The poet now reaches a climax in vengeful desire in his plea to God to destroy his enemies.

Pursue them in anger echoes the thought of verse 43. See there for comments. Pursue means to chase or follow with the purpose of capturing or killing. God is to do this in anger. So the sense is “Chase them with anger,” “In your anger go after them,” “Angrily chase them,” “… hunt them down.” Hebrew is exceedingly rich in words related to the idea of destruction, and here Revised Standard Version translates one of them. They are to be killed, eliminated, done away with, or in the words of Good News Translation, “wipe them off the earth!”

In some languages it will be clearer to translate pursue them … and destroy them as, for example, “Hunt them like animals and kill them” or “Chase them like a hunter chases an animal and then kill them.”

From under thy heavens, O LORD is literally “from under the heavens of the LORD.” Revised Standard Version, as its footnote shows, has followed the ancient Syriac version. This expression has three variants in Hebrew manuscripts. The one recommended by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project is the literal form cited above, to which it gives a “B” rating. Revised Standard Version translates a second alternative, and a third is “from under your heavens.” As a prayer addressed to the LORD, the literal form sounds strange, whereas the wording of Revised Standard Version, and New English Bible “from beneath thy heavens, O LORD,” is more suitable in the context. Good News Translation and others take the expression to refer to the whole world; so Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “Make them disappear from the world,” and Bible en français courant “You will eliminate them from the earth.” All of these are suitable models for translating.

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 .