Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageThe hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children; their children became their food in the catastrophic fall of the daughter of my people.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GThe hands of compassionate women boiled their own children; they became food for them in the collapse of the daughter of my people.
KJV
King James VersionThe hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleThe hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Footnotes
Rachamaniyyot ("compassionate/merciful women") shares its root with rechem ("womb") — these are literally womb-women, mothers defined by the fierce tenderness of the organ that bore their children. The juxtaposition is the most harrowing in all of Lamentations: the very attribute that makes them mothers has been destroyed by the siege. This fulfils with terrible literalness the covenant curse of Deuteronomy 28:53–57, which forewarned that siege would drive the most tender-hearted person to devour their own offspring. The text does not soften it. Neither should we.
