The first half of verse 17 begins in Hebrew with “Because of this,” and the second half begins with “because of these.” Here again interpreters differ in regard to whether this and these things point back to verse 16 or forward to verse 18. In favor of linking back to verse 16, it is difficult to see how these things can refer ahead to the single condition of the destruction of the Temple, unless these refers to both “Mount Zion lies desolate” and “jackals prowl.” However, the vast majority of modern translations link verse 17 with verse 18, since this agrees with the outlook of the poet expressed elsewhere, that the greatest disaster of all is the destruction of the Temple. The link forward is made in a variety of ways.
The Handbook encourages translators to link verse 17 to verse 18, but the manner in which they do this may be quite different from that in Revised Standard Version and others. For example, it may be necessary to state the conditions without any forward reference: (17) “Our hearts have become sick and our eyes have grown dim,” (18) “because Mount Zion lies desolate and jackals prowl over it.”
Sick translates the same word as in 1.13, which Revised Standard Version translates as “faint” and Good News Translation “in constant pain.” The thought expressed by heart … sick is a feeling of being hopeless, discouraged, defeated. The expression heart has become sick, with the sense of hopelessness, may sometimes be rendered by means of other metaphors; for example, “our livers have vanished,” “our breath is gone,” or “our insides have no strength.”
Grown dim translates a verb which generally means to become dark and is applied to the eyes in such passages as Psalm 69.23; the idea is that the vision is partially lost or blurred. Good News Translation says “We … can hardly see through our tears,” and Bible en français courant “… our eyes are veiled with tears.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on Lamentations. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .