a dirge: a formal, sung poem of grief, mourning the dead, or mourning a doomed nation as if it were already dead
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
A dirge is not raw weeping but a crafted song of grief, composed and chanted to mourn a loss. It is the funeral poem, the set piece a community sings over its dead. The model is David's song over Saul and Jonathan, a finished elegy the text says he taught to Judah.
The striking thing about this word in the Bible is how often the prophets take up a dirge over a nation or city that is still standing. Ezekiel sings the funeral of Tyre, of its king, and of Egypt and its Pharaoh while all of them are still alive; Amos raises one over Israel; Jeremiah over Judah. To sing a people's dirge in advance is a way of announcing that its downfall is so certain it can already be mourned as a death. The doomed nation is treated as a corpse before it has fallen.
The word names the song itself, the composed poem of mourning, as distinct from the noisy grief around it. The wailing and beating of the breast is מִסְפֵּד, and the drawn-out cry of grief is נְהִי; the dirge is the shaped, sung words that give that grief its form.
Nuances
1aa funeral dirge sung over someone who has died
2Sa 1:172Ch 35:25 (2×)Jer 9:20(19)Amo 8:10
1ba dirge raised over a nation, city, or ruler still standing, mourning it in advance as already doomed
Names a composed funeral song, an elegy with actual words that a person deliberately speaks, chants, or writes down over the dead.2Sa 1:172Ch 35:25
Is repeatedly "taken up" or "raised" as a set piece the prophet delivers over a nation or ruler, functioning as a spoken oracle of doom rather than a burst of weeping.Ezk 19:1Ezk 27:2Amo 5:1
Can be taught and passed on like a text, handed from one person to the next as a lament to be learned.Jer 9:20
Both
Both are public responses to death and to national catastrophe, giving voice to grief over people who have fallen.Jer 6:26Ezk 27:32
Both belong to the prophets' announcements of coming judgment, sounded over Israel and the nations as their ruin draws near.Amo 5:16Amo 5:1
Names the physical act and ceremony of grieving: the loud wailing, weeping, and beating of the breast that people perform over a death or disaster.Gen 50:10Amo 5:16
Stands beside other outward signs of grief such as fasting, weeping, and sackcloth, marking it as part of the whole mourning ritual rather than a set of words.Est 4:3Isa 22:12
Can be reversed or turned into its opposite, showing it is a state or activity of grief that God can replace with joy.Psa 30:11
נְהִיthe drawn-out wail or mournful sound of grief, where a dirge is the shaped, sung poem rather than the cry itself.
A formal funeral song, a composed elegy that a mourner takes up or chants, sometimes with named authorship and written down for later use.2Sa 1:172Ch 35:25Ezk 19:1
Raised as a set piece over a named person, city, or nation, often pronouncing a doomed subject as good as dead while it still stands.Ezk 26:17Ezk 27:2Ezk 32:2
Both
Both name mourning voiced over communal disaster, set side by side in the same call to grieve the ruined land.Jer 9:20Jer 9:10
Names the raw sound of grief itself, the wail or cry that rises up from mourners, rather than any shaped or composed song.Jer 9:19Jer 31:15Mic 2:4
Belongs with the general summons to mourn, called for alongside professional mourners and their weeping rather than pointing to a fixed poetic form.Amo 5:16Jer 9:18
קִינָהKinah is a biblical name written exactly like קִינָה, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
Names a composed song of lament, a specific piece with its own shape, that someone takes up over the dead.2Sa 1:17
Works as a genre prophets reach for to pronounce a fall in advance, aiming the dirge at a still-standing city, king, or nation.Ezk 27:2Ezk 19:1Amo 5:1
Can survive as a fixed, citable piece that singers keep performing long after the death it marks.2Ch 35:25
Both
Amos threatens to turn Israel's feasts into the one and its songs into the other in the same breath, using each word for its own half of the coming judgment.Amo 8:10
Names the general state of grief after a death and the set span of days it is observed, not any particular words spoken.Gen 50:10Deu 34:8
Covers the customs that mark a mourner, such as special dress, which a person can be told to put on or, in one striking case, told to skip entirely.2Sa 14:2Ezk 24:17
Regularly appears as the condition that gets reversed into joy when circumstances change for the better.Est 9:22Isa 61:3
qinah in the other biblical languages
θρῆνοςGreek“lamentation”the Greek word for a dirge or lament, the closest counterpart, used in the Old Testament's Greek translation to render this word.
Is a composed funeral song, a fixed poetic form recited over the dead. David's polished elegy for Saul and Jonathan is called by this word, and such songs were collected and preserved.2Sa 1:172Ch 35:25
Is turned by the prophets into a dirge sung over a nation, city, or ruler as though already dead, announcing coming doom while the object still stands.Ezk 19:1Ezk 27:2Ezk 32:2Amo 5:1
Both
Both name the voiced grief of mourning, the cry raised over those who are lost.2Sa 1:17Mat 2:18
Names the raw sound of grief itself: loud weeping and wailing voiced aloud, without implying any set poetic form. Its one appearance describes a mother's inconsolable crying over her lost children.Mat 2:18
What scholars say about qinah
The lexica agree that qinah denotes the funeral dirge or elegy, the formal Leichenlied sung over the dead (HALOT; BDB), from the root qwn "to chant a dirge." The classic form-critical study is Hedwig Jahnow's monograph on the Hebrew funeral song within its ancient Near Eastern setting, which established the genre's characteristic movements: the summons to mourn, the contrast of past glory with present ruin, and the cry over the fallen. Karl Budde's proposal that qinah also designates a distinctive 3+2 "limping" meter has been influential but is disputed, since the rhythm is neither confined to dirges nor universal within them; most now treat qinah as a genre label rather than a strict metrical term. A prominent feature of the prophetic corpus, especially Ezekiel and Amos, is the appropriation of the dirge over still-living nations and rulers, a rhetorical device that pronounces judgment by mourning the target in advance.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. קִינָהlexicon
BDB, s.v. קִינָהlexicon
TDOT, s.v. קוּן / קִינָהtheological-dictionary
Hedwig Jahnow, Das hebräische Leichenlied im Rahmen der Völkerdichtung (BZAW 36; Giessen: Töpelmann, 1923)monograph