[1] How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. ס
[2] She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. ס
[3] Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. ס
[4] The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals;
all her gates are desolate, her priests groan;
her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. ס
[5] Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper,
because Yahweh has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away, captives before the foe. ס
[6] From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty.
Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture;
they fled without strength before the pursuer. ס
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Unseen in this English translation above is the use of a vertical bar ( ׀ ) and enclosure marks ( [ ] and ( ) ). The vertical bar indicates a sign of pause, telling the reader to take time and grasp the meaning of the word or words that are set off by that mark. The enclosure marks are also signals to the reader to understand the repetition of words enclosed are statements of their focus being internal – within one’s soul – and not a statement of physicality.
The vertical bar is placed after the first word in verse one, which asks “how?” The English translation above, by not making this mark of pause be known, makes “how” acts as some innocuous word of unknown value (left for the reader to figure out the precise amount) that says, “how lonely sits the city.” That makes it appear as if Jeremiah (the divinely inspired author of Lamentations) is saying “a city sits lonely in an amount of great magnitude that cannot be precisely measured.” In reality, the words following the mark of pause say simply, “it remains separation,” followed by a comma mark, indicating another pause of separation. Therefore, the question “how?” is projected on “he, she, or it” (the third-person) can “dwell” or “sit” or “remain” in a state of “separation” or “isolation.” This makes the question become: “how can it choose a state of separation as a way to dwell in this world?”
Following the comma mark, Jeremiah wrote “the excitement great with people.” Here, the word “excitement” (Hebrew construct “hā·‘îr”) is commonly translated as “the city,” such that a place where a “great many people” live in close proximity to one another means the ‘hustle and bustle’ of such a place keeps human life ‘busy, busy, busy’ with things to do and people to see. This is unlike the boredom of a rural setting, where only one’s family and close relatives are who one goes to see and do things with. This then contrasts the “separation” of “dwelling” as an alternative lifestyle to one that is filled with “the excitement great with people,” who are not of close blood relationship. Therefore, “how?” becomes a reflection on choosing non-family as the ‘spice to life,’ as asking “how can family not excite one to a love of commitment?”
To answer this question, the Hebrew word written after the comma mark is in the third-person feminine singular, where “she has come to pass” is compared to being “like a widow” (another feminine singular word). Here, the feminine has to be read as metaphor for a soul trapped in a body of flesh, where the earthly realm (dust, clay, ashes and bodies of dirt) is feminine, whereas the spiritual realm of Yahweh and His elohim-angels-spirits- souls is masculine. The feminine is thus always without life, while the spiritual is always with life. When an eternal soul is trapped in a body of inertness, this makes the soul be trapped within the restrictions of mortality, where death is surely “coming to pass.” Therefore, a “widow” becomes a soul that has died and lost its flesh that it was married to; but a soul should be married to Yahweh, in order to be rescued from the death of the flesh. This state of being “like a widow” is then relative to the question asking “how?” which then focuses on dwelling in separation” from Yahweh, choosing the “excitement of other people” as a marriage to the worldly realm and the pleasures of the flesh.
Following a semi-colon mark, Jeremiah then wrote a feminine singular adjective, which is then a reflection on this “she” who has “come to pass” and die, becoming “like a widow” to its body of flesh returned to inertness. Here, we find “she is great among the people.” In that, “the word translating as “among the people” is masculine, therefore a reference to the soul within the body that has died. The feminine says the body of flesh became a “greater” influence – a stronger love and desire for – that that of Yahweh, whose Spirit dwells “among the people” calling themselves His children. They (the ‘shes’) mourn the loss of a bag of dead dirt, more than they praise Yahweh for rescuing their souls and releasing them from their imprisonment in the flesh.
That sense of mourning is then explained in the words following a comma mark of separation, where the “greatness she knew before coming to pass” was that as a “princess.” Here, the feminine singular is again placing focus on a soul trapped in the femininity of the earthly realm; but that sense of royalty, as a “princess,” says “she” found “greatness among the nations” as a child of the One God, who was not the God of those other “people.”
As a “princess” the soul felt enabled to do as “she” pleased and gather as “many” riches as possible, due to being a feminine child of Yahweh. This mindset was owed “her” from all the “provinces” of the lands surrounding Judah. Thus, the whole world was to be subjected to “her” wishes; and, “she” was blinded to the threats coming upon “her” dream state, because “she” was not reborn as a prince, as the Son of Yahweh, who would protect the “people” by leading them to spread favorable knowledge about the One God to all the “provinces.” Instead, the “people” of Judah spread weakness in commitment to their “great” God, making them “come to pass” as a former “nation.”
This then led Jeremiah to follow a comma mark with a repeating of what “she has become” – previously as “like a widow” – such that “she has become a slave.” Collectively, when all of a fallen Judah is seen as a “feminine singular” that “has come to pass [become],” all “the people” of Judah have died as “princesses” and become a “body of forced laborers.” Because this is the first verse of the first chapter in Lamentations – a book of the captives in Babylon – the question originally asked – “how?” – asks, “why would you choose a separation from the great Yahweh, where one’s service could only be for Him, with His taskwork being to minister as saintly princes in His name [Israel], only to instead be driven away from your provinces into another nation and become forced laborers to a foreign people, who serve lesser gods?”
When this element of femininity is realized to be a statement of the marriage of a soul to the lusts of the material plane – where a soul is not only imprisoned in a body of matter, but is also married to the feminine spirits of the worldly realm [Satan-led] – The remainder of these selected verses refer to words that place names to this feminine state of being: Judah and Zion. The meaning behind those two words appearing as names are as such: “Judah” is a masculine singular noun, meaning “Praised, Let Him Be Praised;” while “Zion” is a feminine singular noun, meaning “Dry Place, Sign Post, Tradition,” or “Fortress.” These meaning should be read as the intent to be stated by Jeremiah.
In verse two, it is clear that the constructs stating “she weeps” and “her tears” are the nature of the lamentations that come after one has gone too far and is punished for one’s bad choices and actions. To find that “her lovers” and “her friends” have turned against her, becoming “her enemies,” this is a statement that says the weeping and crying of tears is based on the choices that made “her lovers” and “her friends” be wrong. The waywardness that is punished is due to marriage to false gods [self, money, power, knowledge, etc.] and hired hands [religious affiliations, philosophical groups, business companions, etc.] that led to a life of sins and wicked actions. Those actions will be held against one’s soul, bringing forth much sorrow, because the stench of who one laid down with will become the “enemies” that divine Judgment will focus upon.
In verse three, the history of a fallen Judah leading to the “captivity” in Babylon is a physical ramification of past sins. However, the spiritual Judgment that comes upon a soul says “captivity” is the Judgment that a soul return to the imprisonment of a body of flesh. This is a sentence of reincarnation. To find that reincarnation brings about “harsh affliction of servitude,” “dwelling among the people who find no rest,” “her persecutions overtaking her” says the likelihood of returning in another body of flesh born to wealthy Jewish parents is nil. Reincarnation becomes like picking up the Monopoly card that says, “Go to jail, Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200.” It means one is reborn into flesh that had a harder path towards finding eternal salvation, with the probability of many reincarnated lives ahead before that work successfully completed can bring about another shot at the ‘big prize’ of freedom.
In the word “Zion,” one needs to see oneself as being “A Dry Place,” where the flood of all material lusts is kept away from one’s reach. This is the meaning of the words written after the question “how?” is raised, which says “she remains in separation.” The “excitement from the people” is avoided, so there is nothing but arid conditions surrounding one’s soul. When a soul finds this “lonely” state hard to accept, “mourning” a lack of “feasts” being set before one, the “gates” opened for the people to come and bow before one are closed. When one’s inner “priests” are ”groaning” and the souls “virginal” state has become an “affliction,” then “bitterness” will keep a soul in “A Fortress” that is one’s place of imprisonment. The failure to seek a return to Yahweh and loving self-sacrifice to His Will means He will not pour out His Spirit upon one’s soul forevermore, keeping that soul set for future reincarnations into the same “Dry Place,” without a flood of living waters raining down upon one’s soul.
In verse five, this rejection of Yahweh is said to be maintained by those who persecute a wayward soul will be given divine powers to act as harsh ‘jailers’ in one’s reincarnated lives. It will be “her adversaries” that will become her “masters,” while “her enemies will prosper” in worldly gains. When Jeremiah wrote of “of the multitude of her transgression,” this “multitude” should be seen as a number of lives in the flesh to serve, under the yoke of “Yahweh’s” punishment. The projection of “her children have gone into captivity with the face of distress” says the “multitude of her transgressions” will be found to be “her children” reincarnated as “her,” time and again. Each return will wear the “face of distress” from past “transgressions.”
In verse six, the first word says, “and has departed” or “and has gone out of,” which must be seen as a statement of death, as the dead are called the ‘dearly departed.’ This is when the presence of enclosure marks repeat “[ from the daughter ] ( from the daughter )”. This must be seen as signals that it is the “soul departed from the daughter,” where (again) the word “daughter” (“bat”) is a statement of the feminine singular, making it a reference to “she” and “her,” who perceived a soul in a body of death to be a child of God, without ever doing anything to please Yahweh. The enclosure marks are indications that the soul has left its body of flesh, at death.
Following the repeating of “from the daughter” within enclosure marks, Jeremiah was divinely led to write “of A Dry Place all her honor.” This is a statement that a reincarnated life that “remains in separation from the excitement of the people” is an “honor” seen in that souls departed, by Yahweh. She has “come to pass [death] her princes,” which is a statement of the spiritual angels – her inner elohim – that were sent by Yahweh, after divine marriage of a soul to Him, having received His Spirit as the flood of living waters flowing within that soul, unseen in worldly lifestyle. The saved soul is “like deer having not found pasture,” which is a statement of the souls having sought spiritual nourishment, rather than material food. This experience of the spiritual realm being nourishing to the soul, then makes death be like “those fleeing without strength in the face of the pursuer.” This is a statement that the soul in its flesh refused to wear the “face” of lesser gods, in order to please those who would persecute that rejection, even to the point of death. This makes a soul rewarded with eternal life be a willing sacrifice in the physical realm, having faith that self-sacrifice to Yahweh will have greater reward in the realm beyond mortal death.
As a final note, each of these verse ends with the Hebrew letter samekh, which means each of these verses is “closed” or “blocked,” ending each as in separation from the others. This means each verse makes a statement that is profound alone; and, each should be read with that singularity of divine purpose.
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