The second command is put his mouth in the dust, an expression found nowhere else in the Old Testament. Good News Translation understands this expression to refer to submission, which agrees with many others. Expressions like “grovel” and “kiss the dirt” are found in this same sense in many languages; but in other languages the metaphor alone may not convey the idea without making clear its nonfigurative sense. For example, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy says “In humiliation he should kiss the ground….” Bible en français courant has “Let him bow down with his mouth in the dust.” In some languages “bow in submission” is translated, for example, “to make yourself low,” “to place the heart at the feet of,” or “to open one’s insides to another.”

There may yet be hope is similar to Job 11.18. Although many translate like Revised Standard Version, hope may refer to God’s helping his people, or to something similar to the “salvation of the LORD” in verse 26. Translators may make this general, as in Revised Standard Version, or as in Bible en français courant, express what it is that he hopes for: “in the hope that the LORD will intervene.”

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 .