Lam 1 | KD | STEP | The five Lamentations composed on the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, which have received their position in the canon of the Old Testament among the Hagiographa, have for their heading, in Hebrew MSS and in printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, the word איכה ("alas! how..."), which forms the characteristic initial word of three of these pieces ( ; , and ). The Rabbis name the collection קינות (Lamentations), from the nature of its contents: so in the Talmud ( Tract. Baba Bathra , f. 14 b ); cf. Jerome in the Prol. galeat , and in the prologue to his translation: " incipiunt Threni , i.e., lamentationes, quae Cynoth hebraice inscribuntur ." With this agree the designations Θρῆνοι (lxx), and Threni or Lamentationes , also Lamenta in the Vulgate and among the Latin writers. The ancient custom of composing and singing lamentations over deceased friends (of which we find proof in the elegies of David on Saul and Jonathan, 2Sa 1:17., and on Abner, 2Sa 3:33., and in the notice given in ) was even in early times extended so as to apply to the general calamities that befell countries and cities; hence the prophets often speak of taking up lamentations over the fall of nations, countries, and cities; cf. ; ; , Jer 9:17., ; ; , etc. The five lamentations of the book now before us all refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and of the kingdom of Judah by the Chaldeans; in them are deplored the unutterable misery that has befallen the covenant people in this catastrophe, and the disgrace which the fallen daughter of Zion has thereby suffered. This subject is treated of in the five poems from different points of view. In the first , the lamentation is chiefly made over the carrying away of the people into captivity, the desolation of Zion, the acts of oppression, the plundering and the starvation connected with the taking of Jerusalem, the scoffing and contempt shown by the enemy, and the helpless and comfortless condition of the city, now fallen so low. In the second , the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah is set forth as an act of God’s wrath against the sins of the people, the impotency of human comfort in the midst of the terrible calamity is shown, and the people are exhorted to seek help from the Lord. In the third , the deep spiritual sufferings of God’s people in the midst of the general distress form the subject of grievous complaint, out of which the soul endeavours to rise, and to see the compassion of the Lord, and the justice of His dealings on earth generally, as well as in this visitation of judgment; and on this is founded the confident expectation of help. In the fourth , the dreadful misery that has befallen Zion’s citizens of every class is represented as a punishment for the grievous sins of the people and their leaders. And lastly, in the fifth , the Lord is entreated to remove the disgrace from His people and restore them to their former state of grace. According to this view, one may readily perceive in these poems a well-cogitated plan in the treatment of the material common to the whole, and a distinct progress in the execution of this plan. There is no foundation, on the other hand, for the opinion of De Wette, that a gradation may be traced in the description given of the condition of the city; and the attempt of earlier expositors (Horrer, Pareau, Jahn, etc.) to explain and apply the contents of the different poems to different leading features in the Chaldean catastrophe - such as the siege, the capture, the destruction of the city and the temple - has entirely failed. Ewald, again, assumes that the five poems were composed for a time to be solemnly spent in sorrow and penitence, and that in the five lamentations the prophet-writer presents a kind of changing act (drama), making five different acts follow each other progressively; and further, that it is only with the changing series of these that the entire great act of real lamentation and divine sorrow concludes. But neither in the design nor in the execution of these poems are any points to be found which form a safe foundation for this assumption. Ewald is so far correct, however, in his general remark, that the prophetic composer sought to present to the community, in their deep sorrow, words which were meant to direct the grieving heart to the only source of true comfort; and that he understood how "to lead the deeply sorrowing ones imperceptibly to a proper knowledge of themselves and of their own great guilt, and thereby, in the first place, to true sorrow and sighing; that he also knew how to resolve the wildest grief at last into true prayer for divine retribution, and to change new strength into rejoicing over the everlasting Messianic hope, and into the most touching request for the divine compassion" ( Die Dichter des Alt. Bundes , 3 Ausg. i. 2, S. 322). In order to give an air of continuity as well as of exhaustive completeness to the lamentation, which constantly assumes new figures and turns of thought, the poems, with the exception of the last (Lamentations 5), are alphabetically arranged, and in such a form that the first three consist of long stanzas, each of three lines, which are for the most part further divided about the middle by a caesura into two portions of unequal length. These poems are so arranged in accordance with the letters of the alphabet, that in the first two, every verse of three lines, and in the third, every line in the verse, begins with the letters of the alphabet in their order. In this last third poem, moreover, all the letters of the alphabet occur thrice in succession, for which reason the Masoretes have divided these lines of the verses as if each formed a complete verse. In the fourth poem, the verses, which are also arranged and marked alphabetically, consist only of lines which are likewise divided into two by a caesura; in the fifth, the alphabetic arrangement of the verses is departed from, and it is only in their number that the verses of the poem are made like the letters of the alphabet. This alphabetic arrangement of the verses is exactly carried out in the four poems, but with the remarkable difference, that in the first only does the order of the letters entirely agree with the traditional arrangement of the alphabet, while, in the other three, the verse beginning with פ stands before that beginning with ע. This deviation from the rule does not admit of being explained by the assumption that the verses in question were afterwards transposed in consequence of an oversight on the part of the copyist, nor by the supposition that the order of the letters had not yet been absolutely fixed. The former assumption, adopted by Kennicott, Jahn, etc., is shown to be utterly incorrect, by the circumstance that the supposed transmutation cannot be reconciled with the course of thought in the poems; while the latter, which has been maintained by C. B. Michaelis, Ewald, etc., is disproved by the fact that no change has taken place in the order of the letters in the Shemitic alphabets (cf. Sommer, Bibl. Abhandll . i. S. 145; Gesenius, 5, Rem. 2; Ewald, 12, a); and other alphabetic poems, such as , Psa 112:1-10; 119, and , exactly preserve the common arrangement of the letters. Still less does the irregularity in question permit of being attributed to an oversight on the part of the composer (which is Bertholdt’s view), for the irregularity is repeated in three poems. It is rather connected with another circumstance. For we find in other alphabetic poems also, especially the older ones, many deviations from the rule, which undeniably prove that the composers bound themselves rigorously by the order of the alphabet only so long as it fitted in to the course of thought without any artificiality. Thus, for instance, in Ps 145 the Nun verse is wanting; in Ps 34 the Vav verse; while, at the close, after ת, there follows another verse with פ. Just such another closing verse is found in Ps 25, in which, besides, the first two verses begin with א, while ב is wanting; two verses, moreover, begin with ר instead of ק and ר: in Ps 37 ע is replaced by צ, which is again found after פ in its proper order. It is also to be considered that, in may of these poems, the division of the verses into strophes is not continuously and regularly carried out; e.g., in these same Lam; and , verses of four lines occur among those with three. Attempts have, indeed, been made to attribute these irregularities to later reviewers, who mistook the arrangement into strophes; but the arguments adduced will not stand the test; see details in Hävernick’s Einl . iii. S. 51ff. If we gather all these elements together, we shall be obliged to seek for the reason of most, if not all of these deviations from the norm, in the free use made of such forms by the Hebrew poets. Gerlach here objects that, "in view of the loose connection of thought in alphabetic poems generally, and in these Lamentations particularly, and considering the evident dexterity with which the poet elsewhere uses the form, another arrangement of the series would not have caused him any difficulty." We reply that there is no want in these poems of a careful arrangement of thought; but that the skill of the poet, in making use of this arrangement, was not always sufficient to let him put his thoughts, corresponding to things, into the alphabetic form, without using artificial means or forced constructions; and that, in such cases, the form was rather sacrificed to the thought, than rigorously maintained through the adoption of forced and unnatural forms of expression. Finally, the reason for the absence of the alphabetic arrangement from the fifth poem is simply, that the lamentation there resolves itself into a prayer, in which the careful consideration indispensable for the carrying out of the alphabetic arrangement must give place to the free and natural outcome of the feelings. In the Hebrew text no one is named as the author of the Lamentations; but an old tradition affirms that the prophet Jeremiah composed them. Even so early as in the Alexandrine version, we find prefixed to , the words, Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ αἰχμαλωτισθῆναι τὸν ̓Ισραὴλ καὶ ̔Ιερουσαλὴμ ἐρημωθῆναι, ἐκάθισεν ̔Ιερεμίας κλαίων καὶ ἐθρήνησε τὸν θρῆνον τοῦτον ἐπὶ ̔Ιερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ει. These words are also found in the Vulgate; only, instead of et dixit , there is the amplification, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans dixit . The Syriac is without this notice; but the Arabic exactly reproduces the words of the lxx, and the Targum begins with the words, Dixit Jeremias propheta et sacerdos magnus . After this, both in the Talmud ( Baba bathr . f. 51. 1) and by the Church Fathers (Origen in Euseb. hist. eccl . iv. 25, Jerome in prolog. gal ., etc.), as well as the later theologians, the Jeremianic authorship was assumed as certain. The learned but eccentric Hermann von der Hardt was the first to call in question the Jeremianic composition of the book, in a "Programm" published in 1712 at Helmstädt; he attributed the five poems to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and King Jehoiachin (!). This doubt was resumed at a later period by an unknown writer in the Tübingen Theol. Quartalschr . 1819, part i.; it was mentioned by Augusti (Einl.), and further carried out by Conz in Bengel’s Archiv , iv. p. 161f. and 422ff. Kalkar was the next to question the traditional belief, and urged against it the position of the book among the כּתוּבים, and the difference existing between the Greek translation of the Lamentations and that of the prophecies of Jeremiah; these objections he held to be not inconsiderable, yet not decisive. Then Ewald ( Poet. Bücher des A. B . i. S. 145, and in the third edition of the same book, i. 2, S. 326; cf. Bibl. Jahrbb . vii. S. 151f., and History of the People of Israel , iv. p. 22) decidedly refused to ascribe the book to the prophet, and rather attributed it to one of his pupils, Baruch or some other; in this opinion he is followed by Bunsen, as is usual in questions regarding the criticism of the Old Testament. Finally, Nägelsbach (in Lange’s series, see Clark’s For. Theol. Lib.), with the help of the Concordance, has prepared a table of those words and forms of words found in the Lamentations, but not occurring in the prophecies of Jeremiah; by this means he has endeavoured to set forth the difference of language in the two books, which he accepts as a decisive reason for rejecting the Jeremianic authorship of the Lamentations. And Thenius assures us that, "in consequence of pretty long and conscientious examination, he has become convinced" that Lamentations 2 and 4, judging from their contents and form, undeniably proceeded from Jeremiah; while Lamentations 1 and 3 were composed by one who was left behind in the country, some time after the destruction of Jerusalem, and shortly before the last deportation; but Lamentations 5 is from a man "who was probably wandering about everywhere, as the leader of a band of nobles seeking a safe asylum, but unwilling to attach themselves to the caravan going to Egypt." Schrader, in his late revision of De Wette’s Introduction , 339, has thus condensed the results of these critical investigations: In support of the old tradition, which mentions Jeremiah as the author, "one might appeal to the affinity in contents, spirit, tone, and language (De W.). Nevertheless, this same style of language, and the mode of representation, exhibit, again, so much that is peculiar; the artificiality of form, especially in , and 4, is so unlike Jeremiah’s style; the absence of certain specific Jeremianic peculiarities, and the contradiction between some expressions of the prophet and those of the author of the Lamentations, is again so striking, that one must characterize the authorship of Jeremiah as very improbable, if not quite impossible, especially since the points of likeness to the language used by Jeremiah, on the one hand, are sufficiently accounted for in general by the fact that both works were composed at the same time; and on the other hand, are nullified by other points of likeness to Ezekiel’s style, which show that use has already been made of his prophecies." Again: "The hypothesis of Thenius, that the poems are by different authors, is refuted by the similarity in the fundamental character of the poems, and in the character of the language." We may therefore dispense with a special refutation of this hypothesis, especially since it will be shown in the exposition that the points which Thenius has brought forward in support of his view are all founded on a wretchedly prosaic style of interpretation, which fails to recognise the true nature of poetry, and regards mere poetic figures as actual history. Of the considerations, however, which Schrader has adduced against the Jeremianic authorship, the last two that are mentioned would, of course, have decided influence, if there were any real foundation for them, viz., the contradiction between some expressions of Jeremiah and those of the author of the Lamentations. But they have no foundation in fact. The only instance of a contradiction is said to exist between and -30. It is quoted by Schrader, who refers to Nöldeke, die alttest. Literat . S. 146. But the expression, "Our fathers have sinned, they are no more, we bear their iniquities" ( ), does not stand in contradiction to what is said in Jer. 39:29f. against the current proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth have become blunt," viz., that in the future, after the restoration of Israel, "every one shall die for his own iniquity, and the teeth of every one who eats sour grapes shall become blunt." One statement would contradict the other only if the latter meant that those who bear the punishment were guiltless, or thought themselves such. But how far this thought was from the mind of the suppliant in , is shown by what he says in : "Woe unto us, for we have sinned." According to these words, those in can only mean, "We atone not merely for our own sins, but also the sins of our fathers," or, "The sins of our fathers as well as our own are visited on us." This confession accords with Scripture (cf. ; , etc.), and is radically different from the proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes," etc., which was constantly in the mouth of those who considered themselves innocent, and who thereby perverted the great truth, that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children who hate Him, into the false statement, that innocent children must atone for the sins of their fathers. On this, cf. also the exposition of Lam 5:7. But when Schrader, following Nöldeke, further remarks, "that Jeremiah would hardly have said nothing whatever about God’s having foretold all this suffering through him ," there lies at the foundation of this remark the preposterous notion, that Jeremiah ought to have brought himself prominently forward in the Lamentations (supposing him to have written them), as one who ought not to suffer the evil under which the people were groaning. Such gross Pelagianism was foreign to the prophet Jeremiah. No one need speak, therefore, of a contradiction between the Lamentations and the prophecies of Jeremiah. As little proof is there for the assertion that the author of the Lamentations made use of the prophecies of Ezekiel. Nägelsbach and Schrader, in support of this allegation, have adduced only , compared with ; Eze 13:5.; and , compared with ; Eze 28:12. Nägelsbach says: "The words, נביאיך חזוּ לך, in , are no doubt a quotation from ; , , ; , 34; Eze 22:28. For it is only in these passages, and nowhere else in the Old Testament, that the expression חזוּ occurs, and in combination with תפל. Moreover, כּלילת יפי, in , is an expression decidedly peculiar to Ezekiel, for it occurs only in (cf. ), and nowhere else." But the three expressions of these two passages form really too weak a proof that the author of the Lamentations made use of the prophecies of Ezekiel. Of course, as regards the mere form of the words, it is true that the expression כּלילת יפי, "she who is perfect in beauty," is found, besides , only in , where the prophet says of Tyre, "Thou sayest, I am perfect in beauty," and in , where it is said of the king of Tyre, "Thou art... כּליל;" but the thing occurs also in , with the unimportant change in the form of the words מכלל יפי, "perfection of beauty," where Zion is so designated. Now, if we not merely gather out of the Concordance the expressions of like import, but also keep in view the idea presented in , "Is this the city שׁיּאמרוּ?" and at the same time consider that the poet says this of Jerusalem, there cannot be the least doubt that he did not take these epithets, which are applied to Jerusalem, from Ezekiel, who used them to designate Tyre, but that he had in view, just as the other epithet, "a joy of the whole earth," points to Psa 48:3. Only on the basis of these passages in the Psalms could he employ the expression sheשׁיּאמרוּ, "which they call." Or are we to believe that the word כּליל, כּלילה was originally unknown to the author of the Lamentations, and that he first became acquainted with it through Ezekiel? Nor, again, can we say that the words taken by Nägelsbach out of are "undoubtedly a quotation from Ezekiel," because they do not occur in this way in any of the passages cited from Ezekiel. All that we can found on this assertion is, that in the prophecies of Jeremiah neither חזה שׁוא or the word-form תּפל occurs; while Ezekiel not only uses חזון שׁוא, , חזה שׁוא, and מחזה שׁוא, as synonymous with דּבּר שׁוא, קסם שׁוא, and חזה כזב ( , ), but also says of the false prophets, , "They build a wall, and plaster it over with lime" (טחים, , cf. , , ). These same false prophets are also called, in , טחי תפל, "those who plaster with lime." But Ezekiel uses the word תפל only in the meaning of "lime," while the writer of these Lamentations employs it in the metaphorical sense, "absurdity, nonsense," in the same way as Jer; , uses תּפלה, "absurdity," of the prophets of Samaria. Now, just as Jeremiah has not taken תּפלה from Ezekiel, where it does not occur at all (but only in ; ), so there is as little likelihood in the opinion that the word תפל, in , has been derived from Ezekiel, because shows that it was far from rarely used by the Hebrews. Nor does the non-occurrence of חזה שׁוא in Jeremiah afford any tenable ground for the opinion that the expression, as found in , was taken from Ezekiel. The idea contained in חזה was not unknown to Jeremiah; for he speaks, , of חזון שׁקר, and in of חזון מלבּם, referring to the false prophets, whose doings he characterizes as שׁקר sa sezi; cf. ; ; ; Jer 23:25., 32, , ; ; , , Jer 29:31. Further, if we consult only the text of the Bible instead of the Concordance, and ponder the connection of thought in the separate passages, we can easily perceive why, instead of שׁקר (חזון) חזה, which is so frequent in Jeremiah, there is found in , חזה שׁוא and חזה משּׂאות שׁåא dna . In the addresses in which Jeremiah warns the people of the lying conduct of the false prophets, who spoke merely out of their own heart, שׁקר was the most suitable expression; in , on the contrary, where complaint is made that the prophecies of their prophets afford no comfort to the people in their present distress, שׁוא was certainly the most appropriate word which the composer could select, even without a knowledge of Ezekiel. There can be no question, then, regarding a quotation from that prophet. but even though it were allowed that 2:14 implied an actual acquaintance with Lamentations 12 and 13 of Ezekiel, still, nothing would follow from that against the Jeremianic authorship of the Lamentations. For Jeremiah uttered these prophecies in the sixth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, i.e., in the third year before the last siege, and the fifth before the destruction of Jerusalem; and considering the frequent intercourse carried on between the captives in Babylon and those who still remained in Judah and Jerusalem, in virtue of which the former even sent letters to Jerusalem (cf. ), some of Ezekiel’s prophecies might have become known in the latter city a considerable time before the final catastrophe, and even reached the ears of Jeremiah. With the demolition of these two arguments, the main strength of our opponents, in the bringing forward of proof, has been broken. Schrader has not adduced a single instance showing "the absence of certain specific Jeremianic peculiarities." For "the comparatively less emphasis given to the sins of the people," which is alleged in Nöldeke’s note, cannot be applied in support of that position, even if it were correct, in view of the prominence so frequently assigned to grievous sin, , , , , ; ; , ; , ; ; because the Lamentations were not composed with the design of punishing the people for their sin, but were intended to comfort in their misery, and to raise up again, the people who had been severely chastised for the guilt of their sin, which was greater than the sin of Sodom ( ). Add to this, that Schrader, by using this argument, contradicts himself; for he has shortly before adduced the affinity in contents, spirit, tone, and language as an argument to which one might appeal in support of the Jeremianic authorship, and this affinity he has established by a long series of quotations. Further, the remark that "the artificiality of form, especially in , and 4, is unlike Jeremiah," is correct only in so far as no alphabetic poems are to be found in the prophetic book of Jeremiah. But are we then to look for poetic compositions in prophetic addresses and historical narratives? The remark now quoted is based on the assertion made by other critics, that the alphabetic arrangement of poetic compositions generally is a mere rhetorical work of art, and the production of a later but degenerate taste (Ed. Reuss and others), or a piece of trifling unworthy of the prophet. This view has long ago been shown groundless; cf. Hävernick’s Einl . iii. S. 46ff. Even Hupfeld, who calls the alphabetical arrangement "artificiality or trifling," considers that it is of a kindred nature with collections of proverbs, and with small poems of a didactic character but deficient in close connection of thought; he thinks, too, that it may be comparatively ancient as a style of composition, and that it was not applied till later to other species of writing (as Lamentations). To this, Ed. Riehm, in the second edition of Hupfeld on the Psalms, i. p. 31, has added a very true remark: "In lyric poetry proper, the employment of this artificial form is naturally and intrinsically justified only when a single fundamental strain, that fills the whole soul of the poet, - deep, strong, and sustained, - seeks to die away in many different forms of chords; hence its employment in the elegy." The application of this artificial form to such a purpose is perfectly justified in these Lamentations; and the attempt to deny that these poems are the work of Jeremiah, on the ground of their artificial construction, would be as great an exhibition of arbitrary conduct, as if any one refused to ascribe the hymn "Befiehl du deine Wege" to Paul Gerhardt, or "Wie schön leucht uns der Morgenstern" to Philip Nicolai, on the ground of the "artificiality" that manifests itself in the beginning of the verses. Finally, the language and the mode of representation in these poems certainly exhibit much that is peculiar; and we find in them many words, word-forms, and modes of expression, which do not occur in the prophecies of Jeremiah. But it must also be borne in mind that the Lamentations are not prophetic addresses intended to warn, rebuke, and comfort, but lyric poetry, which has its own proper style of language, and this different from prophetic address. Both the subject-matter and the poetic form of these poems, smooth though this is in general, necessarily resulted in this, - that through the prevalence of peculiar thoughts, modes of representation, and feelings, the language also received an impress, in words and modes of expression, that was peculiar to itself, and different from the prophetic diction of Jeremiah. The mere collection of the words, word-forms, and expressions peculiar to the Lamentations, and not occurring in the prophecies of Jeremiah, cannot furnish irrefragable proof that the authors of the two writings were different, unless it be shown, at the same time, that the character of the language in both writings is essentially different, and that for the ideas, modes of representation, and thoughts common to both, other words and expressions are used in the Lamentations than those found in the prophecies of Jeremiah. But neither the one nor the other has been made out by Nägelsbach. After giving the long list he has prepared, which occupies five and a half columns, and which gives the words occurring in the different verses of the five chapters, he explains that he does not seek to lay any weight on the ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, probably because Jeremiah also has many such words; but then he raises the question, "How is the fact to be accounted for, that Jeremiah never uses עליון or אדני except as divine names, while the latter, nevertheless, occurs fourteen times in the Lamentations; that Jeremiah never uses הבּיט, יגה, אנח, זנח, חטא, מחמד, בּלּע, לא חמל, עפר, עטף, חזה, חשׁך, נגינה, יחל, נשׂא פּנים, nor למו, the relative שׁ, or בּקרב without a suffix, while all these expressions occur more or less frequently in the Lamentations? And it has been well remarked that these expressions are not of so specific a kind, that the fact of their not being used in the prophetic book, but employed in the Lamentations, might be explained from the nature of the contents; but they belong, in great measure, to what I may call the house-dress of the author, which he constantly wears, - which he more or less unconsciously and unintentionally uses." We answer that the simile of the house-dress has been most unhappily chosen. Although the style of a writer may possibly be compared to his coat, yet nobody is in the habit of wearing his house-coat always, on Sundays and week-days, in the house and out of it; so, too, no writer is in the habit of using always the same words in prose and poetry. When we investigate the matter itself, we find we must, first of all, deduct fully one-third of the words enumerated, although these have evidently been collected and arranged as the most convincing proof; the words thus rejected are also found in the prophetic book of Jeremiah, though not quite in the same grammatical form, as the note shows. Then we ask the counter question, whether words which one who composed five poems employs only in one of these pieces, or only once or twice throughout the whole, ought to be reckoned as his house-dress? Of the words adduced, we do not find a single on in all the five poems, but חשׁך only in , נשׂא פּנים only in , נגינה only in and , פּצה פה only in and , עליון only in and , אנח (Niphal) only in Lamentations 1 (four times). Moreover, we ask whether Jeremiah might not also, in lyric poems, use poetic words which could not be employed in homely address? But of the words enumerated, למו, עליון, and אדני alone as a name of God, together with נגינה, belong to the poetic style. They are therefore not found in Jeremiah, simply because his prophetic addresses are neither lyric poems, nor rise to the lyric height of prophetic address. The rest of the words mentioned are also found in the Psalms especially, and in Job, as will be shown in the detailed exposition. And when we go deeper into the matter, we find that, in the Lamentations, there is the same tendency to reproduce the thoughts and language of the Psalms (especially those describing the psalmist’s sufferings) and of the book of Job, that characterizes the prophecies of Jeremiah, in the use he makes of Deuteronomy and the writings of earlier prophets. Another peculiarity of Jeremiah’s style is seen in the fact that the composer of the Lamentations, like Jeremiah in his addresses, repeats himself much, not merely in his ideas, but also in his words: e.g., לא חמל occurs four times, of which three instances are in Lamentations 2 ( , , ) and one in ; מחמד (and מחמוד) also occurs four times ( , ; ), and נאנה as frequently ( , , , ); יגה is found five times ( , ; ), but in all the other Old Testament writings only thrice; and Jeremiah also uses יגון four times, while, of all the other prophets, Isaiah is the only one who employs it, and this he does twice. These marks may be sufficient of themselves to show unmistakeably that the peculiarity of the prophet as an author is also found in the Lamentations, and that nothing can be discovered showing a difference of language in the expression of thoughts common to both writings. But this will be still more evident if we consider, finally, the similarity, both as regards the subjects of thought and the style of expression, exhibited in a considerable number of instances in which certain expressions characteristic of Jeremiah are also found in Lamentations: e.g., the frequent employment of שׁבר and שׁבר בּת עמּי, , ; ; , cf. with , ; , ; , ; ; , etc.; מגוּרי, , with מגור מסּביב, ; , ; ; ; (מים, or) עין, ; ; ; , cf. with Jer. 8:23; ; ; ; הייתי שׂחק, , with הייתי לשׂחק, ; פּחד ופחת, , as in Jer 48:43. Cf. also the note on p. 471, after the passages quoted by De Wette. Pareau, then, had good reason when, long ago, he pointed out the peculiarities of Jeremiah in the style of the Lamentations; and only a superficial criticism can assert against this, that the existing coincidences find a sufficient explanation in the assumption that, speaking generally, the two books were composed at the same period. We therefore close this investigation, after having proved that the tradition which ascribes the Lamentations to the prophet Jeremiah as their author is as well-founded as any ancient historical tradition whatever. Time of Composition From the organic connection of the five poems, as shown above, it follows of itself that they cannot have proceeded from different authors, nor originated at different periods, but were composed at brief intervals, one after the other, not long after the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the kingdom of Judah, and in the order in which they have been transmitted to us. What gives special support to this conclusion is the circumstance that, throughout these Lamentations, there is no possibility of mistaking the expression of grief, still fresh in the writer’s mind, over the horrors of that fearful catastrophe. The assumption, however, that the prophet, in the picture he draws, had before his eyes the ruins of the city, and the misery of those who had been left behind, cannot be certainly made out from a consideration of the contents of the poems. But there seems to be no doubt that Jeremiah composed them in the interval between the destruction of Jerusalem and his involuntary departure to Egypt. There is no tenable ground for the confident assertion of Ewald, that they were composed in Egypt; for the passages, ; Jer 4:18., , , do not mean that the writer was then living among the fugitives who had fled in such vast multitudes to Egypt, partly before and partly after the destruction of the city. The separation of the Lamentations from the book of the prophecies of Jeremiah, and their reception into the third division of the Old Testament canon (the Kethubim ), - which Kalkschmidt and Thenius, in complete misunderstanding of the principle on which the tripartition of the canon is founded, would bring to bear as an argument against their having been composed by Jeremiah, - are fully accounted for by their subjective, lyric contents; in consequence of this they differ essentially from the prophecies, and take their place alongside of the Psalms and other productions of sacred poesy. This position of theirs among the Kethubim must be considered (against Bleek) as the original one; their arrangement by the side of the prophetic writings of Jeremiah in the lxx and Vulgate, which Luther as well as the translators of the "authorized" English version has retained, must have originated with the Alexandrine translators, who could not understand the arrangement of the Hebrew canon, and who afterwards, in order to make the number of the books of the Bible the same as that of the letters of the alphabet (twenty-two), counted the Lamentations as forming one book with the prophecies of Jeremiah. That this arrangement and enumeration of the Lamentations, observed by the Hellenists, deviated from the tradition of the Jews of Palestine, may be perceived from the remark of Jerome, in his Prol. galeat., regarding this mode of reckoning: quamquam nonnulli Ruth et Cynoth inter hagiographa scriptitent, et hos libros in suo putent numero supputandos . Their arrangement in the series of the five Megilloth (rolls appointed to be read on certain annual feast-days and memorial-days) in our editions of the Hebrew Bible was not fixed till a later period, when, according to the ordinance in the synagogal liturgy, the Lamentations were appointed to be read on the ninth of the month Ab, as the anniversary of the destruction of the temples of Solomon and of Herod. (Cf. Herzog’s Real-Encykl . xv. 310.) The importance of the Lamentations, as a part of the canon, does not so much consists in the mere fact that they were composed by Jeremiah, and contain outpourings of sorrow on different occasions over the misery of his people, as rather in their being an evidence of the interest with which Jeremiah, in the discharge of his functions as a prophet, continued to watch over the ruins of Jerusalem. In these Lamentations he seeks not merely to give expression to the sorrow of the people that he may weep with them, but by his outpour of complaint to rouse his fellow-countrymen to an acknowledgement of God’s justice in this visitation, to keep them from despair under the burden of unutterable woe, and by teaching them how to give due submission to the judgment that has befallen them, to lead once more to God those who would not let themselves be brought to Him through his previous testimony regarding that judgment while it was yet impending. The Jewish synagogue has recognised and duly estimated the importance of the Lamentations in these respects, by appointing that the book should be read on the anniversary of the destruction of the temple. A like appreciation has been made by the Christian Church, which, rightly perceiving that the Israelitish community is the subject in these poems, attributed to them a reference to the church militant; and, viewing the judgment on the people of God as a prophecy of the judgment that came on Him who took the sins of the whole world upon Himself, it has received a portion of the Lamentations into the ritual for the Passion Week, and concludes each of these lessons with the words, " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum, deum tuum ." Cf. The Passion Week in its Ceremonies and Prayers , Spires 1856, and the Officium hebdomadae sanctae , a reprinted extract from Dr. Reischl’s Passionale , Münich 1857. The motives for this choice are so far set forth by Allioli (in Neumann, ii. S. 486) in the following terms: "The church wished believers to see, in the great punishments which God had ordained against Jerusalem by the instrumentality of Nebuchadnezzar, the still more severe chastisement that God has brought on Israel after the dreadful murder of the Messias. She seeks to bewail the unhappy condition of the blinded nation, once favoured with the divine revelation. In the fall of Jerusalem, she seeks to deplore the evil that has come on herself from external and internal foes, the persecution of brother by brother, the havoc made by false teachers, the looseness of opinions, the sad advances made by indifference in matters of faith and by the corruption of morals. In the devastation and the penalties inflicted on Jerusalem, she wishes to present for consideration the destruction which comes on every soul that dies the death in sins. In the condition of the ruined city and the homeless nation, she seeks to make men bewail the homeless condition of the whole race, who have fallen into decay and disorder through Adam’s sin. And lastly, in the nation visited with punishment, she seeks to set forth Jesus Christ Himself, in so far as He has become the substitute of all men, and suffered for their sins." This display of all these references is sadly deficient in logical arrangement; but it contains a precious kernel of biblical truth, which the Evangelical Church has endeavoured in many ways to turn to advantage. Regarding the adaptations of the Lamentations made for liturgical use in the Evangelical Church, see particulars in Schöberlein, Schatz des liturgischen Chor-und Gemeindegesanges , ii. S. 444ff. As to the commentaries on the Lamentations, see Keil’s Manual of Introduction to the Old Testament , vol. i. p. 508 Clark’s Foreign Theol. Library. To the list of works therein given are to be appended, as later productions, Ewald’s recent treatment of the book in the third edition of the Dichter des A. Bundes (1866), i. 2, where the Lamentations have been inserted among the Psalms, S. 321ff.; Wilh. Engelhardt, die Klagel. Jerem. übersetzt . 1867; Ernst Gerlach, die Klagel. erkl . 1868; and Nägelsbach, in Lange’s series of commentaries (Clark’s English edition), 1868. Sorrow and Wailing over the Fall of Jerusalem and Judah 1 Alas! how she sits alone, the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow, that was great among the nations; The princess among provinces has become a vassal. 2 She weeps bitterly through the night, and her tears are upon her cheek; She has no comforter out of all her lovers: All her friends have deceived her; they have become enemies to her. 3 Judah is taken captive out of affliction, and out of much servitude; She sitteth among the nations, she hath found no rest; All those who pursued her overtook her in the midst of her distresses. 4 The ways of Zion mourn, for want of those who went up to the appointed feast; All her gates are waste; her priests sigh; Her virgins are sad, and she herself is in bitterness. 5 Her enemies have become supreme; those who hate her are at ease; For Jahveh hath afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children have gone into captivity before the oppressor. 6 And from the daughter of Zion all her honour has departed; Her princes have become like harts [that] have found no pasture, And have gone without strength before the pursuer. 7 In the days of her affliction and her persecutions, Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things which have been from the days of old: When her people fell by the hand of the oppressor, and there was none to help her, Her oppressors saw her, - they laughed at her times of rest. 8 Jerusalem hath sinned grievously, therefore she hath become an abomination: All those who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; And she herself sighs, and turns backward. 9 Her filth is on her flowing skirts; she remembered not her latter end; And so she sank wonderfully: she has no comforter. "O Jahveh, behold my misery!" for the enemy hath boasted. 10 The oppressor hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things; For she hath seen [how] the heathen have come into her sanctuary, [Concerning] whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy community. 11 All her people [have been] sighing, seeking bread; They have given their precious things for bread, to revive their soul. See, O Jahveh, and consider that I am become despised. 12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass along the way? Consider, and see if there be sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, Whom Jahveh hath afflicted in the day of the burning of His anger. 13 From above He sent fire in my bones, so that it mastered them; He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back; He hath made me desolate and ever languishing. 14 The yoke of my transgressions hath been fastened to by His hand; They have interwoven themselves, they have come up on my neck; it hath made my strength fail: The Lord hath put me into the hands of [those against whom] I cannot rise up. 15 The Lord hath removed all my strong ones in my midst; He hath proclaimed a festival against me, to break my young men in pieces: The Lord hath trodden the wine-press for the virgin daughter of Judah. 16 Because of these things I weep; my eye, my eye runneth down [with] water, Because a comforter is far from me, one to refresh my soul; My children are destroyed, because the enemy hath prevailed. 17 Zion stretcheth forth her hands, [yet] there is none to comfort her; Jahveh hath commanded concerning Jacob; his oppressors are round about him: Jerusalem hath become an abomination among them. 18 Jahveh is righteous, for I have rebelled against His mouth. Hear now, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow; My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 19 I called for my lovers, [but] they have deceived me; My priests and my elders expired in the city, When they were seeking bread for themselves, that they might revive their spirit. 20 Behold, O Jahveh, how distressed I am! my bowels are moved; My heart is turned within me, for I was very rebellious: Without, the sword bereaveth [me]; within, [it is] like death. 21 They have heard that I sigh, I have no comforter: All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad because Thou hast done it. Thou bringest the day [that] Thou hast proclaimed, that they may be like me. 22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee, And do to them as Thou hast done to me because of all my transgressions; For my sighs are many and my heart is faint. The poem begins with a doleful meditation on the deeply degraded state into which Jerusalem has fallen; and in the first half ( ), lament is made over the sad condition of the unhappy city, which, forsaken by all her friends, and persecuted by enemies, has lost all her glory, and, finding no comforter in her misery, pines in want and disesteem. In the second half ( ), the city herself is introduced, weeping, and giving expression to her sorrow over the evil determined against her because of her sins. Both portions are closely connected. On the one hand, we find, even in and , tones of lamentation, like signs from the city, coming into the description of her misery, and preparing the way for the introduction of her lamentation in ; on the other hand, her sin is mentioned even so early as in and as the cause of her misfortune, and the transition thus indicated from complaint to the confession of guilt found in the second part. This transition is made in by means of a kind of meditation on the cheerless and helpless condition of the city. The second half of the poem is thereby divided into two equal portions, and in such a manner that, while in the former of these ( ) it is complaint that prevails, and the thought of guilt comes forward only in , in the latter ( ) the confession of God’s justice and of sin in the speaker becomes most prominent; and the repeated mention of misery and oppression rises into an entreaty for deliverance from the misery, and the hope that the Lord will requite all evil on the enemy. Doleful consideration and description of the dishonour that has befallen Jerusalem. In these verses the prophet, in the name of the godly, pours out his heart before the Lord. The dreadful turn that things have taken is briefly declared in in two clauses, which set forth the fall of Jerusalem from its former glory into the depths of disgrace and misery, in such a way that the verse contains the subject unfolded in the description that follows. We have deviated from the Masoretic pointing, and arranged the verse into three members, as in the succeeding verses, which nearly throughout form tristichs, and have been divided into two halves by means of the Athnach; but we agree with the remark of Gerlach, "that, according to the sense, היתה למס and not היתה כּאלמנה is the proper antithesis to רבּתי בגּוים." איכה is here, as in ; , an expression of complaint mingled with astonishment; so in ; Isa 1:21. "She sits solitary" (cf. ) is intensified by "she has become like a widow." Her sitting alone is a token of deep sorrow (cf. ), and, as applied to a city, is a figure of desolation; cf. Isa 27:10. Here, however, the former reference is the main one; for Jerusalem is personified as a woman, and, with regard to its numerous population, is viewed as the mother of a great multitude of children. רבּתי is a form of the construct state, lengthened by Yod compaginis , found thrice in this verse, and also in , elegiac composition; such forms are used, in general, only in poetry that preserves and affects the antique style, and reproduces its peculiar ring. According to the twofold meaning of רב ( Much and Great ), רבּתי in the first clause designates the multiplicity, multitude of the population; in the second, the greatness or dignity of the position that Jerusalem assumed among the nations, corresponding to the שׂרתי במּדינות, "a princess among the provinces." מדינה, from דּין (properly, the circuit of judgment or jurisdiction), is the technical expression for the provinces of the empires in Asia (cf. , , etc.), and hence, after the exile, was sued of Judah, Ezr 2:1; , and in 1Ki 20:17 of the districts in the kingdom of Israel. Here, however, המּדינות are not the circuits or districts of Judah (Thenius), but the provinces of the heathen nations rendered subject to the kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon (corresponding to הגּויים), as in Ecc 2:8. Jerusalem was formerly a princess among the provinces, during the flourishing period of the Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon. The writer keeps this time before his mind, in order to depict the contrast between the past and present. The city that once ruled over nations and provinces has now become but dependent on others. מס (the derivation of which is disputed) does not mean soccage or tribute, but the one who gives soccage service, a soccager; see on and 1Ki 4:6. The words, "The princess has become a soccager," signify nothing more than, "She who once ruled over peoples and countries has now fallen into abject servitude," and are not (with Thenius) to be held as "referring to the fact that the remnant that has been left behind, or those also of the former inhabitants of the city who have returned home, have been set to harder labour by the conquerors." When we find the same writer inferring from this, that these words presuppose a state of matters in which the country round Jerusalem has been for some time previously under the oppression of Chaldean officers, and moreover holding the opinion that the words "how she sits..." could only have been written by one who had for a considerable period been looking on Jerusalem in its desolate condition, we can only wonder at such an utter want of power to understand poetic language.

‏ Lamentations 1

The Lamentations of Jeremiah

Introduction

1. The Name, Contents, and Arrangement of the Book

The Name

The five Lamentations composed on the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, which have received their position in the canon of the Old Testament among the Hagiographa, have for their heading, in Hebrew MSS and in printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, the word איכה ("alas! how..."), which forms the characteristic initial word of three of these pieces (Lam 1:1; Lam 2:1, and Lam 4:1). The Rabbis name the collection קינות (Lamentations), from the nature of its contents: so in the Talmud (Tract. Baba Bathra, f. 14 b); cf. Jerome in the Prol. galeat, and in the prologue to his translation: "incipiunt Threni, i.e., lamentationes, quae Cynoth hebraice inscribuntur." With this agree the designations Θρῆνοι (lxx), and Threni or Lamentationes, also Lamenta in the Vulgate and among the Latin writers.

The ancient custom of composing and singing lamentations over deceased friends (of which we find proof in the elegies of David on Saul and Jonathan, 2Sa 1:17., and on Abner, 2Sa 3:33., and in the notice given in 2Ch 35:25) was even in early times extended so as to apply to the general calamities that befell countries and cities; hence the prophets often speak of taking up lamentations over the fall of nations, countries, and cities; cf. Amo 5:1; Jer 7:29; Jer 9:9, Jer 9:17., Eze 19:1; Eze 26:17; Eze 27:2, etc. The five lamentations of the book now before us all refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and of the kingdom of Judah by the Chaldeans; in them are deplored the unutterable misery that has befallen the covenant people in this catastrophe, and the disgrace which the fallen daughter of Zion has thereby suffered. This subject is treated of in the five poems from different points of view. In the first, the lamentation is chiefly made over the carrying away of the people into captivity, the desolation of Zion, the acts of oppression, the plundering and the starvation connected with the taking of Jerusalem, the scoffing and contempt shown by the enemy, and the helpless and comfortless condition of the city, now fallen so low. In the second, the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah is set forth as an act of God’s wrath against the sins of the people, the impotency of human comfort in the midst of the terrible calamity is shown, and the people are exhorted to seek help from the Lord. In the third, the deep spiritual sufferings of God’s people in the midst of the general distress form the subject of grievous complaint, out of which the soul endeavours to rise, and to see the compassion of the Lord, and the justice of His dealings on earth generally, as well as in this visitation of judgment; and on this is founded the confident expectation of help. In the fourth, the dreadful misery that has befallen Zion’s citizens of every class is represented as a punishment for the grievous sins of the people and their leaders. And lastly, in the fifth, the Lord is entreated to remove the disgrace from His people and restore them to their former state of grace. According to this view, one may readily perceive in these poems a well-cogitated plan in the treatment of the material common to the whole, and a distinct progress in the execution of this plan. There is no foundation, on the other hand, for the opinion of De Wette, that a gradation may be traced in the description given of the condition of the city; and the attempt of earlier expositors (Horrer, Pareau, Jahn, etc.) to explain and apply the contents of the different poems to different leading features in the Chaldean catastrophe - such as the siege, the capture, the destruction of the city and the temple - has entirely failed. Ewald, again, assumes that the five poems were composed for a time to be solemnly spent in sorrow and penitence, and that in the five lamentations the prophet-writer presents a kind of changing act (drama), making five different acts follow each other progressively; and further, that it is only with the changing series of these that the entire great act of real lamentation and divine sorrow concludes. But neither in the design nor in the execution of these poems are any points to be found which form a safe foundation for this assumption. Ewald is so far correct, however, in his general remark, that the prophetic composer sought to present to the community, in their deep sorrow, words which were meant to direct the grieving heart to the only source of true comfort; and that he understood how "to lead the deeply sorrowing ones imperceptibly to a proper knowledge of themselves and of their own great guilt, and thereby, in the first place, to true sorrow and sighing; that he also knew how to resolve the wildest grief at last into true prayer for divine retribution, and to change new strength into rejoicing over the everlasting Messianic hope, and into the most touching request for the divine compassion" (Die Dichter des Alt. Bundes, 3 Ausg. i. 2, S. 322).

Form

In order to give an air of continuity as well as of exhaustive completeness to the lamentation, which constantly assumes new figures and turns of thought, the poems, with the exception of the last (Lamentations 5), are alphabetically arranged, and in such a form that the first three consist of long stanzas, each of three lines, which are for the most part further divided about the middle by a caesura into two portions of unequal length. These poems are so arranged in accordance with the letters of the alphabet, that in the first two, every verse of three lines, and in the third, every line in the verse, begins with the letters of the alphabet in their order. In this last third poem, moreover, all the letters of the alphabet occur thrice in succession, for which reason the Masoretes have divided these lines of the verses as if each formed a complete verse. In the fourth poem, the verses, which are also arranged and marked alphabetically, consist only of lines which are likewise divided into two by a caesura; in the fifth, the alphabetic arrangement of the verses is departed from, and it is only in their number that the verses of the poem are made like the letters of the alphabet. This alphabetic arrangement of the verses is exactly carried out in the four poems, but with the remarkable difference, that in the first only does the order of the letters entirely agree with the traditional arrangement of the alphabet, while, in the other three, the verse beginning with פ stands before that beginning with ע. This deviation from the rule does not admit of being explained by the assumption that the verses in question were afterwards transposed in consequence of an oversight on the part of the copyist, nor by the supposition that the order of the letters had not yet been absolutely fixed. The former assumption, adopted by Kennicott, Jahn, etc., is shown to be utterly incorrect, by the circumstance that the supposed transmutation cannot be reconciled with the course of thought in the poems; while the latter, which has been maintained by C. B. Michaelis, Ewald, etc., is disproved by the fact that no change has taken place in the order of the letters in the Shemitic alphabets (cf. Sommer,Bibl. Abhandll. i. S. 145; Gesenius, 5, Rem. 2; Ewald, 12, a); and other alphabetic poems, such as Psa 111:1-10, Psa 112:1-10; 119, and Prov 31:10-31, exactly preserve the common arrangement of the letters. Still less does the irregularity in question permit of being attributed to an oversight on the part of the composer (which is Bertholdt’s view), for the irregularity is repeated in three poems. It is rather connected with another circumstance. For we find in other alphabetic poems also, especially the older ones, many deviations from the rule, which undeniably prove that the composers bound themselves rigorously by the order of the alphabet only so long as it fitted in to the course of thought without any artificiality. Thus, for instance, in Ps 145 the Nun verse is wanting; in Ps 34 the Vav verse; while, at the close, after ת, there follows another verse with פ. Just such another closing verse is found in Ps 25, in which, besides, the first two verses begin with א, while ב is wanting; two verses, moreover, begin with ר instead of ק and ר: in Ps 37 ע is replaced by צ, which is again found after פ in its proper order. It is also to be considered that, in may of these poems, the division of the verses into strophes is not continuously and regularly carried out; e.g., in these same Lam; Lam 1:7 and Lam 2:19, verses of four lines occur among those with three. Attempts have, indeed, been made to attribute these irregularities to later reviewers, who mistook the arrangement into strophes; but the arguments adduced will not stand the test; see details in Hävernick’s Einl. iii. S. 51ff.

If we gather all these elements together, we shall be obliged to seek for the reason of most, if not all of these deviations from the norm, in the free use made of such forms by the Hebrew poets. Gerlach here objects that, "in view of the loose connection of thought in alphabetic poems generally, and in these Lamentations particularly, and considering the evident dexterity with which the poet elsewhere uses the form, another arrangement of the series would not have caused him any difficulty." We reply that there is no want in these poems of a careful arrangement of thought; but that the skill of the poet, in making use of this arrangement, was not always sufficient to let him put his thoughts, corresponding to things, into the alphabetic form, without using artificial means or forced constructions; and that, in such cases, the form was rather sacrificed to the thought, than rigorously maintained through the adoption of forced and unnatural forms of expression.

Finally, the reason for the absence of the alphabetic arrangement from the fifth poem is simply, that the lamentation there resolves itself into a prayer, in which the careful consideration indispensable for the carrying out of the alphabetic arrangement must give place to the free and natural outcome of the feelings.

2. The Author, Time of Composition, and Position in the Canon

Author

In the Hebrew text no one is named as the author of the Lamentations; but an old tradition affirms that the prophet Jeremiah composed them. Even so early as in the Alexandrine version, we find prefixed to Jer 1:1, the words, Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ αἰχμαλωτισθῆναι τὸν ̓Ισραὴλ καὶ ̔Ιερουσαλὴμ ἐρημωθῆναι, ἐκάθισεν ̔Ιερεμίας κλαίων καὶ ἐθρήνησε τὸν θρῆνον τοῦτον ἐπὶ ̔Ιερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ει. These words are also found in the Vulgate; only, instead of et dixit, there is the amplification, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans dixit. The Syriac is without this notice; but the Arabic exactly reproduces the words of the lxx, and the Targum begins with the words, Dixit Jeremias propheta et sacerdos magnus. After this, both in the Talmud (Baba bathr. f. 51. 1) and by the Church Fathers (Origen in Euseb. hist. eccl. iv. 25, Jerome in prolog. gal., etc.), as well as the later theologians, the Jeremianic authorship was assumed as certain. The learned but eccentric Hermann von der Hardt was the first to call in question the Jeremianic composition of the book, in a "Programm" published in 1712 at Helmstädt; he attributed the five poems to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and King Jehoiachin (!). This doubt was resumed at a later period by an unknown writer in the Tübingen Theol. Quartalschr. 1819, part i.; it was mentioned by Augusti (Einl.), and further carried out by Conz in Bengel’s Archiv, iv. p. 161f. and 422ff. Kalkar was the next to question the traditional belief, and urged against it the position of the book among the כּתוּבים, and the difference existing between the Greek translation of the Lamentations and that of the prophecies of Jeremiah; these objections he held to be not inconsiderable, yet not decisive. Then Ewald (Poet. Bücher des A. B. i. S. 145, and in the third edition of the same book, i. 2, S. 326; cf. Bibl. Jahrbb. vii. S. 151f., and History of the People of Israel, iv. p. 22) decidedly refused to ascribe the book to the prophet, and rather attributed it to one of his pupils, Baruch or some other; in this opinion he is followed by Bunsen, as is usual in questions regarding the criticism of the Old Testament. Finally, Nägelsbach (in Lange’s series, see Clark’s For. Theol. Lib.), with the help of the Concordance, has prepared a table of those words and forms of words found in the Lamentations, but not occurring in the prophecies of Jeremiah; by this means he has endeavoured to set forth the difference of language in the two books, which he accepts as a decisive reason for rejecting the Jeremianic authorship of the Lamentations. And Thenius assures us that, "in consequence of pretty long and conscientious examination, he has become convinced" that Lamentations 2 and 4, judging from their contents and form, undeniably proceeded from Jeremiah; while Lamentations 1 and 3 were composed by one who was left behind in the country, some time after the destruction of Jerusalem, and shortly before the last deportation; but Lamentations 5 is from a man "who was probably wandering about everywhere, as the leader of a band of nobles seeking a safe asylum, but unwilling to attach themselves to the caravan going to Egypt."

Schrader, in his late revision of De Wette’s Introduction, 339, has thus condensed the results of these critical investigations: In support of the old tradition, which mentions Jeremiah as the author, "one might appeal to the affinity in contents, spirit, tone, and language (De W.). Nevertheless, this same style of language, and the mode of representation, exhibit, again, so much that is peculiar; the artificiality of form, especially in Lamentations 1, 2, and 4, is so unlike Jeremiah’s style; the absence of certain specific Jeremianic peculiarities, and the contradiction between some expressions of the prophet and those of the author of the Lamentations, is again so striking, that one must characterize the authorship of Jeremiah as very improbable, if not quite impossible, especially since the points of likeness to the language used by Jeremiah, on the one hand, are sufficiently accounted for in general by the fact that both works were composed at the same time; and on the other hand, are nullified by other points of likeness to Ezekiel’s style, which show that use has already been made of his prophecies." Again: "The hypothesis of Thenius, that the poems are by different authors, is refuted by the similarity in the fundamental character of the poems, and in the character of the language." We may therefore dispense with a special refutation of this hypothesis, especially since it will be shown in the exposition that the points which Thenius has brought forward in support of his view are all founded on a wretchedly prosaic style of interpretation, which fails to recognise the true nature of poetry, and regards mere poetic figures as actual history. Of the considerations, however, which Schrader has adduced against the Jeremianic authorship, the last two that are mentioned would, of course, have decided influence, if there were any real foundation for them, viz., the contradiction between some expressions of Jeremiah and those of the author of the Lamentations. But they have no foundation in fact.

The only instance of a contradiction is said to exist between Lam 5:7 and Jer 31:29-30. It is quoted by Schrader, who refers to Nöldeke, die alttest. Literat. S. 146. But the expression, "Our fathers have sinned, they are no more, we bear their iniquities" (Lam 5:7), does not stand in contradiction to what is said in Jer. 39:29f. against the current proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth have become blunt," viz., that in the future, after the restoration of Israel, "every one shall die for his own iniquity, and the teeth of every one who eats sour grapes shall become blunt." One statement would contradict the other only if the latter meant that those who bear the punishment were guiltless, or thought themselves such. But how far this thought was from the mind of the suppliant in Lam 5:7, is shown by what he says in Lam 5:16 : "Woe unto us, for we have sinned." According to these words, those in Lam 5:7 can only mean, "We atone not merely for our own sins, but also the sins of our fathers," or, "The sins of our fathers as well as our own are visited on us." This confession accords with Scripture (cf. Exo 20:5; Jer 16:11, etc.), and is radically different from the proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes," etc., which was constantly in the mouth of those who considered themselves innocent, and who thereby perverted the great truth, that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children who hate Him, into the false statement, that innocent children must atone for the sins of their fathers. On this, cf. also the exposition of Lam 5:7. But when Schrader, following Nöldeke, further remarks, "that Jeremiah would hardly have said nothing whatever about God’s having foretold all this suffering through him," there lies at the foundation of this remark the preposterous notion, that Jeremiah ought to have brought himself prominently forward in the Lamentations (supposing him to have written them), as one who ought not to suffer the evil under which the people were groaning. Such gross Pelagianism was foreign to the prophet Jeremiah. No one need speak, therefore, of a contradiction between the Lamentations and the prophecies of Jeremiah.

As little proof is there for the assertion that the author of the Lamentations made use of the prophecies of Ezekiel. Nägelsbach and Schrader, in support of this allegation, have adduced only Lam 2:14, compared with Eze 12:24; Eze 13:5.; and Lam 2:15, compared with Eze 27:3; Eze 28:12. Nägelsbach says: "The words, נביאיך חזוּ לך, in Lam 2:14, are no doubt a quotation from Eze 12:24; Eze 13:6-11, Eze 13:14-15, Eze 13:23; Eze 21:28, 34; Eze 22:28. For it is only in these passages, and nowhere else in the Old Testament, that the expression חזוּ occurs, and in combination with תפל. Moreover, כּלילת יפי, in Lam 2:15, is an expression decidedly peculiar to Ezekiel, for it occurs only in Eze 27:3 (cf. Eze 28:12), and nowhere else." But the three expressions of these two passages form really too weak a proof that the author of the Lamentations made use of the prophecies of Ezekiel. Of course, as regards the mere form of the words, it is true that the expression כּלילת יפי, "she who is perfect in beauty," is found, besides Lam 2:15, only in Eze 27:3, where the prophet says of Tyre, "Thou sayest, I am perfect in beauty," and in Eze 28:12, where it is said of the king of Tyre, "Thou art... כּליל;" but the thing occurs also in Psa 50:2, with the unimportant change in the form of the words מכלל יפי, "perfection of beauty," where Zion is so designated. Now, if we not merely gather out of the Concordance the expressions of like import, but also keep in view the idea presented in Lam 2:15, "Is this the city שׁיּאמרוּ?" and at the same time consider that the poet says this of Jerusalem, there cannot be the least doubt that he did not take these epithets, which are applied to Jerusalem, from Ezekiel, who used them to designate Tyre, but that he had Psa 50:2 in view, just as the other epithet, "a joy of the whole earth," points to Psa 48:3. Only on the basis of these passages in the Psalms could he employ the expression sheשׁיּאמרוּ, "which they call." Or are we to believe that the word כּליל, כּלילה was originally unknown to the author of the Lamentations, and that he first became acquainted with it through Ezekiel? Nor, again, can we say that the words taken by Nägelsbach out of Lam 2:14 are "undoubtedly a quotation from Ezekiel," because they do not occur in this way in any of the passages cited from Ezekiel. All that we can found on this assertion is, that in the prophecies of Jeremiah neither חזה שׁוא or the word-form תּפל occurs; while Ezekiel not only uses חזון שׁוא, Eze 12:14, חזה שׁוא, and מחזה שׁוא, as synonymous with דּבּר שׁוא, קסם שׁוא, and חזה כזב (Eze 13:6-9, Eze 13:23), but also says of the false prophets, Eze 13:9-11, "They build a wall, and plaster it over with lime" (טחים, Eze 13:10, cf. Eze 13:14, Eze 13:15, Eze 13:18). These same false prophets are also called, in Eze 13:11, טחי תפל, "those who plaster with lime." But Ezekiel uses the word תפל only in the meaning of "lime," while the writer of these Lamentations employs it in the metaphorical sense, "absurdity, nonsense," in the same way as Jer; Jer 23:13, uses תּפלה, "absurdity," of the prophets of Samaria. Now, just as Jeremiah has not taken תּפלה from Ezekiel, where it does not occur at all (but only in Job 1:22; Job 24:12), so there is as little likelihood in the opinion that the word תפל, in Lam 2:14, has been derived from Ezekiel, because Job 6:6 shows that it was far from rarely used by the Hebrews.

Nor does the non-occurrence of חזה שׁוא in Jeremiah afford any tenable ground for the opinion that the expression, as found in Lam 2:14, was taken from Ezekiel. The idea contained in חזה was not unknown to Jeremiah; for he speaks, Jer 14:14, of חזון שׁקר, and in Jer 23:16 of חזון מלבּם, referring to the false prophets, whose doings he characterizes as שׁקר sa sezi; cf. Jer 6:13; Jer 8:10; Jer 14:14; Jer 23:25., 32, Jer 27:10, Jer 27:15; Jer 28:16; Jer 29:9, Jer 29:23, Jer 29:31. Further, if we consult only the text of the Bible instead of the Concordance, and ponder the connection of thought in the separate passages, we can easily perceive why, instead of שׁקר (חזון) חזה, which is so frequent in Jeremiah, there is found in Lam 2:14, חזה שׁוא and חזה משּׂאות שׁåא dna . In the addresses in which Jeremiah warns the people of the lying conduct of the false prophets, who spoke merely out of their own heart, שׁקר was the most suitable expression; in Lam 2:14, on the contrary, where complaint is made that the prophecies of their prophets afford no comfort to the people in their present distress, שׁוא was certainly the most appropriate word which the composer could select, even without a knowledge of Ezekiel. There can be no question, then, regarding a quotation from that prophet. but even though it were allowed that 2:14 implied an actual acquaintance with Lamentations 12 and 13 of Ezekiel, still, nothing would follow from that against the Jeremianic authorship of the Lamentations. For Jeremiah uttered these prophecies in the sixth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, i.e., in the third year before the last siege, and the fifth before the destruction of Jerusalem; and considering the frequent intercourse carried on between the captives in Babylon and those who still remained in Judah and Jerusalem, in virtue of which the former even sent letters to Jerusalem (cf. Jer 29:25), some of Ezekiel’s prophecies might have become known in the latter city a considerable time before the final catastrophe, and even reached the ears of Jeremiah.

With the demolition of these two arguments, the main strength of our opponents, in the bringing forward of proof, has been broken. Schrader has not adduced a single instance showing "the absence of certain specific Jeremianic peculiarities." For "the comparatively less emphasis given to the sins of the people," which is alleged in Nöldeke’s note, cannot be applied in support of that position, even if it were correct, in view of the prominence so frequently assigned to grievous sin, Lam 1:5, Lam 1:8,Lam 1:14, Lam 1:18, Lam 1:22; Lam 2:14; Lam 3:39, Lam 3:42; Lam 4:6, Lam 4:13; Lam 5:7; because the Lamentations were not composed with the design of punishing the people for their sin, but were intended to comfort in their misery, and to raise up again, the people who had been severely chastised for the guilt of their sin, which was greater than the sin of Sodom (Lam 4:6). Add to this, that Schrader, by using this argument, contradicts himself; for he has shortly before adduced the affinity in contents, spirit, tone, and language as an argument to which one might appeal in support of the Jeremianic authorship, and this affinity he has established by a long series of quotations. ^{▼▼The passages are the following: Lam 1:8., cf. with Jer 4:30; Jer 13:21., 26; Lam 1:20; Lam 4:13., with Jer 14:7, Jer 14:18; Lam 2:14 with Jer 14:13; Lam 1:16; Lam 2:11; Lam 3:48-49, with Jer 8:21., Jer 9:16., Jer 13:17; Jer 14:17;Lam 3:52 with Jer. 15:26f.; Lamentations 3 with Jer 15:10., Jer 17:5., 14ff., Jer 20:7., 14ff. (De Wette). Further, בּתוּלת בּת , Lam 1:15; Lam 2:13, cf. Jer 14:17; Jer 46:11; מגור, Lam 2:22, cf. Jer 4:25; Jer 10:3, Jer 10:10; זולל, Lam 1:11, cf. Jer 15:19; מחמוּדים instead of מחמדּים, Lam 1:11; נידה instead of נדּה, Lam 1:8; לוא instead of לא; אכל ל, Lam 4:5; גּאל, Lam 4:14; תּפל, Lam 2:14. Finally, Chaldaizing forms: שׁוממין, Lam 1:4; ישׁנא instead of ישׁנה, Lam 4:1; מטּרא, Lam 3:12; העיב, Lam 2:1; שׂרג, Lam 1:14.}

Further, the remark that "the artificiality of form, especially in Lamentations 1, 2, and 4, is unlike Jeremiah," is correct only in so far as no alphabetic poems are to be found in the prophetic book of Jeremiah. But are we then to look for poetic compositions in prophetic addresses and historical narratives? The remark now quoted is based on the assertion made by other critics, that the alphabetic arrangement of poetic compositions generally is a mere rhetorical work of art, and the production of a later but degenerate taste (Ed. Reuss and others), or a piece of trifling unworthy of the prophet. This view has long ago been shown groundless; cf. Hävernick’s Einl. iii. S. 46ff. Even Hupfeld, who calls the alphabetical arrangement "artificiality or trifling," considers that it is of a kindred nature with collections of proverbs, and with small poems of a didactic character but deficient in close connection of thought; he thinks, too, that it may be comparatively ancient as a style of composition, and that it was not applied till later to other species of writing (as Lamentations). To this, Ed. Riehm, in the second edition of Hupfeld on the Psalms, i. p. 31, has added a very true remark: "In lyric poetry proper, the employment of this artificial form is naturally and intrinsically justified only when a single fundamental strain, that fills the whole soul of the poet, - deep, strong, and sustained, - seeks to die away in many different forms of chords; hence its employment in the elegy." The application of this artificial form to such a purpose is perfectly justified in these Lamentations; and the attempt to deny that these poems are the work of Jeremiah, on the ground of their artificial construction, would be as great an exhibition of arbitrary conduct, as if any one refused to ascribe the hymn "Befiehl du deine Wege" to Paul Gerhardt, or "Wie schön leucht uns der Morgenstern" to Philip Nicolai, on the ground of the "artificiality" that manifests itself in the beginning of the verses.

Finally, the language and the mode of representation in these poems certainly exhibit much that is peculiar; and we find in them many words, word-forms, and modes of expression, which do not occur in the prophecies of Jeremiah. But it must also be borne in mind that the Lamentations are not prophetic addresses intended to warn, rebuke, and comfort, but lyric poetry, which has its own proper style of language, and this different from prophetic address. Both the subject-matter and the poetic form of these poems, smooth though this is in general, necessarily resulted in this, - that through the prevalence of peculiar thoughts, modes of representation, and feelings, the language also received an impress, in words and modes of expression, that was peculiar to itself, and different from the prophetic diction of Jeremiah. The mere collection of the words, word-forms, and expressions peculiar to the Lamentations, and not occurring in the prophecies of Jeremiah, cannot furnish irrefragable proof that the authors of the two writings were different, unless it be shown, at the same time, that the character of the language in both writings is essentially different, and that for the ideas, modes of representation, and thoughts common to both, other words and expressions are used in the Lamentations than those found in the prophecies of Jeremiah. But neither the one nor the other has been made out by Nägelsbach. After giving the long list he has prepared, which occupies five and a half columns, and which gives the words occurring in the different verses of the five chapters, he explains that he does not seek to lay any weight on the ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, probably because Jeremiah also has many such words; but then he raises the question, "How is the fact to be accounted for, that Jeremiah never uses עליון or אדני except as divine names, while the latter, nevertheless, occurs fourteen times in the Lamentations; that Jeremiah never uses הבּיט, יגה, אנח, זנח, חטא, מחמד, בּלּע, לא חמל, עפר, עטף, חזה, חשׁך, נגינה, יחל, נשׂא פּנים, nor למו, the relative שׁ, or בּקרב without a suffix, while all these expressions occur more or less frequently in the Lamentations? And it has been well remarked that these expressions are not of so specific a kind, that the fact of their not being used in the prophetic book, but employed in the Lamentations, might be explained from the nature of the contents; but they belong, in great measure, to what I may call the house-dress of the author, which he constantly wears, - which he more or less unconsciously and unintentionally uses." We answer that the simile of the house-dress has been most unhappily chosen. Although the style of a writer may possibly be compared to his coat, yet nobody is in the habit of wearing his house-coat always, on Sundays and week-days, in the house and out of it; so, too, no writer is in the habit of using always the same words in prose and poetry. When we investigate the matter itself, we find we must, first of all, deduct fully one-third of the words enumerated, although these have evidently been collected and arranged as the most convincing proof; the words thus rejected are also found in the prophetic book of Jeremiah, though not quite in the same grammatical form, as the note shows. ^{▼▼For בּקרב, without a suffix, Lam 3:45, exactly corresponds to מקּרב, Jer 6:1 : cf. besides, בּקרבּי, Lam 4:15, Lam 4:20, with Jer 23:9; בּקרבּהּ, Jer 4:13, and Jer 6:6; Jer 46:21. לא, Lam 2:2, Lam 2:17, Lam 2:21; Lam 3:43, is found five times in Jeremiah (Jer 13:14; Jer 15:5; Jer 21:7; Jer 50:14; Jer 51:3), not only in the 3rd pers. perfect, but also in the imperfect. Of בּלע there occurs the Kal, Jer 51:34, and the noun בּלע, Jer 51:44; from חשׁך, the noun חשׁך certainly is not found, but perhaps the verb is used in the Hiphil, Jer 13:16, as the Kal in Lam 4:8; Lam 5:16. With חטא, Lam 1:8 and Lam 3:39, alternates חטּאת, Lam 4:6, Lam 4:22, which Jeremiah frequently uses. Of שׁמם, the participle שׁומם certainly is not found in Jeremiah, but the adj. שׁמם is found in Jer 12:11, as in Lam 5:8; and the Niphal of the verb in Jer 4:9 and Jer 33:10, as in Lam 4:5. Lastly, neither is ענה wholly wanting in Jeremiah; for in Jer 22:16 we are to read עני, miser, although the noun עני and the verb are not met with in his book.}

Then we ask the counter question, whether words which one who composed five poems employs only in one of these pieces, or only once or twice throughout the whole, ought to be reckoned as his house-dress? Of the words adduced, we do not find a single on in all the five poems, but חשׁך only in Lam 3:2, נשׂא פּנים only in Lam 4:16, נגינה only in Lam 3:14 and Lam 5:14, פּצה פה only in Lam 2:16 and Lam 3:46, עליון only in Lam 3:35 and Lam 3:38, אנח (Niphal) only in Lamentations 1 (four times). Moreover, we ask whether Jeremiah might not also, in lyric poems, use poetic words which could not be employed in homely address? But of the words enumerated, למו, עליון, and אדני alone as a name of God, together with נגינה, belong to the poetic style. ^{▼▼עליון as a name of God (3:35 and 38), besides Isa 14:14, is found only in poetic pieces, Num 26:16; Deu 32:8, and about twenty times in the Psalms; אדני used by itself, except in direct addresses to God and interviews with Him, occurs in the Psalms about forty times, and also in the addresses of particular prophets, composed in the loftier style, particularly Isaiah and Amos; lastly, נגינה, in Amo 3:14, occurs as a reminiscence of Job 30:9, and in the Psalms and hymns, Isa 38:20, and Hab 3:10.}

They are therefore not found in Jeremiah, simply because his prophetic addresses are neither lyric poems, nor rise to the lyric height of prophetic address. The rest of the words mentioned are also found in the Psalms especially, and in Job, as will be shown in the detailed exposition. And when we go deeper into the matter, we find that, in the Lamentations, there is the same tendency to reproduce the thoughts and language of the Psalms (especially those describing the psalmist’s sufferings) and of the book of Job, that characterizes the prophecies of Jeremiah, in the use he makes of Deuteronomy and the writings of earlier prophets. Another peculiarity of Jeremiah’s style is seen in the fact that the composer of the Lamentations, like Jeremiah in his addresses, repeats himself much, not merely in his ideas, but also in his words: e.g., לא חמל occurs four times, of which three instances are in Lamentations 2 (Lam 2:2, Lam 2:17, Lam 2:21) and one in Lam 3:43; מחמד (and מחמוד) also occurs four times (Lam 1:7, Lam 1:10-11; Lam 2:4), and נאנה as frequently (Lam 1:4, Lam 1:8,Lam 1:11, Lam 1:21); יגה is found five times (Lam 1:4-5, Lam 1:12; Lam 3:32-33), but in all the other Old Testament writings only thrice; and Jeremiah also uses יגון four times, while, of all the other prophets, Isaiah is the only one who employs it, and this he does twice.

These marks may be sufficient of themselves to show unmistakeably that the peculiarity of the prophet as an author is also found in the Lamentations, and that nothing can be discovered showing a difference of language in the expression of thoughts common to both writings. But this will be still more evident if we consider, finally, the similarity, both as regards the subjects of thought and the style of expression, exhibited in a considerable number of instances in which certain expressions characteristic of Jeremiah are also found in Lamentations: e.g., the frequent employment of שׁבר and שׁבר בּת עמּי, Lam 2:11, Lam 2:13; Lam 3:47-48; Lam 4:10, cf. with Jer 4:6, Jer 4:20; Jer 6:1, Jer 6:14; Jer 8:11, Jer 8:21; Jer 10:19; Jer 14:17, etc.; מגוּרי, Lam 2:22, with מגור מסּביב, Jer 6:25; Jer 20:3, Jer 20:10; Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29; (מים, or) עין, Lam 1:16; Lam 2:18; Lam 3:48; Lam 2:11, cf. with Jer. 8:23; Jer 9:17; Jer 13:17; Jer 14:17; הייתי שׂחק, Jer 3:14, with הייתי לשׂחק, Jer 20:7; פּחד ופחת, Lam 3:47, as in Jer 48:43. Cf. also the note on p. 471, after the passages quoted by De Wette. Pareau, then, had good reason when, long ago, he pointed out the peculiarities of Jeremiah in the style of the Lamentations; and only a superficial criticism can assert against this, that the existing coincidences find a sufficient explanation in the assumption that, speaking generally, the two books were composed at the same period. ^{▼▼Pareau has discussed this question very well in the Observatt. general., prefixed to his Commentary, 6-8, and concludes with this result: Non tantum regnant in Threnis varii illi characteres, quos stilo Jeremiae proprios esse vidimus, verum etiam manifesto cernitur in eorum scriptore animus tener, lenis, ad quaevis tristia facile commotus ac dolorem aegre ferens. Quod autem in iis frequentius observetur, quam in sermonibus Jeremiae propheticis, dictionis sublimitas et brevitas majorque imaginum copia et pulchritudo, atque conceptuum vis et intentio: illud vix aliter fieri potuisse agnoscemus, si ad argumenti naturam attendamus, quo vehementur affici debuerit Jeremias; etc., p. 40.}

We therefore close this investigation, after having proved that the tradition which ascribes the Lamentations to the prophet Jeremiah as their author is as well-founded as any ancient historical tradition whatever.

Time of Composition

From the organic connection of the five poems, as shown above, it follows of itself that they cannot have proceeded from different authors, nor originated at different periods, but were composed at brief intervals, one after the other, not long after the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the kingdom of Judah, and in the order in which they have been transmitted to us. What gives special support to this conclusion is the circumstance that, throughout these Lamentations, there is no possibility of mistaking the expression of grief, still fresh in the writer’s mind, over the horrors of that fearful catastrophe. The assumption, however, that the prophet, in the picture he draws, had before his eyes the ruins of the city, and the misery of those who had been left behind, cannot be certainly made out from a consideration of the contents of the poems. But there seems to be no doubt that Jeremiah composed them in the interval between the destruction of Jerusalem and his involuntary departure to Egypt. There is no tenable ground for the confident assertion of Ewald, that they were composed in Egypt; for the passages, Jer 1:3; Jer 4:18., Lam 5:5, Lam 5:9, do not mean that the writer was then living among the fugitives who had fled in such vast multitudes to Egypt, partly before and partly after the destruction of the city.

Position of the Lamentations in the Canon

The separation of the Lamentations from the book of the prophecies of Jeremiah, and their reception into the third division of the Old Testament canon (the Kethubim), - which Kalkschmidt and Thenius, in complete misunderstanding of the principle on which the tripartition of the canon is founded, would bring to bear as an argument against their having been composed by Jeremiah, - are fully accounted for by their subjective, lyric contents; in consequence of this they differ essentially from the prophecies, and take their place alongside of the Psalms and other productions of sacred poesy. This position of theirs among the Kethubim must be considered (against Bleek) as the original one; their arrangement by the side of the prophetic writings of Jeremiah in the lxx and Vulgate, which Luther as well as the translators of the "authorized" English version has retained, must have originated with the Alexandrine translators, who could not understand the arrangement of the Hebrew canon, and who afterwards, in order to make the number of the books of the Bible the same as that of the letters of the alphabet (twenty-two), counted the Lamentations as forming one book with the prophecies of Jeremiah. That this arrangement and enumeration of the Lamentations, observed by the Hellenists, deviated from the tradition of the Jews of Palestine, may be perceived from the remark of Jerome, in his Prol. galeat., regarding this mode of reckoning: quamquam nonnulli Ruth et Cynoth inter hagiographa scriptitent, et hos libros in suo putent numero supputandos. Their arrangement in the series of the five Megilloth (rolls appointed to be read on certain annual feast-days and memorial-days) in our editions of the Hebrew Bible was not fixed till a later period, when, according to the ordinance in the synagogal liturgy, the Lamentations were appointed to be read on the ninth of the month Ab, as the anniversary of the destruction of the temples of Solomon and of Herod. (Cf. Herzog’s Real-Encykl. xv. 310.)

The importance of the Lamentations, as a part of the canon, does not so much consists in the mere fact that they were composed by Jeremiah, and contain outpourings of sorrow on different occasions over the misery of his people, as rather in their being an evidence of the interest with which Jeremiah, in the discharge of his functions as a prophet, continued to watch over the ruins of Jerusalem. In these Lamentations he seeks not merely to give expression to the sorrow of the people that he may weep with them, but by his outpour of complaint to rouse his fellow-countrymen to an acknowledgement of God’s justice in this visitation, to keep them from despair under the burden of unutterable woe, and by teaching them how to give due submission to the judgment that has befallen them, to lead once more to God those who would not let themselves be brought to Him through his previous testimony regarding that judgment while it was yet impending. The Jewish synagogue has recognised and duly estimated the importance of the Lamentations in these respects, by appointing that the book should be read on the anniversary of the destruction of the temple. A like appreciation has been made by the Christian Church, which, rightly perceiving that the Israelitish community is the subject in these poems, attributed to them a reference to the church militant; and, viewing the judgment on the people of God as a prophecy of the judgment that came on Him who took the sins of the whole world upon Himself, it has received a portion of the Lamentations into the ritual for the Passion Week, and concludes each of these lessons with the words, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum, deum tuum." Cf. The Passion Week in its Ceremonies and Prayers, Spires 1856, and the Officium hebdomadae sanctae, a reprinted extract from Dr. Reischl’s Passionale, Münich 1857. The motives for this choice are so far set forth by Allioli (in Neumann, ii. S. 486) in the following terms: "The church wished believers to see, in the great punishments which God had ordained against Jerusalem by the instrumentality of Nebuchadnezzar, the still more severe chastisement that God has brought on Israel after the dreadful murder of the Messias. She seeks to bewail the unhappy condition of the blinded nation, once favoured with the divine revelation. In the fall of Jerusalem, she seeks to deplore the evil that has come on herself from external and internal foes, the persecution of brother by brother, the havoc made by false teachers, the looseness of opinions, the sad advances made by indifference in matters of faith and by the corruption of morals. In the devastation and the penalties inflicted on Jerusalem, she wishes to present for consideration the destruction which comes on every soul that dies the death in sins. In the condition of the ruined city and the homeless nation, she seeks to make men bewail the homeless condition of the whole race, who have fallen into decay and disorder through Adam’s sin. And lastly, in the nation visited with punishment, she seeks to set forth Jesus Christ Himself, in so far as He has become the substitute of all men, and suffered for their sins." This display of all these references is sadly deficient in logical arrangement; but it contains a precious kernel of biblical truth, which the Evangelical Church ^{▼▼i.e., the "United Evangelical Church" of Germany, the National Protestant Church, which was formed by the coalition of the Lutheran and Reformed (or Calvinistic) communions. This union began in Prussia in 1817, and was gradually effected in other German states. But many staunch adherents of the old distinctive (Augsburg and Helvetic) Confessions endured persecution rather than consent to enter the "United" Church. The liturgy was framed under the special direction of the Prussian king in 1821, and after some alterations were made on it, appointed by a royal decree, in 1830, to be used in all the churches. - Tr.} has endeavoured in many ways to turn to advantage. Regarding the adaptations of the Lamentations made for liturgical use in the Evangelical Church, see particulars in Schöberlein, Schatz des liturgischen Chor-und Gemeindegesanges, ii. S. 444ff.

As to the commentaries on the Lamentations, see Keil’s Manual of Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 508 Clark’s Foreign Theol. Library. To the list of works therein given are to be appended, as later productions, Ewald’s recent treatment of the book in the third edition of the Dichter des A. Bundes (1866), i. 2, where the Lamentations have been inserted among the Psalms, S. 321ff.; Wilh. Engelhardt, die Klagel. Jerem. übersetzt. 1867; Ernst Gerlach, die Klagel. erkl. 1868; and Nägelsbach, in Lange’s series of commentaries (Clark’s English edition), 1868. Sorrow and Wailing over the Fall of Jerusalem and Judah ^{▼▼Keil has attempted, in his German translation of this and the next three chapters, to reproduce something of the alphabetic acrosticism of the original (see above, p. 466); but he has frequently been compelled, in consequence, to give something else than a faithful reproduction of the Hebrew. It will be observed that his example has not been followed here; but his peculiar renderings have generally been given, except where these peculiarities were evidently caused by the self-imposed restraint now mentioned. He himself confesses, in two passages omitted from the present translation (pp. 591 and 600 of the German original), that for the sake of reproducing the alphabeticism, he has been forced to deviate from a strict translation of the ideas presented in the Hebrew. - Tr.} 1 Alas! how she sits alone, the city that was full of people!

She has become like a widow, that was great among the nations;

The princess among provinces has become a vassal. 2 She weeps bitterly through the night, and her tears are upon her cheek;

She has no comforter out of all her lovers:

All her friends have deceived her; they have become enemies to her. 3 Judah is taken captive out of affliction, and out of much servitude;

She sitteth among the nations, she hath found no rest;

All those who pursued her overtook her in the midst of her distresses. 4 The ways of Zion mourn, for want of those who went up to the appointed feast;

All her gates are waste; her priests sigh;

Her virgins are sad, and she herself is in bitterness. 5 Her enemies have become supreme; those who hate her are at ease;

For Jahveh hath afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions:

Her young children have gone into captivity before the oppressor. 6 And from the daughter of Zion all her honour has departed;

Her princes have become like harts [that] have found no pasture,

And have gone without strength before the pursuer. 7 In the days of her affliction and her persecutions,

Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things which have been from the days of old:

When her people fell by the hand of the oppressor, and there was none to help her,

Her oppressors saw her, - they laughed at her times of rest. 8 Jerusalem hath sinned grievously, therefore she hath become an abomination:

All those who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness;

And she herself sighs, and turns backward. 9 Her filth is on her flowing skirts; she remembered not her latter end;

And so she sank wonderfully: she has no comforter. "O Jahveh, behold my misery!" for the enemy hath boasted. 10 The oppressor hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things;

For she hath seen [how] the heathen have come into her sanctuary, [Concerning] whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy community. 11 All her people [have been] sighing, seeking bread;

They have given their precious things for bread, to revive their soul.

See, O Jahveh, and consider that I am become despised. 12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass along the way?

Consider, and see if there be sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me,

Whom Jahveh hath afflicted in the day of the burning of His anger. 13 From above He sent fire in my bones, so that it mastered them;

He hath spread a net for my feet, He hath turned me back;

He hath made me desolate and ever languishing. 14 The yoke of my transgressions hath been fastened to by His hand;

They have interwoven themselves, they have come up on my neck; it hath made my strength fail:

The Lord hath put me into the hands of [those against whom] I cannot rise up. 15 The Lord hath removed all my strong ones in my midst;

He hath proclaimed a festival against me, to break my young men in pieces:

The Lord hath trodden the wine-press for the virgin daughter of Judah. 16 Because of these things I weep; my eye, my eye runneth down [with] water,

Because a comforter is far from me, one to refresh my soul;

My children are destroyed, because the enemy hath prevailed. 17 Zion stretcheth forth her hands, [yet] there is none to comfort her;

Jahveh hath commanded concerning Jacob; his oppressors are round about him:

Jerusalem hath become an abomination among them. 18 Jahveh is righteous, for I have rebelled against His mouth.

Hear now, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow;

My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. 19 I called for my lovers, [but] they have deceived me;

My priests and my elders expired in the city,

When they were seeking bread for themselves, that they might revive their spirit. 20 Behold, O Jahveh, how distressed I am! my bowels are moved;

My heart is turned within me, for I was very rebellious:

Without, the sword bereaveth [me]; within, [it is] like death. 21 They have heard that I sigh, I have no comforter:

All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad because Thou hast done it.

Thou bringest the day [that] Thou hast proclaimed, that they may be like me. 22 Let all their wickedness come before Thee,

And do to them as Thou hast done to me because of all my transgressions;

For my sighs are many and my heart is faint.

Lamentations 1:1-22

The poem begins with a doleful meditation on the deeply degraded state into which Jerusalem has fallen; and in the first half (Lam 1:1-11), lament is made over the sad condition of the unhappy city, which, forsaken by all her friends, and persecuted by enemies, has lost all her glory, and, finding no comforter in her misery, pines in want and disesteem. In the second half (Lam 1:12-22), the city herself is introduced, weeping, and giving expression to her sorrow over the evil determined against her because of her sins. Both portions are closely connected. On the one hand, we find, even in Lam 1:9 and Lam 1:11, tones of lamentation, like signs from the city, coming into the description of her misery, and preparing the way for the introduction of her lamentation in Lam 1:12-22; on the other hand, her sin is mentioned even so early as in Lam 1:5 and Lam 1:8 as the cause of her misfortune, and the transition thus indicated from complaint to the confession of guilt found in the second part. This transition is made in Lam 1:17 by means of a kind of meditation on the cheerless and helpless condition of the city. The second half of the poem is thereby divided into two equal portions, and in such a manner that, while in the former of these (Lam 1:12-16) it is complaint that prevails, and the thought of guilt comes forward only in Lam 1:14, in the latter (Lam 1:18-22) the confession of God’s justice and of sin in the speaker becomes most prominent; and the repeated mention of misery and oppression rises into an entreaty for deliverance from the misery, and the hope that the Lord will requite all evil on the enemy.

Lam 1:1-11

Doleful consideration and description of the dishonour that has befallen Jerusalem. In these verses the prophet, in the name of the godly, pours out his heart before the Lord. The dreadful turn that things have taken is briefly declared in Lam 1:1 in two clauses, which set forth the fall of Jerusalem from its former glory into the depths of disgrace and misery, in such a way that the verse contains the subject unfolded in the description that follows. We have deviated from the Masoretic pointing, and arranged the verse into three members, as in the succeeding verses, which nearly throughout form tristichs, and have been divided into two halves by means of the Athnach; but we agree with the remark of Gerlach, "that, according to the sense, היתה למס and not היתה כּאלמנה is the proper antithesis to רבּתי בגּוים." איכה is here, as in Lam 2:1; Lam 4:1-2, an expression of complaint mingled with astonishment; so in Jer 48:17; Isa 1:21. "She sits solitary" (cf. Jer 15:17) is intensified by "she has become like a widow." Her sitting alone is a token of deep sorrow (cf. Neh 1:4), and, as applied to a city, is a figure of desolation; cf. Isa 27:10. Here, however, the former reference is the main one; for Jerusalem is personified as a woman, and, with regard to its numerous population, is viewed as the mother of a great multitude of children. רבּתי is a form of the construct state, lengthened by Yod compaginis, found thrice in this verse, and also in Isa 1:21, elegiac composition; such forms are used, in general, only in poetry that preserves and affects the antique style, and reproduces its peculiar ring. ^{▼▼On the different views regarding the origin and meaning of this Yod compaginis, cf. Fr. W. M. Philippi, Wesen u. Ursprung des Status constr. im Hebr. S. 96ff. This writer (S. 152ff.) takes it to be the remnant of a primitive Semitic noun-inflexion, which has been preserved only in a number of composite proper names of ancient origin e.g., מלכּיחדק, etc.]; in the words אב, אח, and חם, in which it has become fused with the third radical into a long vowel; and elsewhere only between two words standing in the construct relation see Ges. §90; Ewald, §211.}

According to the twofold meaning of רב (Much and Great), רבּתי in the first clause designates the multiplicity, multitude of the population; in the second, the greatness or dignity of the position that Jerusalem assumed among the nations, corresponding to the שׂרתי במּדינות, "a princess among the provinces." מדינה, from דּין (properly, the circuit of judgment or jurisdiction), is the technical expression for the provinces of the empires in Asia (cf. Est 1:1, Est 1:22, etc.), and hence, after the exile, was sued of Judah, Ezr 2:1; Neh 7:6, and in 1Ki 20:17 of the districts in the kingdom of Israel. Here, however, המּדינות are not the circuits or districts of Judah (Thenius), but the provinces of the heathen nations rendered subject to the kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon (corresponding to הגּויים), as in Ecc 2:8. Jerusalem was formerly a princess among the provinces, during the flourishing period of the Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon. The writer keeps this time before his mind, in order to depict the contrast between the past and present. The city that once ruled over nations and provinces has now become but dependent on others. מס (the derivation of which is disputed) does not mean soccage or tribute, but the one who gives soccage service, a soccager; see on Exo 1:11 and 1Ki 4:6. The words, "The princess has become a soccager," signify nothing more than, "She who once ruled over peoples and countries has now fallen into abject servitude," and are not (with Thenius) to be held as "referring to the fact that the remnant that has been left behind, or those also of the former inhabitants of the city who have returned home, have been set to harder labour by the conquerors." When we find the same writer inferring from this, that these words presuppose a state of matters in which the country round Jerusalem has been for some time previously under the oppression of Chaldean officers, and moreover holding the opinion that the words "how she sits..." could only have been written by one who had for a considerable period been looking on Jerusalem in its desolate condition, we can only wonder at such an utter want of power to understand poetic language. Lam 1:12-16 The lamentation of the city. - Lam 1:12. The first words, לוא אליכם, are difficult to explain. The lxx have οἱ πρὸς ὑμᾶς; but the reading ought certainly to be οἴ π. ὑ.. The Vulgate is, o vos omnes; the Chaldee, adjuro vos omnes. They all seem to have taken לוא as an exclamation. Hence Le Clerc and others would read לוּא; but in this case one would require to supply a verb: thus, Le Clerc renders utinam adspiciatis, or, "O that my cry might reach you!" But these insertions are very suspicious. The same holds true of the explanation offered by J. D. Michaelis in his edition of Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, Lect. xxii.: non vobis, transeuntes in via, haec acclamo (viz., the closing words of Lam 1:11): this is decidedly opposed by the mere fact that passers-by certainly could not regard a call addressed to Jahveh as applying to them. Without supplying something or other, the words, as they stand, remain incomprehensible. Nägelsbach would connect them with what follows: "[Look] not to yourselves...but look and see...." But the antithesis, "Look not upon yourselves, but look on me (or on my sorrow)," has no proper meaning. If we compare the kindred thought presented in Lam 1:18, "Hear, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow," then לוא seems to express an idea corresponding to שׁמעוּ נא. But we obtain this result only if we take the words as a question, as if לוא = הלוא, though not in the sense of an asseveration (which would be unsuitable here, for which reason also הלוא is not used); the question is shown to be such merely by the tone, as in Exo 8:22; 2Sa 23:5. Thus, we might render the sense with Gerlach: Does not (my sighing - or, more generally, my misery - come) to you? The Syriac, Lowth, Ewald, Thenius, and Vaihinger have taken the words as a question; Ewald, following Pro 8:4, would supply אקרא. But such an insertion gives a rendering which is both harsh and unjustifiable, although it lies at the foundation of Luther’s "I say unto you." Hence we prefer Gerlach’s explanation, and accordingly give the free rendering, "Do ye not observe, sc. what has befallen me, - or, my misery?" The words are, in any case, intended to prepare the way for, and thereby render more impressive, the summons addressed to all those passing by to look on and consider her sorrow. עולל is passive (Poal): "which is done to me." Since הוגה has no object, the second אשׁר does not permit of being taken as parallel with the first, though the Chaldee, Rosenmüller, Kalkschmidt, and others have so regarded it, and translate: "with which Jahveh hath afflicted me." With Ewald, Thenius, Gerlach, etc., we must refer it to לי: "me whom Jahveh hath afflicted." The expression, "on the day of the burning of His anger," is pretty often found in Jeremiah; see Jer 4:8, Jer 4:26; Jer 25:37, etc. Lam 1:17-18

The complaint regarding the want of comforters is corroborated by the writer, who further developes this thought, and gives some proof of it. By this contemplative digression he breaks in on the lamentation of the city, as if the voice of the weeping one were choked with tears, thus he introduces into the complaint a suitable pause, that both serves to divide the lamentation into two, and also brings a turn in its contents. It is in vain that Zion stretches out her hands (פּרשׁ בּ, to make a spreading out with the hands) for comforters and helpers; there is none she can embrace, for Jahveh has given orders against Jacob, that those round about him should act as oppressors. סביביו are the neighbouring nations round about Israel. These are all of hostile disposition, and strive but to increase his misery; cf. Lam 1:2. Jerusalem has become their abomination (cf. Lam 1:8), since God, in punishment for sins, has exposed her before the heathen nations (cf. Lam 1:8). בּיניהם, "between them," the neighbouring nations, who live round about Judah. The thought that Jahveh has decreed the suffering which has come on Jerusalem, is laid to heart by her who makes complaint, so that, in Lam 1:18, she owns God’s justice, and lets herself be roused to ask for pity, Lam 1:19-22.

Starting with the acknowledgment that Jahveh is righteous, because Jerusalem has opposed His word, the sorrowing one anew (Lam 1:18, as in Lam 1:12) calls on the nations to regard her sorrow, which attains its climax when her children, in the bloom of youth, are taken captives by the enemy. But she finds no commiseration among men; for some, her former friends, prove faithless, and her counsellors have perished (Lam 1:19); therefore she turns to God, making complaint to Him of her great misery (Lam 1:20), because the rest, her enemies, even rejoice over her misery (Lam 1:21): she prays that God may punish these. Gerlach has properly remarked, that this conclusion of the chapter shows Jerusalem does not set forth her fate as an example for the warning of the nations, nor desires thereby to obtain commiseration from them in her present state (Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Thenius, Vaihinger); but that the apostrophe addressed to the nations, as well as that to passers-by (Lam 1:12), is nothing more than a poetic turn, used to express the boundless magnitude of this her sorrow and her suffering. On the confession "Righteous is Jahveh," cf. Jer 12:1; Deu 32:4; 2Ch 12:6; Psa 119:37, etc. "Because I have rebelled against His mouth" (i.e., His words and commandments), therefore I am suffering what I have merited. On מרה , cf. Num 20:24; 1Ki 13:26. כּל־עמּים (without the article, which the Qeri supplies) is a form of expression used in poetry, which often drops the article; moreover, we must here bear in mind, that it is not by any means the idea of the totality of the nations that predominates, but nations are addressed merely in indefinite generality: the expression in the text means nations of all places and countries. In order to indicate the greatness of her grief, the sorrowing one mentions the carrying into captivity of the young men and virgins, who are a mother’s joy and hope.

Lam 1:19 is not a continuation of the direct address to the nations, to whom she complains of her distress, but merely a complaint to God regarding the sorrow she endures. The perfects קראתי, רמּוּני, are not preterites, and thus are not to be referred to the past, as if complaint were made that, in the time of need, the lovers of Jerusalem forsook her; they rather indicate accomplished facts, whose consequences reach down to the present time. It was not merely in former times, during the siege, that Jerusalem called to her friends for help; but even now she still calls, that she may be comforted by them, yet all in vain. Her friends have deceived her, i.e., shamefully disappointed her expectations. From those who are connected with her, too, she can expect neither comfort nor counsel. The priests and the elders, as the helpers and advisers of the city, - the former as representing the community before God, and being the medium of His grace, the latter as being leaders in civil matters, - pined away ( ,גּועexspirare; here, to pine away through hunger, and expire). כּי is a temporal particle: "when they were seeking for bread" to prolong their life ('השׁיב נ as in Lam 1:11). The lxx have added καὶ οὐχ ευ, which Thenius is inclined to regard as a portion of the original text; but it is very evidently a mere conjecture from the context, and becomes superfluous when כּי ne is taken as a particle of time. Lam 1:20-22

Since neither comfort nor advice is to be found with men, Jerusalem makes her complaint of need to God the Lord. "See, Jahveh, that I am distressed. My bowels glow." חמרמרוּ, the passive enhancing form, from חמר, is found, besides, only in Lam 2:11, where the clause before us is repeated, and in Job 16:16, where it is used of the countenance, and can only mean to be glowing red; it is scarcely legitimate to derive it from חמר, Arab. h[mr, to be made red, and must rather be referred to Arab. chmr, to ferment, rise into froth; for even in Psa 55:9 חמר does not mean to be red, but to rise into froth. מעים, "bowels," are the nobler portions of the internal organs of the body, the seat of the affections; cf. Delitzsch’s Biblical Psychology (Clark’s translation), p. 314ff. "My heart has turned within me" is an expression used in Hos 11:8 to designate the feeling of compassion; but here it indicates the most severe internal pain, which becomes thus agonizing through the consciousness of its being deserved on account of resistance to God. מרו for מרה, like בּכו ekil, Jer 22:10; Jer 30:19, etc. Both forms occur together in other verbs also; cf. Olshausen, Gram. §245, h [Ewald, §238, e; Gesen., §75, Rem. 2]. But the judgment also is fearful; for "without (מחוּץ, foris, i.e., in the streets and the open country) the sword renders childless," through the slaughter of the troops; "within (בּבּית, in the houses) כּמּות, like death." It is difficult to account for the use of כּ; for neither the כ of comparison nor the so-called כveritatis affords a suitable meaning; and the transposition of the words into sicut mors intus (Rosenmüller, after Löwe and Wolfsohn) is an arbitrary change. Death, mentioned in connection with the sword, does not mean death in general, but special forms of death through maladies and plagues, as in Jer 15:2; Jer 18:21, not merely the fever of hunger, Jer 14:18; on the other hand, cf. Eze 7:15, "the sword without, pestilence and hunger within." But the difficulty connected with כּמּות is not thereby removed. The verb שׁכּל belongs to both clauses; but "the sword" cannot also be the subject of the second clause, of which the nominative must be כּמּות, "all that is like death," i.e., everything besides the sword that kills, all other causes of death, - pestilences, famine, etc. כּ is used as in כּמראה, Dan 10:18. That this is the meaning is shown by a comparison of the present passage with Deu 32:25, which must have been before the writer’s mind, so that he took the words of the first clause, viz., "without, the sword bereaves," almost as they stood, but changed וּמחדרים into בּבּית כּמּות, - thus preferring "what is like death," instead of "terror," to describe the cause of destruction. Calvin long ago hit the sense in his paraphrase multae mortes, and the accompanying explanation: utitur nota similitudinis, quasi diceret: nihil domi occurrere nisi mortale (more correctly mortiferum). Much light is thrown on the expression by the parallel adduced by Kalkschmidt from Aeneid, ii. 368, 369: crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.

From speaking of friends, a transition is made in Lam 1:21 to enemies. Regarding the explanation of Rosenmüller, audiverunt quidem amici mei, a me implorati Lam 1:19, quod gemens ego...imo sunt omnes hostes mei, Thenius observes that it introduces too much. This remark is still more applicable to his own interpretation: "People (certainly) hear how I sigh, (yet) I have no comforter." The antithesis introduced by the insertion of "yet" destroys the simplicity of arrangement among the clauses, although C. B. Michaelis and Gerlach also explain the passage in the same manner. The subject of the words, "they have heard," in the first clause, is not the friends who are said in Lam 1:19 to have been called upon for help, nor those designated in the second clause of Lam 1:21 as "all mine enemies," but persons unnamed, who are only characterized in the second clause as enemies, because they rejoice over the calamity which they have heard of as having befallen Jerusalem. The first clause forms the medium of transition from the faithless friends (Lam 1:19) to the open enemies (Lam 1:21); hence the subject is left undefined, so that one may think of friends and enemies. The foes rejoice that God has brought the evil on her. The words 'הבאת וגו, which follow, cannot also be dependent on כּי ("that Thou hast brought the day which Thou hast announced"), inasmuch as the last clause, "and they shall be like me," does not harmonize with them. Indeed, Nägelsbach and Gerlach, who assume that this is the connection of the clause "Thou hast brought," etc., take 'ויהיוּ כ adversatively: "but they shall be like me." If, however, "they shall be," etc., were intended to form an antithesis to "all mine enemies have heard," etc., the former clause would be introduced by והם. The mere change of tense is insufficient to prove the point. It must further be borne in mind, that in such a case there would be introduced by the words "and they shall be," etc., a new series of ideas, the second great division of the prayer; but this is opposed by the arrangement of the clauses. The second portion of the prayer cannot be attached to the end of the verse. The new series of thoughts begins rather with "Thou hast brought," which the Syriac has rendered by the imperative, venire fac. Similarly Luther translates: "then (therefore) let the day come." C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Pareau, etc., also take the words optatively, referring to the Arabic idiom, according to which a wish is expressed in a vivid manner by the perfect. This optative use of the perfect certainly cannot be shown to exist in the Hebrew; but perhaps it may be employed to mark what is viewed as certain to follow, in which case the Germans use the present. The use of the perfect shows that the occurrence expected is regarded as so certain to happen, that it is represented as if it had already taken place. The perfects in Lam 3:56-61 are taken in this sense by nearly all expositors. Similarly we take the clause now before us to mean, "Thou bringest on the day which Thou hast proclaimed (announced)," i.e., the day of judgment on the nations, Jer 25, "so that they become like me," i.e., so that the foes who rejoice over my misfortune suffer the same fate as myself. "The day [which] Thou hast proclaimed" has been to specifically rendered in the Vulgate, adduxisti diem consolationis, probably with a reference of the proclamation to Isa 40:2. - After this expression of certainty regarding the coming of a day of punishment for her enemies, there follows, Lam 1:22, the request that all the evil they have done to Jerusalem may come before the face of God, in order that He may punish it (cf. Psa 109:15 with Lam 1:14), - do to them as He has done to Jerusalem, because of her transgressions. The clause which assigns the reason ("for many are my sighs," etc.) does not refer to that which immediately precedes; for neither the request that retribution should be taken, nor the confession of guilt ("for all my transgressions"), can be accounted fore by pointing to the deep misery of Jerusalem, inasmuch as her sighing and sickness are not brought on her by her enemies, but are the result of the sufferings ordained by God regarding her. The words contain the ground of the request that God would look on the misery (Lam 1:20), and show to the wretched one the compassion which men refuse her. לבּי is exactly the same expression as that in Jer 8:18; cf. also Isa 1:5. The reason thus given for making the entreaty forms an abrupt termination, and with these words the sound of lamentation dies away. Lamentation over the Judgment of Destruction That Has Come on Zion and the Desolation of Judah 1 Alas! how the Lord envelopes the daughter of Zion in His wrath!

He hath cast down the glory of Israel from heaven to earth;

Nor hath He remembered His footstool in the day of His wrath. 2 The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, He hath not spared:

He hath broken down, in His anger, the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;

He hath smitten [them] down to the earth.

He hath profaned the kingdom and its princes. 3 He hath cut off, in the burning of wrath, every horn of Israel;

He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy,

And hath burned among Jacob like a flaming fire, [which] devours round about. 4 He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing [with] His right hand like an adversary,

And He slew all the desires of the eye;

On the tent of the daughter of Zion hath He poured out His fury like fire. 5 The Lord hath become like an enemy; He hath swallowed up Israel.

He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds,

And hath increased on the daughter of Judah groaning and moaning. 6 And He hath violently treated His own enclosure, like a garden; He hat destroyed His own place of meeting:

Jahveh hath caused to be forgotten in Zion the festival and the Sabbath,

And in the fierceness of His wrath He hath rejected king and priest. 7 The Lord hath spruned His own altar, He hath abhorred His own sanctuary;

He hath delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;

They have made a noise in the house of Jahvey, as [on] the day of a festival. 8 Jahveh hath purposed to destroy the walls of the daughter of Zion:

He hath stretched out a line, He hath not drawn back His hand from demolishing;

And He hath made the rampart and the [city] wall to mourn; they sorrow together. 9 Her gates have sunk into the earth; He hath destroyed and broken her bars:

Her king and her princces are among the nations; there is no law.

Her prophets also find no vision from Jahveh. 10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, they silent;

They have cast up dust upon their head, they have clothed themselves with sackcloth garments:

The virgins of Jerusalem have brought down their head to the earth. 11 Mine eyes waste away with tears, My bowels glow,

My liver is poured out on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people;

Because the young child and the suckling pine away in the streets of the city. 12 They said to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?

When they were fainting like one wounded in the streets of the city,

When their soul was poured out into the bosom of their mothers. 13 What slall I testify against thee? what shall I compare to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?

What shall I liken to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?

For thy destruction is great, like the sea; who can heal thee? 14 Thy prophets have seen for thee vanity and absurdity,

And have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn thy captivity;

But they have seen for thee burdens of vanity, and expulsion. 15 All that pass by the way clap [their] hands against thee;

They hiss and shake their head against the daughter of Jerusalem [saying, "Is] this the city that they call "The perfection of beauty, a joy of the whole earth?'" 16 All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee:

They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, "We have swallowed [her];

Assuredly this is the day that we have expected; we have found [it], we have seen [it]." 17 Jahveh hath done what He hath purposed:

He hath executed His word which He commanded from the days of yore: He hath broken down, and hath not spared:

And He hath made the enemy rejoice over thee; He hath raised up the horn of thine adversaries. 18 Their heart crieth out unto the Lord.

O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a stream by day and by night:

Give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. 19 Arise, wail in the night; at the beginning of the watches,

Pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord:

Lift up thine hands to Him for the soul of thy young children,

That faint for hunger at the head of every street. 20 See, O Jahveh, and consider to whom Thou hast acted thus!

Shall women eat their [body's] fruit, the children of their care?

Or shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? 21 The boy and the old man lie without, on the ground;

My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword:

Thou hast slain in the day of Thy wrath, Thou hast slaughtered, Thou hast not spared. 22 Thou summonest, as on a feast-day, my terrors round about;

And in the day of wrath of Jahveh there was no fugitive or survivor

Whom I would have nursed and brought up; mine enemy destroyed them.

This second poem contains a new and more bitter lamentation regarding the fall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah; and it is distinguished from the first, partly by the bitterness of the complaint, but chiefly by the fact that while, in the first, the oppressed, helpless, and comfortless condition of Jerusalem is the main feature, - here, on the other hand, it is the judgment which the Lord, in His wrath, has decreed against Jerusalem and Judah, that forms the leading thought in the complaint, as is shown by the prominence repeatedly given to the wrath, rage, burning wrath, etc. (Lam 2:1.). The description of this judgment occupies the first part of the poem (Lam 2:1-10); then follows, in the second part (Lam 2:11-19), the lamentation over the impotency of human consolation, and over the scoffing of enemies at the misfortunes of Jerusalem (Lam 2:11-16). It was the Lord who sent this judgment; and it is He alone who can give comfort and help in this distress. To Him must the daughter of Zion betake herself with her complaint (Lam 2:17-19); and this she actually does in the concluding portion (Lam 2:20-22).