OT105

THE TEXT IN THE INTERPRETIVE TRADITION

The primary way in which the book of Lamentations is used in the synagogue and church is as a lectionary reading in the liturgy. In the Jewish tradition, it is chanted in its entirety on the ninth of Ab, a summer (in Israel) fast day that mourns the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE, by the Romans in 70 CE, and other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. In Christian liturgical traditions, it is read in part or whole during Holy Week, most often on Good Friday, thereby associating it with the passion of Christ.

Outside of its function in the liturgy, the best-known part of the book is the middle section of chapter 3, which contains words of comfort, hope, and reassurance. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translates them this way:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness. (3:22–23)

Readers have tended to give primacy to this part of the book because it is consistent with common theological understandings about the nature of God. God is good and compassionate. It is also used as an interpretive pivot for the rest of the book. Chapter 3 begins with a complaint uttered by a person who is described as a geber, a word usually translated as “strong man.” In the interpretive tradition, as articulated by Delbert Hillers, it has been assumed that this person is to be understood in one of three ways: as “everyman,” an actual historical individual, or Israel, collectively (Hillers, 109, 122). However, geber is not used to describe an ordinary person elsewhere in the Bible. It describes an outstanding man, a militarily competent man, or prominent person. In Lamentations, it is a geber who feels that he is under attack by God. The point is, If such a man can be defeated, what hope is there for the ordinary person, whether male or female? Conventional statements about God’s mercy and compassion in the middle of the chapter are interpreted to counteract the statements of despair uttered by the geber. But that is not enough to make the central section of chapter 3 the prevailing theology of the book. The additional content and complaints in the chapter and chapters 4 and 5, suggest that the geber and the lofty statements of chapter 3 must play an important but perhaps more limited role in the interpretation of Lamentations in the thought of the ancient redactors.

Traditionally, Lamentations has been read as a reflection on sin and deserved punishment. That assessment has been changing because of a greater willingness to confront the theological difficulties that emerge when the question of innocent suffering is raised. The Zion figure prominent in chapters 1 and 2 has drawn the attention of scholars and other readers of the text and lead them to a different way of interpreting it. Tod Linafelt, who has studied Lamentations alongside other contemporary examples of “literature of survival,” sees the Zion figure rather than the geber as the interpretive key (Linafelt, 20–25). Survival literature is a witness that the catastrophe did not exterminate a people. There are survivors, and life will continue. He points out that God is thought to be the cause of the suffering in Lamentations but also the one to whom one appeals for relief, revenge, or an explanation as to why the suffering has occurred. This creates a theological and ethical problem, particularly because Zion, like most places in the Hebrew Bible, is feminine in grammatical gender and personified in female imagery. Zion, Linafelt writes, is like an abused woman. She must accept the abuse and confess that she deserves it. Texts in the Bible (though probably not Lamentations because it is more a read than studied text) have been used inappropriately to counsel abused women, insisting that they must have done something wrong to incur the wrath of the abuser.

However, the Zion figure along with other female imagery in Lamentations may be interpreted in another way, as being there to engender sympathy and protest against interpretations that blame Zion and therefore the Jewish people for its own destruction. In chapters 1 and 2, Zion is imaged in multiple female roles: a princess, a widow, a lover, an abandoned woman, a refugee, a woman forced into servitude, a mother who has lost her children, a wanton woman, and a virgin daughter of Judah. Many of these images envision Zion as a victim who deserves sympathy. Her former lovers have deserted her. Her friends have betrayed her. She has suffered. She has lost her home, her place, her status. In some of the images, but clearly not all, Zion is given agency and therefore held culpable for the things that have befallen her.

Carleen Mandolfo constructs a theory about Lamentations which places it in dialogue with prophetic books that also use the Zion imagery. In the prophetic books, Zion is silent in the face of critique, but in Lamentations, she points out, Zion speaks. Zion’s speaking in Mandolfo’s interpretation is not just to the context of the book of Lamentations but to the prophets as well (Mandolfo, 59). She points out that the power dynamics in the dialogue between God and Zion must be taken into consideration. God has more power, but that does not mean Zion does not have a credible theological voice (Mandolfo, 85).

God in Lamentations is a literary character who reflects one theological point of view, and Zion is a literary character (or set of characters) that reflect other theological points of view, and then there is the distinct voice of the narrator who also has a theological point of view. When the narrator blames Zion for having sinned, Zion does not respond to the narrator’s charge; rather, she appeals to God to notice her suffering. She blames her lovers (generally understood to be political allies) for having deceived her. The pattern of the shifting of blame is similar to that of the man and woman in the garden in Genesis 3. Zion’s appeals suggest a theological position that even when one bears some responsibility in a wrong, God’s compassion can mitigate the punishment.

In Lamentations, God is spoken about, but God speaks only once, in a recollection of the composer of the third poem. There, in 3:35, the poet confesses that God did respond when called on. The message that God brought was “Do not be afraid” (author’s translation). This standard formulaic phrase is found in many places in the Bible. Usually, the context is a theophany. Typically, either God or a divine messenger appears and says, “Do not be afraid,” before providing further instructions. In Lamentations, the phrase is followed not by further words from God but by the poet affirming that God has redeemed him, has seen his affliction, and will bring about justice. In Lamentations, the narrator describes what he (or she) understands to be God’s role in the suffering, as does Zion and the geber. God never agrees or disagrees with the role assigned by the narrator, Zion, or the geber, but God does speak a word of comfort and hope. In four of the five poems, however, God is silent.

Chapter 4 contains a poignant description of the aftermath of war. Starvation and a collapse of the social structures are highlighted. The poet draws attention to the persons who in the poet’s estimation have suffered the most: the children who are starving and abandoned, and the elite who have been debased. This poem focuses on the religious elite, the prophets and priests. They are blamed for having brought on the crisis by “pouring out the blood of the righteous” (Lam. 4:13 author’s translation). This idea is consistent with Jeremiah 35, where it is the elite, the shepherds, who are to be blamed for the disaster, not the ordinary folk. The chapter ends with a call for vengeance against Edom. Edom did not attack Jerusalem, but it took advantage of it after the Babylonian army completed their work, leaving the city open and vulnerable according to the book of Obadiah.

The fifth chapter of Lamentations is different from the others, not just in that it lacks the acrostic structure, but in its character. More so even than chapter 4, it highlights socioeconomic differences in ancient Israelite society and the differences between the way in which the conquest affected the wealthy and the poor. The chapter, like the others, is primarily complaint, but it is the complaint not of all Israelite society but only the elite. The elite now live as the poor do every day. The complaint is that this is not right. The social order has been turned upside down. The elite in the normal order are those who rule. But in the aftermath of the war, “servants [or slaves]” are ruling over them. The rich complain that they have been reduced to grinding and gathering wood and other chores that the lower class normally performs for them every day. The elite used to own the resources, but now they have to pay for them, like the poor do. They are outraged by the injustice of it all. But they seem incapable of realizing that what they are now experiencing is the everyday lot of their former servants, the poor, and the ordinary people in ancient Israelite society.