Lamentations 2:19

Hebrew Bible

17 ע (Ayin) The Lord has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his promise that he threatened long ago: He has overthrown you without mercy and has enabled the enemy to gloat over you; he has exalted your adversaries’ power. 18 צ (Tsade) Cry out from your heart to the Lord, O wall of Daughter Zion! Make your tears flow like a river all day and all night long! Do not rest; do not let your tears stop! 19 ק (Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children’s lives; they are fainting from hunger at every street corner. 20 ר (Resh) Look, O Lord! Consider! Whom have you ever afflicted like this? Should women eat their offspring, their healthy infants? Should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary? 21 ש (Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

Isaiah 62:6

Hebrew Bible

4 You will no longer be called, “Abandoned,” and your land will no longer be called “Desolate.” Indeed, you will be called “My Delight is in Her” and your land “Married.” For the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married to him. 5 As a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so your God will rejoice over you. 6 I post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they should keep praying all day and all night. You who pray to the Lord, don’t be silent! 7 Don’t allow him to rest until he reestablishes Jerusalem, until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth. 8 The Lord swears an oath by his right hand, by his strong arm: “I will never again give your grain to your enemies as food, and foreigners will not drink your wine, which you worked hard to produce.

 Notes and References

"... The opening of Lamentations 2 finds its mirror image immediately in the opening of Psalm 24. The footstool that God has forgotten is matched by verse 1a of the psalm. The precise identity of the earth, equating it with the footstool and thus linking both passages, is provided by Isaiah 66:1, which exclaims “The heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool” ... One of the motifs in Lamentations 2 is the repeated use of terms indicating a downward direction (as in verses 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21), indicating the general tone of the poem. It is only in the direct appeal to the walls of Bat Tsiyon in Lamentations 2:19 that a glimmer of hope is introduced by using ‘uplifting’ language when she is encouraged to protest and counteract the downward spiral by rising up and lifting up her hands in prayer ..."

Sulzbach, Carla Of Gates in the Ground and Castles in the Air: A Case of Biblical Unreal Estate (pp. 266-288) Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2012

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