that passage is trying to get across by speaking in hyperbole (with unspeakably horrible imagery) that their suffering was so great, that even something as bad as that passage purveys (such as murdering a child) was 'less' painful than their situation. no different than today how we would say, 'just fucking kill me already' as a hyperbole or exaggeration of how we're tired or sick of a situation. i think in that part they were talking about their suffering while in exile and being captives. you need to read around it and think about how they wrote in that era, the jews of that era had many styles of writing and you were considered fucking retarded if you spoke literally always.
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