Lamentations 5:11

11 Our wives were raped in the streets in Zion, and our virgins in the cities 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 risk our lives to gather food in the bandit-infested desert.
10 Our skin has turned black as an oven, dried out like old leather from the famine.
11 Our wives were raped in the streets in Zion, and our virgins in the cities of Judah.
12 They hanged our princes by their hands, dishonored our elders.
13 Strapping young men were put to women's work, mere boys forced to do men's work.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.