Lamentations 1:8,9

These vv. in figurative language describe the Jewish people, as having brought upon itself through sin and consequent national humiliation the contempt of all its neighbours, while it is painfully conscious of its own ignominy (cp. Lamentations 4:21). The first two lines of Lamentations 1:9 are metrically irregular. Budde's emendation (which, however, Löhr considers too drastic) is to take from Lamentations 1:8 the clause "she is … thing" (omitting "therefore") and place it after "skirts," thus making "She remembered not … wonderfully" to form the second portion of the tripartite arrangement, and omitting accordingly "she hath no comforter" (which would thus become hypermetrical) as an insertion suggested by Lamentations 1:2; Lamentations 1:17, or 21. Observe the sudden change of person in the last line of Lamentations 1:9.