Book of Lamentations in Easton's Bible Dictionary
called in the Hebrew canon _'Ekhah_, meaning "How," being
the
formula for the commencement of a song of wailing.
It is the
first word of the book (see 2 Sam. 1:19-27). The
LXX. adopted
the name rendered "Lamentations" (Gr. threnoi = Heb.
qinoth) now
in common use, to denote the character of the book,
in which the
prophet mourns over the desolations brought on the
city and the
holy land by Chaldeans. In the Hebrew Bible it is
placed among
the Khethubim. (See BIBLE -T0000580.)
As to its authorship, there is no room for hesitancy
in
following the LXX. and the Targum in ascribing it to
Jeremiah.
The spirit, tone, language, and subject-matter are
in accord
with the testimony of tradition in assigning it to
him.
According to tradition, he retired after the
destruction of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to a cavern outside the
Damascus
gate, where he wrote this book. That cavern is still
pointed
out. "In the face of a rocky hill, on the western
side of the
city, the local belief has placed 'the grotto of
Jeremiah.'
There, in that fixed attitude of grief which Michael
Angelo has
immortalized, the prophet may well be supposed to
have mourned
the fall of his country" (Stanley, Jewish Church).
The book consists of five separate poems. In chapter
1 the
prophet dwells on the manifold miseries oppressed by
which the
city sits as a solitary widow weeping sorely. In
chapter 2 these
miseries are described in connection with the
national sins that
had caused them. Chapter 3 speaks of hope for the
people of God.
The chastisement would only be for their good; a
better day
would dawn for them. Chapter 4 laments the ruin and
desolation
that had come upon the city and temple, but traces
it only to
the people's sins. Chapter 5 is a prayer that Zion's
reproach
may be taken away in the repentance and recovery of
the people.
The first four poems (chapters) are acrostics, like
some of
the Psalms (25, 34, 37, 119), i.e., each verse
begins with a
letter of the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. The
first, second,
and fourth have each twenty-two verses, the number
of the
letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The third has sixty-
six verses,
in which each three successive verses begin with the
same
letter. The fifth is not acrostic.
Speaking of the "Wailing-place (q.v.) of the Jews"
at
Jerusalem, a portion of the old wall of the temple
of Solomon,
Schaff says: "There the Jews assemble every Friday
afternoon to
bewail the downfall of the holy city, kissing the
stone wall and
watering it with their tears. They repeat from their
well-worn
Hebrew Bibles and prayer-books the Lamentations of
Jeremiah and
suitable Psalms."
Read More
