Ekhah 5:11

11 They ravished the nashim in Tziyon, and the betulot in the towns of Yehudah.

Ekhah 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.

Ekhah 5:11 In-Context

9 We get our lechem with the peril of our lives because of the cherev of the midbar.
10 Our skin was hot like an oven because we burn with ra’av (hunger, famine).
11 They ravished the nashim in Tziyon, and the betulot in the towns of Yehudah.
12 Sarim (princes) are hanged by their yad; the faces of Zekenim were not respected.
13 They took the bochurim to grind, and the ne’arim staggered under the wood.
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