Saturday, May 30, 2026

Robert Alter on Lamentations 5:12

  

impaled. While the Hebrew verb means “hanged,” the evidence suggests that the ancient Near Eastern peoples executed their victims and then impaled their bodies on poles rather than using a noose. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:668)

 

Blog Archive