155 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Eikhah Rabbah, shown in source order. Page 3 of 4.
“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” (Lamentations 3:37).“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” – who did command? H...
“Let us search and examine our ways, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens” (Lamentations 3:40–41).“Let us search and examine our wa...
“You are covered with wrath and have pursued us; You have killed, did not have compassion. You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass. You have rendered us f...
The verse reads, "All our enemies have opened their mouth against us" (Lamentations 3:46). The rabbis of Eikhah Rabbah noticed something strange about where this line sits in the b...
“My eye will flow and will not cease, without respite. Until the Lord looks out and sees from Heaven” (Lamentations 3:49–50).“My eye will flow and will not cease.… until the Lord l...
Eikhah Rabbah reads the anguished poetry of Lamentations as a record of righteous figures wrongly persecuted. The verse "My enemies hunted me like a bird, without cause. They bound...
"I called Your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit" (Lamentations 3:55). Eikhah Rabbah, the classical midrash on the Book of Lamentations, hears in this cry of the suffering spe...
“Lord, You have fought the battles of my soul; You redeemed my life. Lord, You have seen the wrongs committed against me; judge my case. You have seen all their vengeance, all thei...
The midrash takes up three verses from the book of Lamentations, where the speaker, traditionally the prophet Jeremiah mourning over a ruined Jerusalem, lays his humiliation before...
“Pay them retribution, Lord, according to their handiwork” (Lamentations 3:64).“Pay them retribution” – Jeremiah said: “Pay them retribution.” Asaf said: “Pay our neighbors retribu...
“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:66).“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them” – Jeremiah said: “May you pur...
“How has gold tarnished, the fine gold changed? The sacred stones are spilled at the head of every street” (Lamentations 4:1).“How has gold tarnished [yuam]?” Rabbi Shmuel said: Ho...
“The precious sons of Zion, who were valued in gold, how are they considered earthenware jugs, the handiwork of the hands of the potter?” (Lamentations 4:2).“The precious sons of Z...
There was an incident involving a certain man in Jerusalem, who made a feast. He said to a member of his household: ‘Go and bring me my friend, Kamtza.’ He went and brought his ene...
There was an incident involving Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya, who went to the great city of Rome. They said to him: ‘There is a certain child in prison in disgrace.’10The Romans were...
This grim story from Eikhah Rabbah illustrates a verse from the dirges over fallen Jerusalem, the lament that the precious children of Zion, once valued like fine gold, are now rec...
Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on the book of Lamentations, here unfolds the bitter verse, "Even jackals take out a breast, nurse their pups; the daughter of my people has become cruel...
“The tongue of the suckling sticks to its palate from thirst; infants request bread, and no one breaks it with them” (Lamentations 4:4).“The tongue of the suckling sticks.” Rabbi A...
Wealthy families who once dined on aged wine and fine bread ended up rummaging through garbage heaps for food. Eikhah Rabbah, a 5th-century CE midrashic (rabbinic interpretive comm...
“The iniquity of the daughter of my people exceeded the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands seized it” (Lamentations 4:6).“The iniquity of the daughter of ...
“Her nazirites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their appearance was ruddier than gems, their form, a sapphire” (Lamentations 4:7).“Her nazirites were purer than snow,” for ...
“Their countenance is blacker than coal, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin is shriveled on their bones, it has become dry as wood” (Lamentations 4:8).“Their counte...
Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on Lamentations, expounds the verse, "Those killed by sword were better off than those killed by hunger, for those would bleed, ruptured from the produce...
“The hands of merciful women cooked their children; they were food for them in the disaster of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:10).“The hands of merciful women cooked th...
“The Lord vented His fury; He poured out His enflamed wrath. He ignited a fire in Zion, and it consumed her foundations” (Lamentations 4:11).“The Lord vented His fury; He poured ou...
“The kings of the earth and all the inhabitants of the world did not believe that an adversary and enemy would enter the gates of Jerusalem” (Lamentations 4:12).“The kings of the e...
“It was due to the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst” (Lamentations 4:13).“It was due to the sins of her prophet...
Eikhah Rabbah, the midrashic commentary on the book of Lamentations, gathers the grief of the destruction and reads each mournful verse as a window into a deeper account of the cit...
“Turn away, impure, they called to them. Turn away, turn away, do not touch, because they were loathsome, and also wandering; they said among the nations: They will not continue to...
The passage belongs to Eikhah Rabbah, the classical midrash on the book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile that followed. The verse expounded ...
“Even now, our eyes fail toward futile help. In our waiting, we awaited a nation that cannot save” (Lamentations 4:17).“Even now, our eyes fail.” What would the Ten Tribes do? They...
“They hunted our steps from walking in our squares; our end approaches, our days are filled, as our end has come” (Lamentations 4:18).“They hunted our steps from walking in our squ...
“Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens; they pursued us on the mountains, they ambushed us in the wilderness” (Lamentations 4:19).“Our pursuers were swifter than...
“The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was captured in their traps; of whom we said: In his shade we will live among the nations” (Lamentations 4:20).“The breath of...
This midrash from Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on Lamentations, interprets a verse addressed not to mourning Israel but to her oppressor, Be glad and rejoice, daughter of Edom, who r...
“Your iniquity is completed, daughter of Zion; He will not continue to exile you. He will reckon your iniquity, daughter of Edom, He will expose your sins” (Lamentations 4:22).“You...
“Remember, Lord, what befell us; look, and see our disgrace” (Lamentations 5:1).“Remember, Lord, what befell us.” Rabbi Yitzḥak began: “The greyhound, or the goat” (Proverbs 30:31)...
Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on the Book of Lamentations, reads the mourning verse "Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to foreigners" (Lamentations 5:2) an...
“We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows” (Lamentations 5:3). This verse belongs to the closing chapter of Eikhah, the cry of a people stripped of protectio...
The verse under discussion comes from the final chapter of Lamentations, where the survivors of Jerusalem’s destruction catalog their humiliations: “Our water we drank for money; o...
“To our necks we have been pursued; we are exhausted, and we have no respite” (Lamentations 5:5).“To our necks we have been pursued.” Hadrian, may his bones be crushed, commanded a...
The midrash interprets a confession from the closing chapter of Lamentations: "We extended a hand to Egypt, Assyria, to be sated with bread" (Lam. 5:6). The verse describes a humil...
The verse cries out, "Our fathers have sinned, and are no more; and we have suffered their iniquities" (Lamentations 5:7), a complaint of children punished for the wrongs of a vani...
This midrash from Eikhah Rabbah, the rabbinic commentary on the book of Lamentations, expounds the bitter complaint near the end of that scroll: "Servants rule over us; there is no...
This teaching comes from Eikhah Rabbah, the classical midrashic commentary on the Book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and reads its grief into the wider...
The verse here belongs to the harrowing close of Lamentations: “Our skin burns like an oven due to fear of famine” (Lamentations 5:10). The image describes bodies wasted by starvat...
“They ravished women in Zion, maidens in the cities of Judah” (Lamentations 5:11).“They ravished women in Zion.” Nevuzaradan commanded his legions, saying to them: ‘The God of thes...
This teaching expounds a grim verse from the final chapter of Lamentations: "Princes were hanged by their hand; the elders were not shown deference" (Lamentations 5:12). The verse ...
