This rare noun appears in Lamentations 1:7, where Jerusalem reflects on her calamity: "Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was none to help her, her enemies looked at her and mocked at her downfall." The term denotes cessation, collapse, or complete ruin—the end of Jerusalem's former glory and security. Some ancient versions read "captivity" (shebitah) instead of "downfall" (mishbatah), but the sense remains: Jerusalem's enemies gloat over her catastrophic reversal. The word captures not just physical destruction but the cessation of everything that defined her existence.