Chapter 1 of Eichah continues to depict the state of the Jewish people following the Destruction, and in verse 14, she describes the depth of the fall: the sins themselves have become a yoke wrapped around the neck, sapping all strength and preventing any possibility of rising up. We will examine this verse in all its words and explore the multitude of commentaries offered upon it.
נִשְׂקַד עֹל פְּשָׁעַי בְּיָדוֹ יִשְׂתָּרְגוּ עָלוּ עַל צַוָּארִי הִכְשִׁיל כֹּחִי נְתָנַנִי אֲדֹנָי בִּידֵי לֹא אוּכַל קוּם׃ - Bound is the yoke of my transgressions by His hand; they have become intertwined and mounted upon my neck, sapping my strength; the Lord has delivered me into hands from which I am unable to rise.
The word niskad - spelled with a sin, kuf, and dalet - has no parallel anywhere in Scripture, presenting a significant challenge in deciphering its meaning. The standard approach among biblical commentators is concordance: when a word's meaning is unknown, one looks for its occurrences elsewhere, deriving its definition from context. For instance, if one does not know what an airplane is, but elsewhere reads that "the airplane flies through the air," one understands that it is an aircraft. So too in Scripture: if the meaning of rash is unfamiliar, finding the phrase ani va'rash (poor and impoverished) makes it clear that the word relates to poverty.
However, when commentators note that a term "has no companion in Scripture" or "no parallel" - meaning no equivalent word exists - the door is shut, leaving no obvious key to unlock its meaning. Consequently, in such cases one finds a proliferation of interpretations, as each commentator seeks to analogize the term to something already familiar. Such is the case here with niskad.
Rashi explains that niskad is related to nakod, meaning spotted or dotted. That is, our sins were, as it were, clearly marked, spotted, and punctuated before the Holy One, blessed be He. There are matters that are seemingly forgotten, but our sins were constantly remembered before Him - like a blinking beacon that never goes out, indelibly marked for remembrance.
Ibn Ezra explains that niskad means drawn out or prolonged. The Minchat Shai interprets it in the sense of "Behold, I am watching (shoked) over the evil" - Hashem was vigilant to bring retribution for my transgressions, which were held in His hand.
In Eichah Rabbah it is taught that niskad is equivalent to niskar, since the letters dalet and reish are interchangeable. Niskar relates to the red paint (sikra) - aligned with Rashi's approach that the concept is one of marking. Just as the tenth animal passing under the staff during the tithing of cattle was marked with red paint, so too our transgressions were marked in red and stood out conspicuously before the Master of the World.
Rav Saadia Gaon explains that niskad means bound or entwined: the yoke of my transgressions was wrapped around my neck. How does he deduce this? From the continuation of the verse itself: "they have become intertwined and mounted upon my neck." The yoke extends and wraps itself around the neck, evoking the imagery of a grapevine with tendrils (sarigim). The vine climbs and clings to a wall, a fence, or whatever trellis is set before it, growing ever thicker. In this manner, the sins climbed, crept upward, and mounted the neck.
The Alon Bachut explains that this hints at our sins being knitted together, like interlaced knitting, tied one to another - one transgression dragging another in its wake. On one hand, this is a tragedy, as sins accumulate endlessly. Yet within it lies an advantage and a remedy: because it is all a single continuous chain, all the sins are reckoned as one, and if one undoes the first link, the entire chain unravels.
The Rav of Worms explains yistargu as related to seirugin, intermittently: the blows that the Holy One, Blessed is He, brought upon us did not come all at once, but in stages. First came Sancheriv, after him Nevuchadnezzar, after him Greece, after him Persia, after him Edom - yistargu, the Holy One, Blessed is He, brought them upon us one after another.
The Alshich explains that there is, as it were, a plea from the Community of Israel here: Master of the Universe, why did You not punish me little by little? Why did You wait until "the yoke of my transgressions was bound, entwined, and mounted upon my neck"? Had Hashem exacted retribution from us little by little, we might still have survived. Just as the Holy One, Blessed is He, gives us Yom Kippur once a year - for had we attained atonement only once in seventy years, woe to us, how deeply we would have sunk into the mire! Every year He gives us an opportunity to be purified.
And here lies the claim: You did not exact payment from us little by little, and consequently they "were entwined and mounted upon my neck," and inevitably "He sapped my strength" - the measure overflowed. Had it been little by little, I would still have repented and my sins would have been wiped away. But since You waited until they mounted my neck and drained my strength, it resulted in "the Lord handed me over into hands from which I cannot rise" - with such an accumulation of sins, it is no longer possible to rise.
The Shem Tov explains: Even though I fought with all my might, the enemy was so strong that "I cannot rise" - I was not even able to stand up against him.
The Akeidat Yitzchak explains that there is a combination of two factors here: it was not enough that through my own transgressions I caused them to mount my neck like a yoke that saps strength, humbling and bringing a person down; but in addition, "the Lord handed me over into hands from which I cannot rise" - and this was the decisive blow that completely shattered my strength. That is, from the outset I arrived weakened, with the burden of sins weighing upon me; and if that were not enough, Hashem delivered me into the hands of an enemy so formidable that even had I possessed merits, it is doubtful I could have escaped. And now, when the yoke of my sins weighs me down further, the combination of both ensures that "I cannot rise."
The Alon Bachut offers another wonderful insight: "The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand, they are entwined and mounted upon my neck" - the Holy One, Blessed is He, poured out His wrath upon wood and stone, thereby saving us. And where is this alluded to? In the word "my neck" [tzavari]. "And Binyamin wept upon his neck" - and our Sages expounded that the neck alludes to the Beit HaMikdash. That is to say, the Holy One, Blessed is He, sought to save us, and He therefore arranged for the enemies to mount "my neck" and destroy the Beit HaMikdash, so that the Jewish people would endure and not face total annihilation.
A single verse, "The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand," opens up a wealth of interpretations: the sins are marked and noted before Hashem (Rashi and Eicha Rabbah), drawn out (Ibn Ezra), or Hashem is vigilant to bring punishment upon them (Minchat Shai), or the yoke is bound and climbs like vine tendrils upon the neck (Rasag). "They are entwined" [yistargu] - one transgression drags another like a single woven fabric, and therein lies the remedy as well: unraveling one unravels them all; alternatively, the tribulations came intermittently, nation after nation. The Alshich reveals the cry: Why not little by little, when there would still have been strength to repent? And finally, "the Lord handed me over into hands from which I cannot rise" - internal weakness from the weight of sins, and a powerful enemy from without. Yet even within this darkness, a hint of comfort remains: "my neck" is the Beit HaMikdash, upon which the Holy One, Blessed is He, poured out His wrath on wood and stone, so that the people of Israel would have renewal and not annihilation.