LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF lam’ ən tā’ shənz (אֵיכָ֣ה׃׀, LXX Θρῆνοι, Heb. title, the first word of book, means “how!” and may express a deep sense of lament over the tragic reversal of events. The LXX title meaning “funeral songs, dirges, laments” retains the title קִינֹ֨ות, found in the Talmud, designating a formal composition of grief that could be taught (Jer 9:20), or written (2 Chron 35:25), and that arose from the tragic reversal (2 Sam 1:17-27; Amos 5:1). Later VSS enlarged the title to “The Lamentations of Jeremiah.”

This OT book is normally third among the Megilloth when the canon is arranged in twenty-four books. Josephus (Contra Apionem, I:8) gives evidence of a twenty-two book canon apparently including Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah.

Outline

I. Background. The destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586 b.c. is the historical background for all five poems. Although Lamentations offers no direct historical evidence (the only proper name is Edom [4:22]), N. K. Gottwald observed these substantial and convincing correlations between Lamentations and the accounts of the last days of Judah found in the Book of Kings and the Book of Jeremiah: siege (2 Kings 25:1, 2; Lam 2:22, 3:5, 7), famine (2 Kings 25:3; Jer 37:21; Lam 1:11, 19; 2:11, 12, 19, 20; 4:4, 5, 9, 10), flight of the king (2 Kings 25:4-7; Lam 1:3, 6; 2:2; 4:19, 20), looting of the Temple (2 Kings 25:13-15; Lam 1:10; 2:6, 7), burning of the Temple, palace, and important buildings (2 Kings 25:8, 9; Lam 2:3-5; 4:11; 5:18), demolition of the city walls (2 Kings 25:10; Lam 2:7-9), slaughter of the leaders (2 Kings 25:18-21; Jer 39:6; Lam 1:15; 2:2, 20; 4:16), exile of the inhabitants (2 Kings 25:11, 12; Lam 1:1, 4, 5, 18; 2:9, 14; 3:2, 19; 4:22; 5:2), expectation and collapse of foreign help (Jer 27:1-11; 37:5-10; Lam 4:17; 5:6), Judah’s fickle political allies (2 Kings 24:2; Jer 40:14; Lam 1:2, 8, 17, 19), and the provincial status of Judah (2 Kings 25:22, 24, 25; Lam 1:1; 5:8, 9) (IDB III, 62).

II. Unity. The usual critical view is that three or more authors over a period of perhaps two centuries produced these elegies (cf. R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction of the OT [1948], 723).

But Gottwald argued for the book’s unity thus: “...the affinities, linguistic and ideological, are considerable. Diversities within the same poem as great as those between poems can be singled out, and yet few would ignore the acrostic unity of each of the poems and argue for composite authorship for any one chapter. Several literary types and images have been freely appropriated but not wholly assimilated, yet a single mood pervades the collection. All the poems are rooted in the same historical era—i.e., the period of the Palestinian ‘exile’ (586-538 b.c.). Probably the first four poems, and possibly all five, come from the same poet” (IDB, III, 62).

III. Author and date. Most scholars argue that the dramatic descriptions of the horrors of the siege were written by an eyewitness of those dreadful events, but by one who did not see the rebuilding of the second Temple (538 b.c.). Now if the book is a unity, it follows that its author wrote these poems between 586 b.c.-538 b.c. More precisely, the traditional author is Jeremiah. The LXX preface said: “And it came to pass, after Israel was led into captivity and Jerusalem laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem...,” to which the Vul. added the qualifications “...with a bitter spirit sighing and wailing....” This tradition was followed also by the Talmud, the Targum at Jeremiah 1:1, the Old Lat. and Syr. VSS.

Against this tradition N. K. Gottwald offered these objections: “One wonders if so adamant a prophet could have closely and sympathetically identified himself with the city’s reliance on foreign help and facile trust in the king (4:16, 19). It is difficult to imagine the prophet, who remained in Pal. only a few weeks after Jerusalem’s capture, writing the fifth poem, with its ennui and lassitude induced by years of foreign occupation. It is unlikely that Jeremiah, who in the whole of his identified writings never resorts to extensive poetic formalities, should have undertaken the construction of acrostic poems. And finally, if the poems are by the prophet, it is difficult to know why they were not included in the Book of Jeremiah, esp. when we consider how many oracles of much later origin have been collected under his name” (IDB, III, 62).

Yet according to 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah uttered laments for Josiah’s death demonstrating that the prophet did compose this type of lit. Moreover, Gottwald acknowledged that in addition to figures common to both books appeal can be made “to the large amount of Jeremianic diction” (cf. M. Löhr, “Der Sprachgebrauch des Buches der Klagelieder,” ZAW, XIV [1894], 36f.). Finally, many scholars recognize that the “I” in ch. 3 represents Jeremiah; e.g. Gottwald said: “The speaker in vv. 48-51 is none other than Jeremiah (cf. Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11, 17; 15:11) (Studies in the Book of Lamentations [hereafter SBL] [1954], 38). J. Köberle maintained that the third poem represents the appropriation of Jeremianic religious individualism by a later age. The poet desired, in Köberle’s opinion, to speak e persona Jeremiae (Gottwald, SBL, 39, 40). The objections against Jeremianic authorship do not seem sufficient to lead to Gottwald’s conclusion that an anonymous author chose Jeremiah to deliver a kind of penitential sermon in the first person. If the “I” of Lamentations 3 is Jeremiah and the book is a unity, it seems more desirable to conclude that the unanimous traditional view prob. is founded in fact. Finally, as Driver has remarked, the same sensitive temper, profoundly sympathetic in national sorrow, and ready to pour forth its emotions unrestrainedly, manifests itself both in Lamentations and Jeremiah (An Introduction to the Literature of the OT [1912], 462).

IV. Style. The first four poems are acrostic; i.e. the twenty-two letters of the Heb. alphabet are given in succession throughout each poem. Poems 1-3 have three lines to a stanza (except for four lines in 1:7; 2:19), whereas the fourth poem has but two lines to a stanza. In chapter 3, the central poem, each line begins with the appropriate letter (thus there are three aleph lines, three beth lines, etc.). The final poem is not acrostic, but is alphabetic in the sense that it contains twenty-two lines. Concerning the exceptions to this arrangement (e.g. the shifting of ע, with ף, in chs. 2, 3, 4) Gottwald observed: “Like a great cathedral, its unity is broken in innumerable pleasing ways, never distracting but always contributing to the total impression” (SBL, 23).

The apparent contradiction between this artificial literary form and spontaneity of emotion can be harmonized by understanding the purpose of the acrostic construction. De Wette, Keil, and others suggested that it furnished a form for exhaustive completeness to the lamentation. Gottwald quoted Jeremiah thus: “When a person says the alphabet, he has thereby embraced all possibilities of words” (cf. SBL, 28-30). By proceeding from aleph to taw the author achieved an emotional catharsis, a complete statement of grief and a complete cleansing of conscience through a total confession of sin. Second, it obviously aided the memory. Finally, the acrostic enforced the most judicious economy upon the poet. The poet’s self-imposed restraint led to the obvious compactness and concentration of emotion.

The acrostic is combined with the clipped Qinah metre 3 + 2 (with ample exceptions 2 + 2, 2 + 3 and 3 + 3). The two together left the impression of deep feeling that is disciplined and restrained. The fifth poem is chiefly 3 + 3.

V. Form. As to literary form, the poems are composite. The setting in life is that of communal lament. Moreover, these poems exhibit common motifs with communal lament psalms: direct address to Yahweh, assigning Yahweh responsibility for the national calamity and the resulting humiliation, a motivation, appealing to Yahweh to act, and a supplication addressing Yahweh in the imperative. To achieve his purpose, the author draws upon motifs from other types of lit. as well, particularly the funeral song and the individual lament.

According to Jahnow, “The Scheme of Reversal is the dominant element in the funeral song.” Gottwald summarized his article thus: “Jahnow observes that in the funeral song there are two basic themes. One is praise and the other is lament. Encomiums of the dead consistently emphasize certain features of the past glory of the deceased: his bodily excellence (Lam 4:7, cf. Isa 52:14; 53:2), his splendorous garments, the number of his wives and children, his riches and luxuries (Lam 4:5; Ezek 27:3ff.)....Laments, on the other hand, bewail the sad state of the present:...the abandonment and defenselessness of the survivors (Lam 1:1), the manner of death especially if unnatural (Jer 38:22; 2 Sam 3:33f; Lam 1:19f.; 2:11, 21; 4:5), the infamy of such a death (2 Sam 3:33f.), and the malicious joy of the enemy (2 Sam 1:20 [Lam 2:15, 16]). Far from being unrelated elements, the motifs of praise and lament were frequently placed in a definite scheme which Jahnow calls, ‘das Schema “Einst und Jetzt,”’ i.e., the then and the now. By this means the starkest instances of past glory are deliberately contrasted with the most glaring examples of present misery and degradation. The effectiveness of both is doubled by their incongruity” (SBL, 53, 54).

The motif as it appears in Lamentations is very complex. There is the primary and fundamental contrast between the former glory of Zion and her present ignominy, but there are variations of the theme. First, the central subject of the lament is not dead. Second, the contrast is between the expected future of Israel and the expected future of the nations. Gottwald referred to this latter variation as “the tragic reversal in reverse” (SBL, 55, 60). He concluded: “it is not overestimating the centrality of the category of tragic reversal to assert that nearly all of the other motifs are only related to it in one way or another, but that they actually find their mode of expression in its framework” (SBL, 61f.).

M. Löhr pointed out that two individual laments are found in 3:1-24 and 3:52-66 and are interrupted by a long passage in which Jeremiah is presented as the counselor of submissions and hope. In the lament psalms Jeremiah functions as the archetypal sufferer (M. Löhr, “Threni III. und die jeremianische Autorschaft des Buches der Klagelieder,” ZAW, XXIV [1904], 1-6). According to Gottwald the author is not thinking in terms of an individual at all but is simply giving expression to the corporate personality. He said: “Jeremiah is the individual sufferer without equal, but by virtue of his representative position as the great prophet...he is Israel” (SBL, 40).

C. Westerman classified the fifth poem as a lament of the people manifesting the typical introductory address, lament, confession of trust, and petition (Praises of God in the Psalms [1965], 52-60).

VI. Purpose and theology. For H. Wiesmann the chief task of the poem is to effect a development and improvement in the conduct of men in the face of suffering. Wiesmann sees various types of suffering: expiatory suffering, conversion suffering, purifying suffering, humbling suffering, and serviceable suffering (“Das Leid im Buche der Klagelieder,” Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik, IV [1929], 109). For Gottwald the situational key to the theology of lamentations is the tension between Deuteronomic faith and historic adversity. The Deuteronomist doctrine of retribution and reward is clear and simple: if the people of Israel obey the law of God and do His will they will enjoy peace and blessing; if, on the other hand, they fail to keep God’s commandments and laws, they will be visited by curses and misfortunes. But, according to Gottwald, the historical reality is that Judah suffered defeat after the Josianic reformation.

Yet Gottwald’s thesis should be rejected because this tension cannot be sustained in the book itself. On the contrary, the poet insists that it is precisely because of the people’s sins that they have been struck by God’s judgment (1:5, 8, 9, passim). In reality he is in complete harmony with the theology of the Deuteronomist.

For B. Albrektson the source of tension lies in the Zion traditions concerning the inviolability of Zion (Ps 46:6-8; 48:2-9; 76:2-7), a doctrine familiar to the author (Lam 2:15, 4:12; cf. also Lam 5:19 with Ps 48:2; and the reference to Elyon in Ps 66:5 and Lam 3:35, and the prophetic threats in Deut 28). In fact, Albrektson convincingly demonstrated that the author consciously alluded to these visitations depicted in Deuteronomy 28 as the wages of sin (cf. Lam 1:3 with Deut 28:58; 1:5 with 28:13, 44; 1:6 with 28:41; 1:9 with 28:43; 2:20 and 4:10 with 28:53; 3:14 and 45 with 28:37; 4:16 and 5:12 with 28:50). (Significantly, he argues here that Deut 28 is older than Lam and cannot have been written as vaticinia ex eventu.) But the same objection must be raised against his thesis as against Gottwald’s: the text does not exhibit this fabricated tension.

In addition to providing the people with an emotional catharsis through an exhaustive expression of grief and confession, the author was also determined to inculcate an attitude of submission and a prospect of hope. Gottwald said: “By intimately binding together the themes of sin, suffering, submission and hope, he intended to implant the conviction of trust and confidence in the goodness and imminent intervention of Yahweh. That this is the case is evident in the third poem where the acrostic form is intensified at precisely the point where hope becomes the strongest” (SBL, 30).

Christian interpretation has rightly seen in these poems an apt expression of Christ’s lament when God vented His wrath on Him as He was made the sin of the world.

VII. Content. The primary points of the poems are these: Jerusalem’s lamentable state (ch. 1); God’s wrath against the city (ch. 2); God’s faithfulness acknowledged (ch. 3); God’s faithfulness seen in discipline (ch. 4); God’s faithfulness trusted (ch. 5).

Bibliography In addition to the classic commentaries: M. Löhr, “Threni III. und die jeremianische Autorschaft des Buches des Klagelieder,” ZAW, XXIV (1904), 1-16; W. W. Cannon “The Authorship of Lamentations,” B. S., LXXXI (1924), 42-58; N. K. Gottwald, Studies in the Book of Lamentations (1954); B. Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations (1963); B. O. Long, “The Divine Funeral Lament,” JBL, LXXXV (1966), 85, 86; T. F. McDaniel, “Philological Studies in Lamentations,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The John Hopkins University (1966); N. Habel, Jeremiah, Lamentations (1968); D. Letellier, “The Argument of Lamentations,” unpublished Th.M Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary (1970).