Intertextuality Pair

Lamentations 1:17 → Isaiah 40:1

Echo

Later text

Lamentations 1:17BSB

Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

Earlier text

Isaiah 40:1BSB

"Comfort, comfort My people," says your God.

Significance

Lamentations 1:17 portrays Zion stretching out her hands with "no one to comfort her" (אֵין מְנַחֵם לָהּ, ein menahem lah), while the LORD has decreed Jacob's neighbors to be his enemies. Isaiah 40:1 reverses this desolation with God commanding His messengers to נַחֲמוּ (nachamu, "comfort") the very people He had punished. The shared root נחם binds the two texts in a theological arc from covenant curse to covenant renewal. Lamentations 1:17 adds the detail that Jerusalem has become "an unclean thing" (נִדָּה, niddah) among the nations, making the promised comfort all the more remarkable -- God comforts even what He Himself declared unclean. The Hebrew captures Zion's gesture precisely -- "Zion stretches out her hands" (פֵּרְשָׂה צִיּוֹן בְּיָדֶיהָ, persah Tziyon beyadeiha) -- a wordless plea for the very comfort Isaiah's imperative supplies.

Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Echo
Connection Method(s)
Contrast

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