The LORD gave full vent to his wrath: gave full vent to translates a verb meaning to use up or to consume, in the sense that he showed his full anger, or, as Bible en français courant says, “The LORD went to the very end of his fury,” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “The LORD let loose his full anger.”

The second half-line is parallel in meaning, in which poured out his hot anger seems to intensify the first half-line (for comments on poured out, see 2.4, 19). Good News Translation reduces the two parallel statements to one. These two expressions are sometimes translated idiomatically; for example, “The LORD made his stomach hot with anger, and his eyes glowed red.”

In the second half of the verse the question is whether a fire in Zion is a further reference to the LORD’s anger, or whether it refers to a literal fire. It is clear from 2 Kings 25.9 that Jerusalem was, in part at least, destroyed by fire when it fell to the Babylonians, so that in fact a fire in Zion did burn it down. So here the poet is saying that the fire was not so much the consequence of plans made by the Babylonian army as the direct result of the LORD’s anger against the sin of Jerusalem. In this way he brings up to date the description of the punishment of Assyria in Isaiah 30.33, and applies it to Jerusalem instead of to her enemies.

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 .