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People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, 1866

People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

Old Testament · Book 25 of 66

Lamentations

Lamentations is five poems of grief over the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon. The first four follow the order of the Hebrew alphabet, and the third holds the promise that the LORD's mercies are new every morning.

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People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, 1866

People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

What is Lamentations about?

Five poems mourn Jerusalem after the army of Babylon has burned the city and the temple. The first shows the city as a widow with no one to comfort her. The second says the Lord Himself has acted as her enemy. In the third a man who has seen affliction remembers the LORD's loving devotion, and at the centre of the book he says His mercies are “new every morning” (3:23). The fourth looks back on the siege and the capture of the king, and the fifth is the survivors' prayer. Four poems follow the Hebrew alphabet, and the book teaches its readers to bring grief, confession and hope to God.

All 5 chapters

Every chapter of the book, in one grid. Each cell opens that chapter.

1Is it nothing?2Swallowed without pity3New every morning4The anointed taken5Restore us, O LORD
  • The city aloneLamentations 1
  • The LORD as enemyLamentations 2
  • The man who has seen afflictionLamentations 3
  • The gold grown dimLamentations 4
  • Remember, O LORDLamentations 5

The colour is the poem, one to a chapter, from the slate of the empty city to the violet of the last prayer, and every cell opens that chapter's Study level.

Who wrote it, where, when, for whom, and why?

The book names no writer. Its voices are the poet who watches the city (1:1 to 11), the city herself speaking as a woman (1:12 to 22), a man who says he has seen affliction (3:1), and the whole people speaking as we (5:1 to 22). Outside the book, 2 Chronicles says that Jeremiah lamented over King Josiah and that laments were written in the Book of Laments (2 Chronicles 35:25).

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.

Lamentations 3:1, Berean Standard Bible.

The poems stand in Jerusalem after its fall: the deserted gates and the roads to Zion that mourn (1:4), the sanctuary the nations have entered (1:10), the streets where children faint (2:11 and 12), the walls and ramparts (2:8), and Mount Zion lying desolate, patrolled by foxes (5:18). Edom, in the land of Uz, is named as the neighbour who rejoiced (4:21 and 22).

The book gives no year. It speaks after the city and the temple have fallen: the gates sunk into the ground, the king and princes exiled and no vision from the LORD (2:9), the famine of the siege (4:9 and 10), and the LORD's anointed captured (4:20). The history books date that fall to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, when the army of Babylon burned the house of the LORD and broke down the walls (2 Kings 25:2 and 8 to 10).

The poems speak to the Daughter of Zion and for her (2:13, 4:22), and the last one is the prayer of those who survived in the ruined land, orphans and widows who buy their own water and wood and bear the punishment of their fathers (5:3, 5:4, 5:7).

The book calls its hearers to pour out their hearts like water in the presence of the Lord (2:19), to examine their ways and turn back to the LORD (3:40), and to ask Him to remember them (5:1). It owns the fall as the LORD's righteous act against a city that rebelled (1:18), and it holds to His loving devotion and faithfulness in the middle of the ruin (3:22 and 23).

Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.

Lamentations 3:40, Berean Standard Bible.

Sources. Lamentations 1:1 to 22, 1:4, 1:10, 1:18, 2:8, 2:9, 2:11 and 12, 2:13, 2:19, 3:1, 3:22 and 23, 3:40, 4:9 and 10, 4:20, 4:21 and 22, 5:1, 5:3, 5:4, 5:7 and 5:18; 2 Kings 25:2 and 8 to 10; 2 Chronicles 35:25. Every verse is read in the Berean Standard Bible.

How is Lamentations arranged, and what is it for?

The five poems, each one chapter, then what the book teaches and what it was written to do.

  1. The city aloneChapter 1. One verse to each letter, ayin before pe

    Jerusalem sits as a widow with no one to comfort her, and then speaks for herself.

    The turn, 1:12. The city stops the passer-by and asks whether any sorrow is like hers.

  2. The LORD as enemyChapter 2. One verse to each letter, pe before ayin

    The Lord has thrown down His own city and sanctuary, and the children faint in the streets.

    The turn, 2:5. The poem names the Lord Himself as the enemy who has swallowed Israel.

  3. The man who has seen afflictionChapter 3. Three verses to each letter, pe before ayin

    One man tells of the rod, remembers, and finds hope in the LORD's mercies at the centre of the book.

    The turn, 3:22 and 23. Out of the pit the man calls to mind the LORD's loving devotion and mercies new every morning.

  4. The gold grown dimChapter 4. One verse to each letter, pe before ayin

    The siege remembered: the precious made worthless, the tender made cruel, the king taken.

    The turn, 4:20. The LORD's anointed, the breath of the people's life, is captured.

  5. Remember, O LORDChapter 5. As many verses as letters, in no alphabetic order

    The survivors pray together, list their losses, and ask the LORD to restore them.

    The turn, 5:21. The prayer asks the LORD to restore His people to Himself and renew their days.

The theme

The city God chose has fallen, and the book says without softening that the LORD did it for her sin. It gives the grief its full voice, down to the children fainting in the streets. At its centre it holds a hope that does not deny any of that: the LORD's loving devotion keeps His people from being consumed, and He does not afflict willingly. Judgment owned and mercy trusted stand in the same poems.

The purpose

Lamentations was written to give the survivors words to mourn with before God. Its poems confess the sin that brought the fall, call the people back to the LORD, and end in a prayer that He will restore them. Its ordered form lets a community mourn together, and it is still read aloud on the ninth of Av and in Holy Week.

Grief given a shape, from aleph to tav

Letter12345
א111231ז1
ב224562נ2
ג337893י3
ד441011124מ4
ה551314155ע5
ו661617186מ6
ז771920217א7
ח8822, the hinge23, the hinge24, the hinge8ע8
ט9925, the hinge26, the hinge27, the hinge9ב9
י101028, the hinge29, the hinge30, the hinge10ע10
כ111131, the hinge32, the hinge33, the hinge11נ11
ל121234353612ש12
מ131337383913ב13
נ141440414214ז14
ס151543444515ש15
ע, a row where poems 2, 3 and 4 reverse the order161749505117נ16
פ, a row where poems 2, 3 and 4 reverse the order171646474816ע17
צ181852535418ע18
ק191955565719א19
ר202058596020ל20
ש212161626321ה21
ת222264656622כ22

The ayin and pe rows, where poems 2, 3 and 4 set pe first. The hinge, 3:22 to 33.

Each column is one poem and each row one letter of the Hebrew alphabet, printed down the side. A cell is a verse, set in the row of the letter its first Hebrew word begins with; the poem's name at the head of each column opens that chapter. Poems 1, 2 and 4 give one verse to each letter; poem 3 gives three, so it is the longest and the most ordered; poem 5 keeps the same number of verses as the alphabet has letters and follows no order, so its cells stand in verse order and show the letter each verse actually begins with. In poems 2, 3 and 4 the verse beginning with pe comes before the one beginning with ayin, so their numbers run out of order in those two marked rows. The ringed cells in poem 3 are 3:22 to 33, the hinge where the book turns to hope. The form holds the grief in order letter by letter, is tightest at the centre, and lets go in the last prayer. Sources: The Hebrew initials of every verse, read from the store's Hebrew text; Lamentations 1 to 5 in the Berean Standard Bible; Aaron Demsky, A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from the Period of the Judges, Tel Aviv 4 (1977).

The city alone, Lamentations 1

One verse to each letter, ayin before pe, and the pages the poem opens on.

The first poem opens on the city as a widow who was once great among the nations. She weeps in the night, her lovers and friends have betrayed her, Judah has gone into exile, the roads to Zion mourn and the gates stand deserted. The poet says the LORD brought this grief because of her many transgressions (1:5). Halfway through the city takes up her own voice. She calls to everyone who passes by to look and see whether any sorrow is like hers, confesses that the LORD is righteous and that she rebelled (1:18). Five times the poem says there is no one to comfort her.

Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?
Lamentations 1:12, Berean Standard Bible. Here the city stops speaking of herself and speaks to the reader, and the poem turns from description to her own cry.
  • Lamentations 1the widow city, and her cry to all who pass byShow summary, 3 pages

    The first of five poems over the fallen city, and an alphabetic acrostic, twenty-two stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, grief ordered from aleph to tav. 'How lonely lies the city, once so full of people!' She that was great among the nations is become a widow, a forced laborer; she weeps sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks, with none to comfort her among all her lovers. Judah's roads mourn because none come to the feasts. Halfway through, the city herself speaks and appeals to passers-by: 'Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?' (1:12), and then confesses, 'The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command' (1:18).

    On this chapter (3)

    Read Lamentations 1 verse by verse

    Study

The limping line of the lament

  1. How lonely lies the city, once so full of people!

    Lamentations 1:1, the long line and then the short

  2. I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath.

    Lamentations 3:1, the long line and then the short

The qinah, the Hebrew funeral song, sets a long line and a shorter one that answers it, three stresses and then two, so each line ends a beat early, as a mourner's voice breaks. Sources: Lamentations 1:1 and 3:1 in the Berean Standard Bible; Karl Budde, Das hebräische Klagelied, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 2 (1882).

Characters (3)

Who the poem names. A name with a page carries its door.

  • The Daughter of Zion

    The city spoken of as a woman, once a princess and now a widow (1:1, 1:6).

  • Her lovers and friends

    The allies who betrayed her and became her enemies (1:2, 1:19).

  • The enemy

    The foes who enter the sanctuary and gloat over the city (1:10, 2:16).

Places (3)

Where the poem stands.

  • Jerusalem

    The fallen city the five poems mourn (1:7, 1:8).

  • The gates

    All her gates are deserted (1:4).

  • The sanctuary

    The nations have entered it (1:10).

Themes (3)

What the poem raises, each on its own page.

No New Testament passage quotes or names this chapter.

Where the New Testament uses these chapters (1)each marked as a quotation or an allusion, with the evidence
  • Later Christian readingThe city's cry to all who pass by, Lamentations 1:12 at Handel, Messiah, part two. The words of 1:12 are sung of Christ's sorrow on the way to the cross. Held by George Frideric Handel and Charles Jennens, Messiah (1741).

The LORD as enemy, Lamentations 2

One verse to each letter, pe before ayin, and the pages the poem opens on.

The second poem names who has done this. The Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger, swallowed up the dwellings of Jacob, cut off Israel's strength, bent His bow like an enemy, laid waste His own tabernacle and rejected His altar. The walls, the gates, the king and the law are gone (2:9), and the poet's eyes fail from weeping because children and infants faint in the streets and ask their mothers for grain and wine (2:11 and 12). The poet calls on Zion to cry out to the Lord in the night for her children, and the poem ends with the city's own question to the LORD: whom has He ever treated like this (2:20).

The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.
Lamentations 2:5, Berean Standard Bible. The poem says outright that the Lord Himself has become like an enemy, the hardest sentence of the book.
  • Lamentations 2the Lord's anger against His own houseShow summary, 3 pages

    The second acrostic, and the hardest to read, because the destroyer is named. The Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, swallowed up her habitations, broken down her strongholds, and bent his bow like an adversary: 'The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel.' The festival is forgotten, king and priest despised, the altar cast off. Elders sit on the ground in silence with dust on their heads; virgins hang down their heads. The prophets find no vision from Jehovah, seeing false burdens instead. Worst is the street scene: children and sucklings swooning, asking their mothers, Where is grain and wine? The call is to pour out the heart like water before the face of the Lord.

    On this chapter (3)

    Read Lamentations 2 verse by verse

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What the Lord has done, verse by verse

  1. 2:1has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth
  2. 2:2has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob
  3. 2:3has cut off every horn of Israel
  4. 2:4has bent His bow like an enemy
  5. 2:5has swallowed up Israel
  6. 2:6has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth
  7. 2:7has rejected His altar
  8. 2:8stretched out a measuring line
  9. 2:9has destroyed and shattered their bars
One deed from each of the first 9 verses, in order. In every one the Lord acts against His own people, city and house, and the poem lays the ruin at His hand before it names any human enemy. Sources: Lamentations 2:1 to 9 in the Berean Standard Bible.

Characters (3)

Who the poem names. A name with a page carries its door.

  • The elders

    They sit on the ground in silence with dust on their heads (2:10, 5:12).

  • The children

    They faint in the streets and cry out to their mothers (2:11 and 12).

  • The young women

    They bow their heads to the ground (2:10).

Places (3)

Where the poem stands.

  • The temple

    His tabernacle laid waste, His altar rejected (2:6 and 7).

  • The streets

    Where the children faint (2:11, 2:19).

  • Jerusalem

    The fallen city the five poems mourn (1:7, 1:8).

Themes (2)

What the poem raises, each on its own page.

No New Testament passage quotes or names this chapter.

Where the New Testament uses these chapters (1)each marked as a quotation or an allusion, with the evidence
  • Later Christian readingJerusalem under judgment, Lamentations 2 at Luke 19:41 to 44. Jesus weeps over the same city as He approaches it and foretells its fall, and the church has read His tears beside the poet's. Held by Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706), on Luke 19.

The man who has seen affliction, Lamentations 3

Three verses to each letter, pe before ayin, and the pages the poem opens on.

The third poem is the longest, three verses for each letter, and it is spoken by one man. He says he has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath: driven into darkness, walled in, his prayer shut out, until his hope has perished (3:18). Then he calls something to mind and has hope. The LORD's loving devotion keeps His people from being consumed, His mercies are new every morning, and He is good to those who wait for Him. The Lord will not cast off forever, and He does not willingly afflict (3:31 to 33). He calls the people to turn back to the LORD, and the poem ends with his cry from the pit.

Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Lamentations 3:22-23, Berean Standard Bible. At the centre of the centre poem the man's despair turns to hope, and the whole book turns with him.
  • Lamentations 3the rod, the mercies, and the call to returnShow summary, 5 pages

    The center panel and the most intricate: a triple acrostic of sixty-six verses, three to each letter. 'I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath', led into darkness, walled about, his prayer shut out, his teeth broken with gravel stones. Then, at the exact middle of the book, the turn: 'Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!' (3:21-23). '“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”' It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait; for he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

    On this chapter (5)

    Read Lamentations 3 verse by verse

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The centre of the book

Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall. Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me. Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope:

Lamentations 3:19-21, Berean Standard Bible
The hinge3:22 and 23The mercies new every morning, quoted beside the story above.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is still young. Let him sit alone in silence, for God has disciplined him. Let him bury his face in the dust—perhaps there is still hope. Let him offer his cheek to the one who would strike him; let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not cast us off forever. Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion according to His abundant loving devotion. For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.

Lamentations 3:24-33, Berean Standard Bible
After his hope has perished (3:18) the man remembers his affliction; after the centre he says why a man may wait in silence. Between them, in the middle of the middle poem, stand the two verses of hope. Sources: Lamentations 3:19 to 33 in the Berean Standard Bible.

Characters (3)

Who the poem names. A name with a page carries its door.

  • The man

    He has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath (3:1).

  • Jeremiah

    The prophet whom a long tradition hears in this chapter (Jeremiah 38:6).

  • His enemies

    They hunted him like a bird and mock him in song (3:52, 3:63).

Places (1)

Where the poem stands.

  • The pit

    Where the man is dropped alive and calls on the LORD (3:53 to 55).

Themes (3)

What the poem raises, each on its own page.

  • Mercy new every morning

    The LORD's loving devotion and faithfulness (3:22 and 23).

  • The rod

    Affliction under God's hand (3:1).

  • Return

    Examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD (3:40).

No New Testament passage quotes or names this chapter.

Where the New Testament uses these chapters (2)each marked as a quotation or an allusion, with the evidence
  • Later Christian readingThe man who has seen affliction, Lamentations 3 at The Tenebrae office of Holy Week. The church reads Lamentations in the last three days of Holy Week and hears the man of chapter 3 as a figure of Christ's suffering. Held by the Roman Breviary (1568), in the office of Tenebrae.
  • Later Christian readingMercies new every morning, Lamentations 3:22 and 23 at Great Is Thy Faithfulness. The hymn takes its refrain from 3:23 and sings the LORD's faithfulness morning by morning. Held by Thomas O. Chisholm, Great Is Thy Faithfulness (1923).

The gold grown dim, Lamentations 4

One verse to each letter, pe before ayin, and the pages the poem opens on.

The fourth poem looks back on the siege. The gold has grown dim, the precious sons of Zion are counted as jars of clay, infants thirst, and those brought up in crimson lie in ash heaps. The famine was worse than the sword, and compassionate women cooked their own children (4:10). The poet lays it to the sins of the prophets and priests (4:13). The people watched from their towers for a nation that could not save them, their pursuers were swifter than eagles, and the LORD's anointed, under whose shadow they had hoped to live, was captured (4:20). The poem ends with two words: Edom will drink the same cup, and the Daughter of Zion's punishment is complete (4:22).

The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits. We had said of him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.”
Lamentations 4:20, Berean Standard Bible. The capture of the king ends the siege, and with it the people's last hope in any help but the LORD.
  • Lamentations 4the siege, and the anointed one takenShow summary, 2 pages

    The fourth acrostic, starker, contrasting before and after. The gold is become dim; the precious sons of Zion, once worth their weight in fine gold, are esteemed as earthen pitchers. Nursing animals feed their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel; infants ask bread and no man breaks it to them; those raised in scarlet embrace dunghills. The Nazirites, purer than snow and whiter than milk, are now blacker than a coal. Compassionate women boiled their own children. The city fell because of the sins of her prophets and priests. 'The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was captured in their pits' (4:20). Edom is told to rejoice while she can, the cup will pass to her.

    On this chapter (2)

    Read Lamentations 4 verse by verse

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What the siege turned upside down

  1. Gold to clayWasonce worth their weight in pure goldNowesteemed as jars of clay4:2
  2. The tender to the cruelWasThe hands of compassionate womenNowhave cooked their own children4:10
  3. The king to the pitWasUnder his shadow we will live among the nationsNowwas captured in their pits4:20
Each pair reads from what the city was to what the siege made it: the precious counted as clay, mothers turned against their children, the sheltering king taken. Sources: Lamentations 4:2, 4:10 and 4:20 in the Berean Standard Bible.

Characters (2)

Who the poem names. A name with a page carries its door.

  • The LORD's anointed

    The king of Judah, captured in their pits (4:20).

  • The priests and prophets

    They shed the blood of the righteous (4:13).

Places (2)

Where the poem stands.

  • Edom

    The Daughter of Edom, in the land of Uz, who rejoiced (4:21).

  • Jerusalem

    The fallen city the five poems mourn (1:7, 1:8).

Themes (2)

What the poem raises, each on its own page.

No New Testament passage quotes or names this chapter.

Where the New Testament uses these chapters (1)each marked as a quotation or an allusion, with the evidence
  • Later Christian readingThe LORD's anointed, Lamentations 4:20 at Irenaeus on the anointed as Christ. Irenaeus reads the anointed of 4:20, the breath of the people's life, as Christ, under whose shadow the nations live. Held by Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (c. 180), chapter 71.

Remember, O LORD, Lamentations 5

As many verses as letters, in no alphabetic order, and the pages the poem opens on.

The last poem is a prayer spoken by the whole people. It asks the LORD to remember and look. Their inheritance has gone to strangers, they are orphans and widows, they buy their own water and wood, slaves rule over them, and they get their bread at the risk of their lives. The crown has fallen from their head, and they confess that they have sinned (5:16). Mount Zion lies desolate, patrolled by foxes. Then the prayer lifts its eyes: the LORD reigns forever. It asks why He has forgotten them, asks Him to restore them to Himself so they may return, and ends on the fear that He has utterly rejected them (5:22).

Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old,
Lamentations 5:21, Berean Standard Bible. The book's last request is for the LORD to turn His people back to Himself and renew their days; the sentence runs on into the last verse.
  • Lamentations 5the survivors' prayerShow summary, 3 pages

    The closing prayer breaks the pattern: still twenty-two verses, but no acrostic: the alphabet abandoned, as if grief will no longer hold its shape. 'Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us. Look and see our disgrace!' Their inheritance is turned over to strangers, their houses to aliens; they are orphans and fatherless; they buy their own water and wood; servants rule over them; their skin is black like an oven because of the burning heat of famine. 'The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!' Yet the throne stands ('You, O LORD, reign forever') and the plea is 'Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old, unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.'

    On this chapter (3)

    Read Lamentations 5 verse by verse

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How the book ends

  1. You, O LORD, reign forever; Your throne endures from generation to generation.

    5:19

  2. Why have You forgotten us forever? Why have You forsaken us for so long?

    5:20

  3. Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old,

    5:21

  4. unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.

    5:22

The last four verses: the throne that endures, the question, the plea and the fear. The book ends on a prayer and does not say how it was answered. Sources: Lamentations 5:19 to 22 in the Berean Standard Bible.

Characters (2)

Who the poem names. A name with a page carries its door.

  • The survivors

    We: the orphans and widows left in the land (5:3).

  • The elders

    They sit on the ground in silence with dust on their heads (2:10, 5:12).

Places (2)

Where the poem stands.

  • Mount Zion

    Desolate and patrolled by foxes (5:18).

  • Egypt and Assyria

    The powers they submitted to for bread (5:6).

Themes (2)

What the poem raises, each on its own page.

  • Remember

    The prayer's first word to the LORD (5:1).

  • Return

    Restore us to Yourself, O LORD (5:21).

No New Testament passage quotes or names this chapter.

Where the New Testament uses these chapters (1)each marked as a quotation or an allusion, with the evidence
  • Later Christian readingRestore us to Yourself, Lamentations 5:21 at Calvin on the prayer to be turned. Calvin reads the prayer as a confession that the people cannot turn back to God unless He first turns them. Held by John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations (1563).

Where do readers disagree?

One list: the readings with their holders, and what the evidence does not settle.

  • Did Jeremiah write Lamentations, and what does 2 Chronicles 35:25 say?

    The weeping prophet→
    • Jeremiah wrote it. Held by the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Bava Batra 15a (c. 500), and Carl Friedrich Keil, The Lamentations of Jeremiah, in Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1872).
    • The writer is not named. Held by Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations, Anchor Bible (1972), and Iain W. Provan, Lamentations, New Century Bible Commentary (1991).
    • The Chronicler names another lament. Held by Flavius Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93).

    What the evidence does not settle: Whether the Book of Laments the Chronicler names held any of these five poems, since no copy of that book survives.

    The argument in full

    Jeremiah wrote it. The Talmud names Jeremiah as the writer of his book, Kings and Lamentations. The Greek Old Testament opens the book with a line saying that Jeremiah sat weeping and lamented over Jerusalem. The poems speak as an eyewitness of the siege, and Jeremiah was in the city when it fell.

    The writer is not named. The Hebrew book carries no title naming a writer. The poets looked for help from a nation that could not save (4:17) and spoke warmly of the captured king (4:20), where Jeremiah warned against trusting Egypt and against Zedekiah.

    The Chronicler names another lament. Josephus writes in his tenth book that Jeremiah composed a lament for Josiah that was still extant in his day. The Chronicler speaks of a lament for Josiah, who died at Megiddo, written in the Book of Laments. Lamentations mourns the fall of the city a generation later, so the verse shows Jeremiah as a writer of laments without naming this book.

  • Why does chapter 5 have no acrostic?

    The acrostics of Scripture→
    • The prayer keeps the count and leaves the order. Held by Adele Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (2002).
    • A different kind of poem. Held by Claus Westermann, Lamentations: Issues and Interpretation (1994).
    • The form gives way under the grief. Held by F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, Interpretation (2002).

    What the evidence does not settle: Whether the loss of the acrostic was meant as a sign, since the text gives no reason and each reading infers one from the form.

    The argument in full

    The prayer keeps the count and leaves the order. Chapter 5 has twenty-two verses, the number of the letters, so the poet kept the alphabet's measure while the lines no longer begin with its letters.

    A different kind of poem. Chapter 5 is the people's lament, a prayer spoken to God as we, of the kind found in Psalms 44, 74 and 79, and that form did not take the alphabet.

    The form gives way under the grief. The letters order the grief of chapters 1 to 4, and in the last poem the order falls away as the people speak straight to God and the book ends without resolution.

  • Why is the order of ayin and pe reversed in chapters 2 to 4?

    • An older order of the alphabet. Held by Aaron Demsky, A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from the Period of the Judges, Tel Aviv 4 (1977).
    • Their mouths spoke what their eyes had not seen. Held by Rashi in his Commentary on Lamentations (c. 1100), on 2:16, after the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 104b.

    What the evidence does not settle: Why chapter 1 alone keeps the standard order, and whether the four poems had one poet, since the order is the only difference of form between them.

    The argument in full

    An older order of the alphabet. The alphabet written on the ostracon found at Izbet Sartah sets pe before ayin, so both orders were in use in ancient Israel and the poets could follow either.

    Their mouths spoke what their eyes had not seen. Pe is the letter of the mouth and ayin of the eye, and the Talmud reads the order as a rebuke to the spies, who spoke with their mouths what they had not seen with their eyes.

  • Who is the man of chapter 3: Jeremiah, the city, or an everyman?

    The question of suffering→
    • Jeremiah speaks of his own sufferings. Held by Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706).
    • Any sufferer who has learned to hope. Held by Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations, Anchor Bible (1972).
    • The people spoken as one man. Held by Iain W. Provan, Lamentations, New Century Bible Commentary (1991), who weighs this reading with the others.

    What the evidence does not settle: Whether the poet meant one man at all, since the poem moves between I and we and names no one.

    The argument in full

    Jeremiah speaks of his own sufferings. The man is mocked by his own people (3:14) and thrown alive into a pit (3:53), as Jeremiah was lowered into the cistern (Jeremiah 38:6).

    Any sufferer who has learned to hope. The man is an everyman, and his path from complaint to hope is the pattern the people are called to follow when the poem turns to we (3:40 to 47).

    The people spoken as one man. The man's I passes into the people's we within the poem, so he stands for the nation that has seen affliction under the rod.

  • Is the book's theology retribution alone, or does 3:33 answer it?

    Great is Thy faithfulness→
    • The fall is the covenant's punishment for sin. Held by Bertil Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations (1963).
    • God afflicts, but not from His heart. Held by John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations (1563).
    • The protest is left standing. Held by Tod Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations (2000).

    What the evidence does not settle: Whether the last verse ends in doubt or in a plea, since the Hebrew of 5:22 can be read either way and translations differ.

    The argument in full

    The fall is the covenant's punishment for sin. The poems own the fall as the LORD's righteous act for Jerusalem's sin (1:5, 1:18, 4:13), and this answers the faith that Zion could not fall.

    God afflicts, but not from His heart. The LORD does not willingly afflict (3:33), so the punishment is real and just while His compassion is the deeper thing (3:31 and 32).

    The protest is left standing. The city's complaint and the last verse (5:22) are given as much room as the hope of chapter 3, and the book does not let the centre silence the survivors' grief.

The pages Lamentations opens on

Studies31

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People and groups4

Places4

Words8

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Books beside it4

Sources for this page

The painting in the band is People Mourn over the Destruction of Jerusalem, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain. The movements, the chapter entries, the figures and the Context are read off the text of Lamentations, and the letters of the acrostic off the first Hebrew word of every verse as the store holds it. The works behind the readings under Where do readers disagree and the figures are Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93); the Babylonian Talmud, tractates Bava Batra and Sanhedrin (c. 500); Rashi, Commentary on Lamentations (c. 1100); John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations (1563); the Roman Breviary (1568); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706); George Frideric Handel and Charles Jennens, Messiah (1741); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Lamentations of Jeremiah, in Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1872); Karl Budde, Das hebräische Klagelied (1882); Thomas O. Chisholm, Great Is Thy Faithfulness (1923); Bertil Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations (1963); Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations, Anchor Bible (1972); Aaron Demsky, A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from the Period of the Judges (1977); Iain W. Provan, Lamentations (1991); Claus Westermann, Lamentations: Issues and Interpretation (1994); Tod Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations (2000); Adele Berlin, Lamentations: A Commentary (2002); and F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations (2002). Every verse quoted on this page is the Berean Standard Bible, read from the store.

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