Lamentations 2:13
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What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Against such terrible misery, human power can give neither comfort nor help. "What shall I testify to you?" the Kethib אעודך is a mistake in transcription for אעידך (Qeri), because עוּד is not commonly used in the Kal. העיד, to bear witness, is mostly construed with בּ, against or for any one, but also with acc., Kg1 21:10, Kg1 21:13, in malam, and Job 29:11, in bonam partem. Here it is used in the latter sense: "give testimony to thee" for the purpose of instruction and comfort, - not of a calamity that has happened elsewhere, as Calvin and Thenius explain, though against the construction of the verb with the accus.; still less "to make one swear" (Gesenius, Ewald). That the prophetic witness is meant here in the sense of encouragement by instruction, warning, and comfort, is evident from the mention of the testimony of the false prophets in Lam 2:14. "What shall I compare to thee?" i.e., what kind of misfortune shall I mention as similar to yours? This is required by the principle derived from experience: solamen miseris socios habuisse malorum. ואנחמך, "that I may comfort thee." The reason assigned, viz., "for thy destruction is great, like the sea" (i.e., immense), follows the answer, understood though not expressed, "I can compare nothing to thee." The answer to the last question, "Who can heal thee?" (רפא with ל) is, "no man;" cf. Jer 30:12. Reasons are assigned for this in Lam 2:14-16.
Open source ↗The second alphabetical elegy is set to the same mournful tune with the former, and the substance of it is much the same; it begins with Ecah, as that did, "How sad is our case! Alas for us!" I. Here is the anger of Zion's God taken notice of as the cause of her calamities (Lam 2:1-9). II. Here is the sorrow of Zion's children taken notice of as the effect of her calamities (Lam 2:10-19). III. The complaint is made to God, and the matter referred to his compassionate consideration (Lam 2:20-22). The hand that wounded must make whole.
Open source ↗2:13 Who can heal you? Reputed healers and prophets were all liars and frauds (Jer 6:13-14).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?
So David went to Baal-perazim, where he defeated the Philistines and said, “Like a bursting flood, the LORD has burst out against my enemies before me.” So he called that place Baal-perazim.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
You are to speak this word to them: ‘My eyes overflow with tears; day and night they do not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been shattered by a crushing blow, a severely grievous wound.
You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking.
You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.
this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.