They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields - `They shall smite on their breasts in lamentation for the pleasant fields' (Nahum 2:7) (Maurer). So the Septuagint and Arabic. "Teats" in the English version is used for fertile lands, which, like breasts, nourish life. [So the Greek, outhar arourees, uber glebae.] I prefer the English version, as the Hebrew of "for" is the same [ `al (H5921)] as in the clause "for the pleasant fields;" whereas Maurer's version requires it to be taken in a different sense in the first clause, 'upon their breasts.' There is a play on like sounds between shaadayim (H7699) ... sªdeey (H7704) ("teats ... fields"), which also implies their mutually corresponding in parallelism. The transition from "ye" to "they" (Isaiah 32:11) is frequent.

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