osition in which the Sept. translators found it, 1s held by some to be proved by the circumstance, noted by Néldeke, that the tr™ of the two books is not from the same hand, Jer being a compara- tively free rendering of the original, while Lamenta- tions is rigorously literal and marked by numerous Hebraisms. When the latter book attained to its
present position in the Alex. Canon, it came to be regarded more and more as an appendage to its predecessor, until Jeremiah-Lamentations could be reckoned a single book like Judges-Ruth. Tis result was reached all the more readily in some quarters owing to a faney for reckoning the canonical books of the OT as twenty-two, the number of letters in the Heb. alphabet. (See Ryle, Canon of the OT, 219 ἴ., and Wildeboer, Entstehung des AT Kanons, 76 f.).
Il. SrrucTURE oF THE Book.—The first four chapters are acrostic poems, of which the first, the second, and the fourth contain each 22 verses which open with the Heb. letters in succession. Ch. 3 contains 66 verses, and each letter is re- peated thrice, having three successive verses assigned to it. Ch. 5 is not acrostic, but con- tains 22 verses. In chs. 1 and 2 the verses consist of three members, in 4 of only two, while in 3 each verse has but a single member. It is the division of these members, however, which char- acterizes the four poems we are discussing. The Kinah or elegy is marked by a peculiar rhythm which difierentiates it from ordinary Hebrew poetry. De Wette, Keil, Ewald, and others helped to elucidate the nature and laws of the elegiac measure, but to Budde belongs the merit of having thoroughly investigated and explained the sub-
ject. is conclusions are set forth mainly in an essay in the ZATIW (1882, pp. 1-52); but the
Eng. reader will find all that is essential in an interesting article contributed by the same author to the New World (March 1893), under the title ‘The Folk-Song of Israel in the mouth of the Prophets.’
The characteristic features of the elegiac measure are that each verse-member (there may be one or more members in a verse) is divided by a cesura into two unequal parts, of which the second is the shorter (the proportion is generally 3:2), and that this second part, instead of balancing and re- inforeing the first, as is usual in the Heb. poetry, is frequently an imperfect echo of it, or not parallel in thought to it. (See Driver's LOT® 458). Budde has proved that this was the strain affected by the ‘mourning women’ in their lamentations for the dead. In Jer 917, where these are summoned to utter a dirge, the ‘limp- ing verse,’ as Budde calls it, is introduced with great effect (vv. 31. 33) alternately with the ordi- nary evenly-moving verse. There are numerous other instances of its occurrence in the OT, of which we may cite the magnificent passage Is 144>-2! (ode on the king of Babylon), Ezk 19, and Am 5? (ef. Driver’s note on this last passage). The prophets seem to have adopted this measure whenever they desired to make an unusually deep impression. It is obvious that all the associations connected with it rendered its employment in Lamentations specially suitable. ‘The singer or singers em- ployed this versification because it afforded them the surest way of putting their listeners into a mood corresponding to their melancholy utter- ances. High and low, learned and unlearned, old and young, man and woman, all understood this melody, all felt themselves transported by 10 to the bier of their relatives or neighbours, and were carried away by it to bewail their people, their city, themselves’ (Budde). The plaintive melan- choly cadence can be fully appreciated only in the original Hebrew, but its effect can be approxi- mately reproduced even in English. Take as an example —
“ Her adversaries are become the head, Her enemies prosper ; For the Lord hath afflicted her For the multitude of her transgressions : Her young children are gone into captivity Before the adversary.’
LAMENTATIONS
{It is greatly to be regretted that this peculiar rhythm is not exhibited in the RV, although in Kautzsch’s AT it is reproduced very effectively in German by Baethgen).
The text of Lamentations is in some instances corrupt, and it is not easy to bring every verse under Budde’s scheme. Still, not a little success has been achieved by this critic and others in restoring the original text of the Kinah. See, further, art. PorETRY.
From all this it is evident that in poems such as those that make up Lamentations we have no simple spontaneous outburst of grief, but the result of conscious effort and of not a little technical skill. While ch. 5 is not in the Kinah measure (it is only accidentally that νν."" 5 1} conform to it), something of the same effect is produced by the assonances (u, nu, anu, enu, mu, unu), which recur 44 times (Reuss), and to which there is no parallel in the OT except in Ps 124.
Ill. ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS.—Each of the five poems is complete in itself, and forms a well- rounded whole, independent alike of its pre- decessor and its successor. This was admitted even by Eichhorn, who ascribed all the five to Jeremiah, but held that they were composed by the prophet at different times and when in dit- ferent moods. Attempts have indeed been made to trace a progress either in the historical situation (de Wette), or in the thoughts (Ewald), from one chapter to another. The former failed completely to accomplish his self-imposed task, and the scheme of the latter can be carried through only by dis- covering in the Lamentations features that are absent and ignoring others that are present. Ewald certainly lays himself open to the sarcastic remark of Thenius, that upon such principles a connexion could be established between the most disparate elements in the world. Let any careful student judge whether it is correct to say with Ewald that chs. 1 and 2 contain the bitterest and, as yet, hopeless complaints; that in ch. 3, which is the turning-point, the poet reaches comfort at least for Laiaels that in ch. 4 lamentation indeed recurs, but now the people break in with the language of prayer and hope; while in ch. 5 we have nothing but prayer, oflered by the whole community, whose tone is sad indeed, yet com- Sey and hopeful. No doubt Ewald exhibits