Occasion and Date
THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS consists of five chapters of Hebrew poetry, joined together by the common themes of sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and the humiliation of Judah’s population.1 Individual poems within the book may have been compiled soon after the destruction of the city or anytime between that date and the rebuilding of the temple in 520–515 B.C. None of them gives any indication that the temple has been rebuilt at the time of composition.
Whether the individual poems were all composed in Palestine or in one or more of the exilic communities of Jews in Egypt or Babylon cannot be determined conclusively. Scholars also differ over whether one author wrote all five chapters or a compiler brought together laments of different provenance for a liturgical purpose. The poetic style of the chapters is classical, with a vocalized rhythm characteristic of a lament,2 and it fits historically in the exilic period.
Authorship
NO AUTHOR IS named in the Hebrew version, and the book appears not in the prophetic section of the Hebrew Bible but in the last section, entitled “the Writings.” Both of these points are understandable; much of the book gives voice to communal experience, there are few clues within the poetry itself to its human author(s), and the function of the book is different from that of a prophetic corpus.
The issue of authorship—regardless of who is responsible for it—is further complicated in that there are different voices expressed within the book.3 In chapters 1–2 Jerusalem is personified as “Daughter … Zion” (1:6; 2:1, 4, 8, 10, 13, 18) and speaks on occasion (e.g., 1:9b, 11b–16; 2:22) to supplement the poet’s voice. An anonymous individual in chapter 3, who possibly should be identified with the poet of the book, speaks through a first-person lament. Plural forms are used in chapter 4, where there are references to “our eyes” (4:17) and (lit.) “our steps” (4:18). The first-person plural voice continues in chapter 5 in what is essentially a communal lament. The creativity of the human author(s) recedes behind the primary function of these poems, which is to articulate grief over the loss of Jerusalem and to speak aloud the devastating effects of Judah’s sinfulness.
The earliest claim to human authorship comes in the Greek translation, where the first verse explicitly attributes the book to the weeping prophet Jeremiah.4 In some Greek and Latin manuscripts attribution to Jeremiah is repeated at the beginning of chapter 5, as if that chapter needed additional comment. Chapter 5 is essentially a communal lament, with much of it “voiced” in first-person plural.
Such an association with Jeremiah is an ancient and plausible one, but that the prophet actually wrote the poems is historically unlikely. On the surface it is plausible, given the fact that the prophecy of Jeremiah itself contains laments/complaints, both for himself and for Jerusalem/Judah.5 However, some of the emphases in Lamentations are different from the prophet’s book,6 and the thrust of the poetry is prayerful and liturgical, not prophetic. In 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah is credited with a lamentation for King Josiah (640–609 B.C.), and its recitation by singers became a custom in Israel, but this is not likely a reference to the book of Lamentations.7 The early association of Lamentations with Jeremiah is the reason that it appears in most modern versions after the prophetic book. As a part of Scripture Lamentations has a complementary function with Jeremiah’s prophecies, providing yet another inspired assessment of Judah’s fate.
Although it is unlikely that Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations, its association with him is one of several indications that the work fits into the broader context of the prophet’s later life and times. The effects of the Babylonian army in besieging Jerusalem and in finally burning the city and temple precincts are everywhere reflected in the poignancy of the poetry. Someday Judah’s humiliation will end (Lam. 4:22), but there is nothing in the poems to indicate that either Jerusalem or the temple have been rebuilt. In short, the perspective of the voices in Lamentations is that of the Babylonian exile.
At some point in the Exile Judeans began to lament corporately and publicly in order to remember Jerusalem, the capital city, the location of the temple, and the symbolic mother of the people. Already in Jeremiah (Jer. 41:4–8), there is the account of pious men from the former Israelite territories traveling to the ruins of the temple in Jerusalem in order to worship. Their beards were shaved, their clothes torn, and their bodies gashed in order to mourn its destruction. According to Zechariah 7:1–7, there was traditional mourning in the fifth month of the year, and the prophet was asked about its efficacy and whether it should continue. The fifth month is the month of Ab (July/August), the same month of the temple’s destruction.8 Thus within the lifetime of those who witnessed the temple’s destruction, there developed ceremonial lamentation to bewail and remember the tragedy, and the book of Lamentations is one result of these rituals.
Structure and Literary Style of the Book
THE FIVE POETIC CHAPTERS do not have a narrative base or reflect a literary plot. As noted above, it is not clear whether the five chapters were always joined in a collection or if one or more of them originated independently of the others. Thus, the effect of reading them sequentially is that of artful repetition, where the themes of suffering, judgment, confession of sin, and divine abandonment reappear.
The book does have, however, clear subunits based on the five chapters. Each of the chapters is arranged in a recognizable pattern—that is, they are in poetry9—and each follows an aspect of the Semitic alphabet. Lamentations 1–4 are known as acrostics because the poetic verses are arranged in a pattern following the sequence of the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet.10 The first word of each verse in chapters 1 and 2 begins with a different letter of the alphabet and follows the alphabetic sequence of twenty-two letters from beginning to end. That is, 1:1 and 2:1 begin with a word whose initial letter is aleph (
), and 1:22 and 2:22 begin with a word whose initial letter is taw (
). Chapter 3 has sixty-six verses but follows the same acrostic pattern, in three-verse units.11 Chapter 4 follows the pattern outlined for chapters 1 and 2.12
Chapter 5 is somewhat different; it has twenty-two verses—as do chapters 1, 2, and 4—but the initial word of each verse in chapter 5 does not follow the alphabetical sequence. For this reason, most scholars do not describe chapter 5 as an acrostic. Although technically correct, the number of verses in chapter 5 is not likely coincidence.
Readers are left to infer the significance of the alphabetic pattern. Perhaps the best explanation is that the pattern is meant to signify fullness or completeness, something like the English expression “from A to Z” or the expression in the Revelation to John that the risen Lord is “the Alpha and the Omega … the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 22:13; cf. 1:8). The acrostic provides a structure for the public expression of emotion and the development of a theme. Once hearers or readers know that a communication is following an acrostic pattern, they may anticipate its length and know something of the medium of the message.
Within the literature of the Old Testament, the book of Lamentations has literary parallels with funeral laments, the psalms of lament/complaint, Job’s complaints against God and friends, and prophetic oracles against nations. On hearing the account of Saul and Jonathan’s death, for example, David composed a poetic funeral oration (2 Sam. 1:19–27). It contains themes that one also finds in Lamentations. For example, 2 Samuel 1:19 begins with reference to Saul as the “glory” of Israel, who “lies slain”; Lamentations 4:20 describes King Zedekiah as the “LORD’s anointed, our very life breath,” as caught in the captors’ trap. Twice the oration cries out that “the mighty have fallen” (2 Sam. 1:25, 27), in tragic contrast to the praise of Saul and Jonathan’s royalty (1:23–24). Repeatedly the book of Lamentations refers to the fall and humiliation of Jerusalem, who is personified as a princess (Lam. 1:1, 6), one cast down from heaven (2:1), and as perfect in beauty (2:15).13
Approximately half of Psalms is comprised of individual and corporate laments/complaints, with those of individuals being the most frequent.14 These psalms have some or all of the following formal characteristics: complaints and/or cries of dereliction, petitions for deliverance and/or judgment on the enemies, confessions of sin, expressions of trust, and vows. Lamentations 3 and 5 have enough of these formal characteristics to be described as an individual and a corporate lament respectively, quite apart from their place in the book.
A poignant parallel to the voices of Lamentations comes in the defiant voice of the exiles in Psalm 137, where the pain over the fall of Jerusalem is raw and the anger toward the Edomites is palpable (v. 7). Edom too is remembered in Lamentations (Lam. 4:21–22). The individual voice of chapter 3 finds parallels in the psalms of individual lament/complaint,15 the complaints of Jeremiah, and those of Job to God.
There are city laments in ancient Near Eastern literature, which are also related to the book of Lamentations. These are compositions that reflect on the fall of a city and its temple(s). The best-known examples are much earlier than the sixth century B.C. and come from Mesopotamia.16 In some of them a prominent place is given to the patron goddess of the city, who mourns the fall of her city. Since there is no counterpart to the patron goddess in Judah (at least not among the circles responsible for the Old Testament), it is possible that the prominence given to personified Jerusalem as “Daughter … Zion”17 and the symbolic mother of the faithful is the Israelite counterpart to the broader, ancient Near Eastern tradition of patron goddesses. Recognition of Jerusalem’s voice and personification is crucial to an adequate grasp of the book’s style and its message.
A common category among prophetic books is that of oracles against foreign nations. The language is typically poetic, often mixed with sarcasm and invective, and holds out the claim of God’s judgment to fall on the arrogance and cruelty of the states. Isaiah 47:1–15 is a splendid example of judgment depicted to fall on Babylon, the same power that besieged Jerusalem and brought Judah to a sorrowful end. The city of Babylon (“Virgin Daughter … Babylon”, 47:1) is depicted as a humiliated queen, bereft of her symbols of royalty and exposed shamefully. Widowhood will be her fate as judgment for her oppression and cruelty falls on her. The personification of Babylon as an exposed female, as a widow bereft of children, and as helpless before the onslaught are all portrayals repeated for Jerusalem in Lamentations.
The characteristics noted above are sufficient to indicate that Lamentations’ contents are traditional in the typical cultural sense of the term. In the Israelite funeral, in individual and corporate laments, and in the broad tradition of lamenting the demise of a city, there are recognized formal characteristics and terminology that bear the emotions fit for the particular occasion. Lamentations brings these traditional elements together as a result of Judah’s demise at the hands of the Babylonians.
Theology and Significance
ONE INDICATION OF LAMENTATIONS’ significance comes in its use. As suggested above, the poetry provided a vehicle for a communal voice to lament the horror of Judah’s fall. At some point in the exilic or postexilic period, God’s people used the poetry that now comprises the book in public ceremonies of lamenting the temple’s destruction. Whether initially or as a later development, these ceremonies became regularized as an annual event (cf. discussion in previous section). Likely the annual ceremony took place in certain exilic communities and among Jews who returned to rebuild the city and temple during the Persian period.
With the tragedy of the Roman capture and destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the mourning ritual over the Babylonian destruction was supplemented with mourning for the later Roman destruction. That destruction of Jerusalem and the temple complex was every bit as traumatic as the earlier devastation wrought by the Babylonians. The joining of the two events through the memory of ritual lamentation is the result of “telescoping”; that is, a ceremony occasioned by an earlier event becomes the focal point for also remembering a later and similar event. Thus, in classical Judaism the ninth of Ab is a one-day ceremony (in August) in which Jews read the book of Lamentations, and through its mournful language, worshipers recall the two destructions of the temple.18
Articulation of Grief
ALL HUMAN BEINGS have a deep-seated need to process grief, death, and loss, or to put it colloquially, “to come to grips with grief.” The prevalent mode of doing so in modern Western culture has been through psychological understanding and therapeutic practices.19 Many in modern society, therefore, are inclined to a psychological interpretation of the ritual mourning for the loss of the temple as described above. There is something to that analysis; anthropologists and cultural historians will point to the formative power of public ceremony to provide symbolic meaning for participants. It bears repeating, however, that premodern cultures did not process these matters psychologically—at least, not in the modern, Western sense of that term—but through various forms of ritual and symbolic performance.
Most likely, Lamentations gave form and procedure to mourning on the part of Judeans, but it did so without the self-consciousness and introspection that comes so “naturally” to modern readers and their analysts. Apparently the poetry (in ceremony) worked so effectively that its performance became an annual ritual. One should not read a negative evaluation into either the term “performance” or “ritual.” While moderns think rightly of Lamentations as a form of literature, Judeans in exile understood the poetry as something to be performed. They recited it, sang it, and prayed it. This process brought to mind the continuing influence of a formative event. Furthermore, it helped define Judean corporate identity.
Grief, Complaint, and Hope in God
CLAUS WESTERMANN HAS PROPOSED that the enduring value of the book of Lamentations comes at just the point of its voice in the mourning over and protesting against the tragic events of 586 B.C.:
It is highly significant that there is no attempt anywhere in Lamentations to request restoration. All that is asked for is God’s return. God continues to be remembered, and the memory is kept alive in the complaints. They are placed before God in the hope that God’s compassion will be aroused.20
Westermann helpfully calls attention to the roles of prayer and memory in forming an expectant people before God. In a public and prayerful way, Judeans were gifted with the opportunity to bring their pain and grief before the same God who had used the Babylonians to judge them and their ancestors. Like the insistent visitor at midnight (Luke 11:5–8) or the widow appealing to the judge (Luke 18:1–8), those who prayed the Lamentations brought the circumstances of their corporate identity before God.
Suffering and Confession of Sin
LAMENTATIONS HOLDS TOGETHER the grief that comes from tragedy and the pain that comes in acknowledging sin and its consequences. When one thinks corporately, the question is not, “How is this event a response to me?” but “How is this event a response to us?” Both tragedy and judgment are voiced in Lamentations. Those voices speak first about a historical catastrophe and a judgment that fell on a particular people. Language about “feelings” is in service to this broader perspective. Weeping comes from both catastrophic loss21 and the consequences of failure. Even those people who may not have lived in Judah during the tragic events of 586 B.C. are invited to find their place in the community affected by them. Indeed, by taking up the voices offered them in Lamentations, they are asked to learn from them. In this respect Lamentations has a function similar to certain “spirituals” in the African American community, since these songs continue to instruct a community long after the demise of slavery.
Clearing Ground for New Growth
THERE IS A sense in which the liturgical poetry of Lamentations plays a role similar to that of Ecclesiastes in the wisdom tradition. Ecclesiastes reminds readers of the limits of wisdom, of what the wise among humankind still cannot know or explain, of the inequities of life and its disappointments. To be sure, Ecclesiastes notes the joy that is associated with the Lord; moreover, the conclusion to the book reminds readers that it is best to fear God and keep his commandments, for in the future God will bring every secret matter to judgment. But having said these things, Ecclesiastes is primarily a book about limits and about what does not work. In the service of a greater revelation to come, it clears the ground of obstacles to new growth.
Lamentations similarly takes up the traditions of funeral poetry and prayers of anguish to clear away every vestige of self-righteousness, to close avenues of escape from responsibility for failure, and to drive home the uncomfortable truth that no one is finally exempt from God’s searching judgments. To be sure, Lamentations confesses that God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22–24), but the weight of the poems is to plumb the depths of human anguish and despair and to speak about such experiences to the Lord.22 In the service of a greater revelation to come from God, Lamentations speaks both for and to human suffering.
Lamentations and the New Testament
IT IS NONE OTHER than Jesus who provides the primary place for lament in the New Testament. Apart from his practice, lamentation is not common in the New Testament. Jesus wept over Jerusalem as a sign of his grief regarding its unbelief and the consequences to come from it (Luke 19:41–44). In his Gethsemane prayer he sweated and prayed for the cup of suffering to be removed from him, but he finally placed himself in God’s hands (22:39–46). This is a posture similar to the prayers in Lamentations—similar in the sense that one resolutely casts his or her fate into the hands of a God who seems absent at a moment of great need or perhaps remote and inscrutable.
Jesus’ painful death on the cross is punctuated by the cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34): “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is, moreover, a quotation from a psalm of lament/complaint (Ps. 22:1). Here, it seems, the cry is not only a reflection of Jesus’ own suffering but also a testimony to the power of Scripture to define human experience in light of God’s self-revelation. A psalm of lament/complaint was a voice offered to those who suffer.
Psalm 22 had been instructive in this regard for centuries. Even David, the king after God’s own heart and the psalmist for Israel, experienced judgment and forsakenness, and yet vindication in God’s own timing (cf. Ps. 22:25–31). Jesus’ passion is a salutary reminder that suffering and grief are endemic to the human race and that he is no exception. Indeed, one element of the atonement accomplished in Jesus’ passion is his identification with human suffering. Jesus represents his own in all things, including tragedy and suffering. This is neither to deny or minimize the sacrificial mode of his death, only to note that his representative death is both sacrificial and tragic.23
Lamentation as a form of prayer is not common in the letters of the New Testament. Paul, for example, enjoins giving thanks in all circumstances with the advice to make petitions known to God (1 Thess. 5:16–18; cf. Rom. 12:12; Phil. 4:4–7). How strongly he may also have petitioned the Lord is hinted at in his thrice-made appeal to God to remove a physical affliction, his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7b–10). He also urged believers to have solidarity with one another, and when appropriate, to “mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15).
A form of lamentation, although somewhat different from the book of Lamentations, comes in the Revelation of John. After a stunning vision of the heavenly throne room and the scroll with seven seals (Rev. 4:1–5:3), John weeps bitterly because no one is worthy to take the scroll (i.e., the book of life) and break its seals. This is a powerful depiction of human fallibility and its consequences apart from the intervening and redeeming acts of God. However, the Lamb, standing as though slain, is able to take the scroll and to receive the praise of those in heaven. Lamentations 5 ends with songs of praise to God and to the Lamb who was slain to purchase the lives of the saints. Yet even in their redeemed state, those who were martyred can still ask, “How long?” concerning a fuller cosmic redemption that God has promised (5:10).
Perhaps the reason that the voice of lamentation is muted in the New Testament letters comes with the conviction that in Christ God has demonstrated decisively that he is for his people and that in spite of continuing judgment and refinement through the historical process God will not be thwarted in saving them. A book like Lamentations is a powerful indicator of the travail of human existence and of the way a particular historical experience can shape the perspective of many generations of people. In depicting God as strong in anger and judgment, the book takes its place in an unfolding revelation that points to a God who is more strongly resolute to save. Calvin’s comment at the end of his own lectures on Lamentations is still worth pondering:
The faithful, even when they bear their evils and submit to God’s scourges, do yet familiarly deposit their complaints in his bosom, and thus unburden themselves.… Let us, then, know, that though the faithful sometimes take this liberty of expostulating with God, they yet do not put off reverence, modesty, submission, or humility.24