Kinah, ḳinah or qinah (plural kinoth, qinot, qinoth) is

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

for a dirge or lamentation. Its general meaning is a

dirge A dirge () is a somber song or lament expressing mourning or grief, such as may be appropriate for performance at a funeral. Often taking the form of a brief hymn, dirges are typically shorter and less meditative than elegy, elegies. Dirges are of ...

lament A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something ...

, especially as sung by Jewish professional mourning women. Specifically, it can refer to one of the many

elegies chanted traditionally on

Tisha B'Av Tisha B'Av ( ; , ) is an annual fast day in Judaism. A commemoration of a number of disasters in Jewish history, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusal ...

. The

Jerusalem Bible ''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonical ...

refers to Isaiah 47 as a ''qinah'' or "lament for

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

", and to Ezekiel 19 as a ''qinah'' or lamentation over the rulers of Israel. A. W. Streane suggests that , on the prophesied downfall of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, is written "in Ḳinah metre". Kinah was also a city in the extreme south of Judah (). It was probably not far from the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

, in the Wady Fikreh.Easton, Matthew George (1897)
Kinah
in ''Easton's Bible Dictionary'' (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.

References

Hebrew words and phrases {{Tanakh-stub