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20 The Lord’s anointed—our very lifebreath!—[a]
    was caught in their snares,
He in whose shade we thought
    to live among the nations.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 4:20 Our very lifebreath: lit., “the breath of our nostrils,” that is, the king. This expression occurs in Egyptian texts of the late second millennium B.C., and may have survived as a royal epithet in the Jerusalem court. After the disaster of 598 B.C. (2 Kgs 24:1–17), Jerusalem could have hoped to live in peace amidst her neighbors; but they (vv. 21–22) as well as Babylon turned against her to ensure her total devastation in 587 B.C.