In the next four verses the reader gets a glimpse of the poet’s inner feelings. Verse 17 begins a transition that builds toward the hope the speaker still retains.

My soul is bereft of peace is literally “You cast off peace from my soul.” The sense of “cast off” is “reject.” However, the form of the verb can have as subject “you (singular)” or “she.” Taken as “you” the reference would be to the LORD, as direct address. Understood as “she” the reference would be to soul, which is feminine in Hebrew. However, “My soul (meaning ‘I’) rejects peace” does not give suitable sense. Some interpreters change the Hebrew slightly to get a passive construction, and so Revised Standard Version has my soul is bereft (deprived) of peace. Bible en français courant follows the Septuagint: “He has deprived me of a peaceful life.” The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommendations do not show how peace is related to the rest of the sentence. The Handbook recommends following Revised Standard Version but in a reworded form; for example, “My soul has (that is, I have) been deprived of peace” or, as an active construction, “You have taken peace away from me.”

Peace here translates the Hebrew shalom, which refers to more than just the end or the absence of fighting. It covers a wider range of meaning, such as security, peace, health, and prosperity. Note that Good News Translation uses “health and peace” for the translation of shalom.

I have forgotten what happiness is: forgotten is used idiomatically here, because the poet does not mean that he literally has forgotten, but rather that he has gone so long without happiness, it is as though it has left his memory. In some languages the equivalent expression can be, for example, “Happiness left me so long ago, I cannot catch it” or “I have not known happiness for so long I forget what it is like.”

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 .