Book of Lamentations: Authorship, Poetry, and Tradition
The Book of Lamentations does not name its author. Its poems are anonymous, although tradition has long associated them with Jeremiah. The collection mourns the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and Jeremiah was a prophet who foretold the city's demise. He therefore offered an obvious candidate when biblical books were attributed to inspired authors. The connection also appears in the Christian Old Testament's arrangement: the poems follow the Book of Jeremiah, placing the traditional association directly beside the collection.
Another link involves a different occasion for mourning. In 2 Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah is said to have composed a lament for King Josiah's death. Yet Josiah is not mentioned in these poems, so that lament does not establish a connection between Jeremiah and this collection. The Septuagint, a Greek translation made in the last few centuries BCE, added an introductory line portraying Jeremiah weeping over desolate Jerusalem. Some Greek copies, along with the Latin Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic versions, also give the final chapter a heading identifying it as Jeremiah's prayer.
Debate about the Book of Lamentations extends beyond the traditional name to the number of poets involved. German scholars were questioning Jeremiah's authorship by the middle of the nineteenth century, and the prevailing scholarly consensus now rejects that attribution. Scholars still disagree about whether a single writer or several writers composed the poems. Changing voices offer one argument for several: the first and second laments have feminine narration, the third has masculine narration, and the fourth and fifth present eyewitness reports of the city's destruction. Similarities in style, vocabulary, theological outlook, and historical setting provide arguments for a single writer.
Most scholars place the Book of Lamentations shortly after Jerusalem's fall. Its language fits an Exilic date, and the poems probably originated among Judeans who stayed in the land. Compilation falls between 586 BCE and the end of the sixth century BCE, when the Temple was rebuilt as the Second Temple. Second Isaiah, whose work is dated to 550 through 538 BCE, seems to have known parts of the collection. That suggests circulation by the middle of the sixth century, although the exact time, place, and reason for composition remain unknown.
Its five poems correspond to five chapters, arranged in a sequence that is not chronological. The first four chapters use alphabetic acrostics. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 have 22 verses each, matching the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, with successive opening lines following the letters. Chapter 3 has 66 verses, allowing each letter to begin three lines. The final poem has 22 lines without an acrostic. Complete alphabetical order is often understood as an expression of completeness, comparable to the English phrase "from A to Z."
The alphabet itself carries a distinctive variation. In the middle chapters, pe comes before ayin, reversing the standard modern order of those letters. The Masoretic Text follows the standard order in the opening chapter, while the Dead Sea Scrolls version uses pe before ayin there too. Rhythm creates a separate pattern: the first four chapters use qinah, with three stresses followed by two, but the fifth lacks that rhythm. Few English translations capture the acrostics or the meter, and fewer attempt both. Ronald Knox and David R. Slavitt use letters A through V in their acrostic translations, leaving out W, X, Y, and Z.
Within those forms, the Book of Lamentations moves through different expressions of grief. The opening poem presents the city as a desolate, weeping widow. The second connects suffering with national sins and acts of God. The third speaks of hope that chastisement can serve the people's good and that a better day can come. The fourth mourns the ruined city and temple while tracing the devastation to the people's sins. Part of the final poem becomes a prayer for Zion's reproach to be removed through repentance and recovery. God does not speak in the collection, leaving its pleas without a response or resolution.
Jews recite the poems annually on Tisha B'Av, mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples. In many manuscripts and synagogue readings, verse 21 of the final chapter is repeated after verse 22 so that the reading closes with comfort instead of a painful statement. Christian traditions use readings during Holy Week; Western Christianity also uses extracts in Tenebrae, the Lenten service whose Latin name means darkness. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the third chapter is chanted during the twelfth hour of the Good Friday service commemorating Jesus' burial. In the Church of England, readings are used at Morning and Evening Prayer on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, and at Evening Prayer on Good Friday.
- Wikipedia, Book of Lamentations — en.wikipedia.org