Lexicon :: Strong's H7339 - rᵊḥōḇ

So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered at Jerusalem within three days. It was the twentieth [day] of the ninth month, and all the people sat in the open square in front of the house of God, trembling because of [the seriousness of] this matter and because of the heavy rain.

Then all the people gathered together as one man at the open square in front of the Water Gate; and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel.

“When I went out to the gate of the city,

When I took my seat [as a city father] in the square,

Destruction is within her;

Oppression and deceit do not depart from her streets and market places.

Let our cattle bear

Without mishap and without loss,

And let there be no outcry in our streets!

[fn]Wisdom shouts in the street,

She raises her voice in the markets;

Should your [fn]springs (children) be dispersed,

As streams of water in the streets?

At times she was in the streets, at times in the market places,

Lurking and setting her ambush at every corner.

The lazy one [manufactures excuses and] says, “There is a lion outside!

I will be killed in the streets [if I go out to work]!”

The lazy person [who is self-indulgent and relies on lame excuses] says, “There is a lion in the road!

A lion is in the open square [and if I go outside to work I will be killed]!”

“I said ‘So I must arise now and go out into the city;

Into the streets and into the squares [places I do not know]

I must seek him whom my soul loves.’

I sought him but I did not find him.

In their streets they have wrapped themselves with sackcloth;

On their [flat] housetops and in their open squares

Everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

Justice is pushed back,

And righteous behavior stands far away;

For truth has fallen in the city square,

And [fn]integrity cannot enter.

“Roam back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem,

And look now and take note.

And look in her open squares

To see if you can find a man [as Abraham sought in Sodom],

One who is just, who [has integrity and moral courage and] seeks truth (faithfulness);

Then I will pardon Jerusalem—[for the sake of one uncompromisingly righteous person].

For death has come up through our windows;

It has entered our palaces,

Cutting off the children from the streets

And the young men from the town squares.

“Therefore, her young men will fall in her streets,

And all her men of war will be destroyed in that day,” says the LORD of hosts.

“Therefore her young men will fall in her streets,

And all her soldiers will be destroyed on that day,” says the LORD.

My eyes fail because of tears [mourns Jeremiah],

My spirit is deeply disturbed;

My heart is poured out on the earth [in grief]

Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Jerusalem],

When little ones and infants faint

In the streets of the city.

The enemy hunted our steps,

So that we could not walk in our streets;

Our end drew near,

Our days were finished

For our end had come.

Therefore, thus says the LORD God of hosts, the Lord,

“There is wailing in all the public plazas,

And in all the streets they say, ‘Alas! Alas!’

And they call the farmers to mourning [for those who have died]

And professional mourners to wailing.

The chariots race madly in the streets;

They rush wildly in the broad plazas.

Their appearance is like torches;

They rush in various directions like forked lightning.