Lamentations 5:11

11 Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.

Lamentations 5:11 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 5:11

They ravished the women in Zion
Or "humbled" them F23; an euphemism; the women that were married to men in Zion, as the Targum; and if this wickedness was committed in the holy mountain of Zion, it was still more abominable and afflicting, and to be complained of; and if by the servants before mentioned, as Aben Ezra interprets it, it is another aggravating circumstance of it; for this was done not in Babylon when captives there; but at the taking of the city of Jerusalem, and by the common soldiers, as is too often practised: [and] the maids in the cities of Judah;
in all parts of the country, where the Chaldean army ravaged, there they ravished the maids. The Targum is,

``the women that were married to men in Zion were humbled by strangers; (the Targum in the king of Spain's Bible is, by the Romans;) and virgins in the cities of Judah by the Chaldeans;''
suggesting that this account has reference to both destructions of the city, and the concomitants and consequences thereof.
FOOTNOTES:

F23 (wne) (etapeinwsan) , Sept. "humiliaverunt", V. L. Munster.

Lamentations 5:11 In-Context

9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is black as an oven from the scorching heat of famine.
11 Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.
13 Young men are compelled to grind, and boys stagger under loads of wood.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.