Lamentations 3:43

IV

ISRAEL'S SUFFERINGS FROM THEIR TRANSGRESSIONS[36]

"Thou hast covered with anger and pursued us;

thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,

so that no prayer can pass through.

Thou hast made us an offscouring

and a refuse in the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

Fear and the pit are come upon us,

devastation and destruction.

Mine eye runneth down with streams of water,

for the destruction of the daughter of my people."

"All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us" (Lamentations 3:46). This paragraph is a repetition, largely, of previous proclamations of Israel's sorrow. For example, this verse repeats verbatim Lamentations 2:16.

"Fear and the pit" (Lamentations 3:47). The metaphor in these three words is made literal in the last three words of the verse.