels; thought by the Hebrews to be the seat of the sympathetic emotions.

P211 Lit., liver; equivalent in Heb. thought to our modern figurative use of the word heart. 921 Lit., daughter of my people, i. e., the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

212 Supplying a word which a scribe probably confused with the following and so omitted. 212 With G. A. Smith supplying a missing word implied by the context.

$213 Translating the Heb. by the aid of the Lat. and the context.

213 Lit., what shall I compare to thee. The Heb. idiom is difficult to transfer into Eng. 214 Lit., seen in visions.

JEHOVAH'S JUDGMENT UPON JUDAH

17 Jehovah hath done that which he purposed; he hath fulfilled his word,
As he commanded in the days of old: he hath ruined pitilessly;
He hath let thine enemies rejoice over thee; he hath exalted their horn."

18 Cry aloud to the Lord; and clamor, O virginb Zion;
Let tears run down like a river by day and by night;
Give to thyself no respite, and rest not thine eyes.
19 Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches;
Pour out thy heart like water in the presence of the Lord;d
Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy children.

20' See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus!
Should the women devour their offspring, the children they fondled?
Or prophet and priest be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21Strewn on the ground in the streets are boys and old men;

My virgins and my stalwart youths are fallen by the sword;

Thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast slaughtered pitilessly.

22Thou didst summon as if it were a feast day those dwelling around me; But in the day of Jehovah's wrath no fugitive survived,'

Those whom I fondled and brought up, mine enemy hath destroyed.'

§ 22. The Magnitude of the Disasters That Jehovah Has Brought upon His People, Lam. 4

Lam. 4 1How the gold has become dimmed, the finest gold changed! The sacred stones are thrown out at the corners of every street!® "The precious citizens of Zion, comparable to fine gold,

How they are reckoned as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hands!

"Even the jackals present the breast, suckle their whelps,

Pun

ished by Jehovah

Petition him for pity

Pray

this

prayer

Fate

of the best citizens of Zion

Of the little

dren

But the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. chil "The tongue of the suckling child cleaves to his gum for thirst; The little children beg for bread, no one breaks it for them.

217 Slightly revising the Heb. as the metre suggests.

218 The Heb. is evidently corrupt. The above reading is based on a text emended as the context requires. The VSS. differ widely, showing that the corruption of the text was very old. b218 Revising the Heb., which reads wall.

218 Following a group of Heb. and Gk. MSS. Heb., daughter of thine eyes. d219 Many MSS. read Jehovah.

219 A scribe who had in mind 110 has added the prose gloss who faint for hunger at the head

of every street.

122 I. e., Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Cf. Job 1819. The figure was, perhaps, suggested by Jehu's gathering of the unsuspecting Baal worshippers in their temple in order to mete out to them a bloody judgment, II Kgs. 1018-28. The current rendering of the Heb. follows Jer. 42", 4414.

22 Cf., for date and interpretation, Introd., p. 19. This poem pictures even more vividly and feelingly than the preceding the fate of Jerusalem. The poet does not question for a moment the justice of that fate. It is because of the sins of her prophets and priests, 13. In the magnitude of the disaster which has overtaken his people the poet finds hope that their guilt would be appeased and that the cup of divine judgment which Judah is now drinking to the dregs will soon be passed on to their guilty, arrogant foes, the Edomites, 21, 22

841 Vs. 1 is explained by 2. The sacred stones and the purest gold are the citizens of Zion. 142 Lit., who are weighed against.

"They who once fed on dainties are desolate in the streets;
They who were reared upon purple embrace dunghills.

❝So the guilt of the daughter of my people was greater than Sodom's sin,
For she has been overthrown as in a moment, without any hands being
wrung for her.i

"Her nobles' were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;

Their skin was redder than coral, their beauty' was as sapphire.

"Now their appearance is darker than blackness, they are not recognized on the streets,

Their skin cleaves to their bones, it is as dry as a stick.

'More fortunate are those slain by the sword, than those slain by hunger,
For these pine away, stricken through,m for want of the fruits of the field.
10The hands of tender-hearted women have boiled their own children;
They have become their food in the destruction of the daughter of my
people.

"Jehovah hath accomplished his work, he hath poured out his fury,
He hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath burnt up her foundations.
12The kings of the earth believed not, nor the inhabitants of the world,"
That the adversary and foe would enter into the gates of Jerusalem.

13It is because of the sins of her prophets, the crimes of her priests,"
Who have poured out in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.
14They wander as blind men through the streets, they are polluted with blood,
That men may not touch them they draw aside their garments:

15' Unclean!' they cry to them, 'Depart,a do not touch';

For they wander and go to and fro' among the heathen, they no longer sojourn here.

16The anger of Jehovah hath scattered them, he will no more regard them, It respected not the person of the priests, it favored not the prophets.t

17Our eyes still fail in looking" for help that is unavailing,

In our watching we have watched in vain for a nation that does not help.

146 The meaning is doubtful. The above follows the most probable rendering of the Heb. supported by the Gk. The idea is, so quickly did Jerusalem fall that there was no time to lament. 147 Gk. Nazirites; but the Heb. word elsewhere, as in Gen. 49, does not have this technical meaning.

4 Slightly emending the text, which in its present form makes no sense. Cf. sb. Another emendation reads they were more ruddy than branches of coral, but this contradicts the first line.

147 Lit., polishing.

m4 The figure is that of hunger piercing its victims like the sword.

n412 Lit., all of the inhabitants.

0413 Cf. Jer. 613, 810, 2311, 12, 2620-22.

P415 Cf. The warning of lepers, Lev. 13.

4415 In the Heb. the depart' is repeated three times, but it destroys the metrical structure of the vs.

1415 The Heb. is untranslatable. A slight correction on the analogy of Gen. 412, 14 gives the above meaning. A scribe has added they say, but it is not supported by the metre or the context. 416 Lit., faces.

t416 So Gk. Heb., elders.

417 I. e., Egypt.

u417 Or howling. The Heb. text is doubtful.