WHO WROTE:  Its authorship is not questioned, and both the “LXX,” “Latin Vulgate,” and “Targum,” ascribe it to Jeremiah.  From “Eaton’s Bible Commentary,” we learn: “According to tradition, he [Jeremiah] 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.”

 

Also, according to the “LXX,” in its introduction to the Book of Lamentations, we have this statement:  “And it came to pass after Israel had been carried captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said.”  This can be confirmed by seeing Second Chronicles 35:25; placing Jeremiah as the most probable (or for sure) writer.  That statement however, accrues 300 years before the fall of Jerusalem; and the Book of Lamentations has nothing to do with Josiah.   By contrast, it does ascribe standard elegies to Jeremiah.

 

 

WHAT TIME PERIOD IS COVERED:  B.C. 645 - B.C. 614.

 

 

WHEN WRITTEN:  B.C. 647 - B.C. 614.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:  Because of the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet.” See Lamentations 2:11 & 3:48.  Therefore, just as our Lord did (John 11:35), so did Jeremiah for the same reasoning.

 

Based upon the first word of the Book, “ ‘Ekhah,” and as such, that is what the Rabbis generally refer to this Book as.  The meaning is, “How.”  This Hebrew word is the formula for the commencement of a song of wailing.  The “LXX”adopted the Greek name “threnoi,” Hebrew “qinoth,” which are rendered, “Lamentations,” and now has become in common use.  Later Jewish writers usually designate the Book by the more descriptive title, “Kinoth,” literally meaning, “Lamentations,” a term which they find in Jeremiah 7:29; 9:10 & 20; Second Chronicles 35:25.  The “Vulgate” gives the Greek word, and explains it as, “Threni, id est, Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae.”  MartinLuther and the “Authorized Version” have given the translation only as, “Klagelieder” and “Lamentations” respectively.

 

From “Eaton’s Bible Commentary,” we learn: “The first four poems (Chapters) are acrostics, like some of the Psalms (Psalms, Chapters 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.”

 

No instructions or words from Jehovah are found in this Book.  The writer’s common phrase, “the virgin daughter of His people,” is common to Jeremiah in both Books (Jer. 8:21; 9:1; 14:17; Lam. 1:15; 2:13).  Other common phrases are, “eyes running down with water,” Lamentations 1:16; 2:11; 3:48-49; Jeremiah 13:17.  Compare also:

 

Lamentations 2:22 to Jeremiah 6:25 & Jeremiah 46:5;

Lamentations 2:14; 4:13 to Jeremiah 5:30-31 & Jeremiah 14:13-14;

Lamentations 3:64-66 to Jeremiah 11:20;

Lamentations 4:21 to Jeremiah 25:15-21 & Jeremiah 49:12.

 

Speaking of the “Wailing Wall,” of the temple of Solomon, “Phillip 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.”

 

On the ninth day of the month of Ab (July-August), the Lamentations of Jeremiah are read, year-by-year, with fasting and weeping, to commemorate the misery out of which the people had been delivered; and to commemorate the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem.  The Latin Church reads primarily from the Book of Lamentations for the services of passion-week.  In Hebrew Bibles, the Book of Lamentations is placed in the third division of the Old Testament Canon.  Its place is generally in the middle of the five “Megilloth,” as in the Bomberg Bible of 1521; or better, the “Hagiographa (Kethubin),” between Ruth and Ecclesiastes.

 

According to “Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature,” “The Jews believe that it was not written by the gift of prophecy, but by the Spirit of God (between which they make a distinction), and give this as a reason for not placing it among the prophets.”

 

Jeremiah’s life ended some 6 or 7 years after the Captivity began.  Jeremiah follows along the lines of Second Samuel 1:19, which states:  “The beauty of Israel is slain.”  He associates the worst of all the evils of Israel with the iniquity of the (false; see Jeremiah 14:13) prophets and priests (Lam. 2:14 & 4:13; see also 1:18).

 

What is interesting, Lamentations, Chapters one, two, four, and five (notice not 3), each have 22 verses in them.  The Hebrew language is composed of 22 letters.  That is not the point.  The point is, verse 1 begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, verse 2 the second, and so-on-and-so-forth.  But not in Chapter five.  More discovery needs to take place there.

 

If we compare that to Genesis, Chapters 1-5 (see my introduction to the Book of Genesis), God’s Name is spelled out in Chapters one, two, four, and five.  Whereas, in Chapter 3, we have the word “Holy” spelled out.  In Lamentations, Chapter 3, we have the full confession of Judah’s sin.  It has 66 verses, and 6 is the number of mankind.  And in Chapter 3, we have composed in the first 3 verses, where they start out with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  Then the next three verses with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  And-so-on-and-so-forth.