brought down all the bars.
The meaning of the Hebrew noun barihim is disputed, but given the fact
that exile is repeatedly represented by this prophet as imprisonment, the most
likely sense is the bars that bolt the doors of a prison. Although the verbal
stem b-r-h does mean “to flee,” there is no attested use in the Bible of bariah
as “fugitive” (a mere grammatical possibility), a sense claimed by some for the
word here.
turned the glad song of
Chaldeans to laments. The Masoretic Text has ʾoniyot, “ships,” which
does not make much sense, and the Chaldeans were scarcely a seafaring people.
The translation revocalizes that noun as ʾaniyot, “laments.” (Robert
Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2019], 2:764)
On the topic of Jewish seafaring from antiquity, see:
Raphael Patai, The
Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times (rev ed.; Princeton
University Press, 1999)
