C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Lamentations 4:4-5

Lam 4:4-5

Sucking infants and little children perish from thirst and hunger; cf. Lam 2:11-12. פּרשׂ = פּרס, as in Mic 3:3, to break down into pieces, break bread = divide, Isa 58:7; Jer 16:7. In Lam 4:5 it is not children, but adults, that are spoken of. למעדנּים is variously rendered, since אכל occurs nowhere else in construction with ל. Against the assumption that ל is the Aramaic sign of the object, there stands the fact that אכל is not found thus construed with ל, either in the Lamentations or elsewhere, though in Jer 40:2 ל is so used. Gerlach, accordingly, would take למעדנּים adverbially, as meaning "after their heart’s desire," prop. for pleasures (as to this meaning, cf. Pro 29:17; 1Sa 15:32), in contrast with אכל לשׂבע, to eat for satisfaction, Exo 16:3; Lev 25:19, etc. But "for pleasure" is not an appropriate antithesis to satisfaction. Hence we prefer, with Thenius, to take אכל ל in the sense of nibbling round something, in which there is contained the notion of selection in the eating; we also take מעדנּים, as in Gen 49:20, to mean dainties. נשׁמּוּ, to be made desolate, as in Lam 1:13, of the destruction of happiness in life; with בּחוּצות, to sit in a troubled or gloomy state of mind on the streets. האמנים, those who (as children) were carried on purple (תּולע for שׁני rof תּו towla`at תּולעת, cochineal, crimson), embrace (i.e., cling to) dung-heaps, seek them as places or rest.