Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. (Lamentations 2:19)
Heb. qum (see on Mark 5:41). The thought here is of one arising from bed, as the setting in this text is at night.
Beginning of the watches.
In OT times it was usual among the Jews to divide the night into three parts, or “watches”: the first from sunset till about ten o’clock, the “middle watch” (Judges 7:19) from ten till about two, and the “morning watch” (Ex. 14:24; 1 Sam. 11:11) from two till sunrise. Here the thought seems to be that throughout the night—at dark, late in the evening, and in the early hours of the morning, when everyone is fast asleep—the people of Jerusalem are called forth from their beds to seek the Lord in their dire extremity.
See Lam. 4:1; Isa. 51:20; Nahum 3:10. Ancient cities were not generally laid out according to a plan; streets were often little more than crooked passageways leading to open squares and other centers of public concourse. The “top,” or “head,” of the street evidently refers to its opening into a square or intersection.