Texts in Conversation
Lamentations follows ancient Near Eastern traditions like the Destruction of Ur by using famine to mark the collapse of a city. Both depict places associated with abundance, palaces, temples, and storehouses, as emptied of food and made uninhabitable.
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Lamentations over the Destruction of Ur 307
Ancient Near East
305 As the day grew dark, the eye of the sun was eclipsing, the people experienced hunger, 306 There was no beer in his the king’s beer-hall, there was no more malt for making it, 307 There was no food for him in the palace, it was made unsuitable to live in, 308 Grain filled not his lofty storehouse, he could not send there for supplies to save his life. 309 The grain stacks and grain depots of Nanna held no grain, 310 The evening meal in the great dining hall of the gods was defiled,
Date: 2000 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Lamentations 1:11
Hebrew Bible
10 י (Yod) An enemy grabbed all her valuables. Indeed she watched in horror as Gentiles invaded her holy temple—those whom you had commanded: “They must not enter your assembly place.” 11 כ (Kaf) All her people groaned as they searched for a morsel of bread. They exchanged their valuables for just enough food to stay alive. “Look, O Lord! Consider that I have become worthless!” 12 ל (Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Lamentations 1:11 closes this rhetorical unit with a reference to desperate Jerusalemites groaning from hunger and being driven to drastic measures in order to survive. Famine is a theme that appears in other Mesopotamian texts as well ... Starvation was an important element of any successful siege operation, inflicting both psychological stress and physical debilitation on those trapped inside city walls. Although some food and livestock were kept within Jerusalem, surpluses would have been completely exhausted by the end of the eighteen-month siege ..."
Wilkins, Lauress L.
The Book of Lamentations and the Social World of Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Era
(p. 38) Gorgias Press, 2010
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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