Lamentations 1:1

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! ['Aleph (')]

How is she become as a widow she that was great ... The English version is according to the accents. But the members of each sentence are better balanced in antithesis thus, 'How is she that great among the nations become as a widow! (how) she who was princess among the provinces (i:e., she who ruled over the surrounding provinces from the Nile to the Euphrates, ; ; ; ) become tributary?' (Maurer.) How doth the city sit - on the ground; the posture of mourners (; ). The coin struck on the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, representing Judea as a female sitting solitary under a palm tree, with the inscription, 'Judaea capta,' singularly corresponds to the image here; the language therefore must be prophetic of her state subsequent to Titus, as well as referring retrospectively to her Babylonian captivity.

[Beth (b)]