eriod, during the prophet’s sojourn in Egypt.
éhr formerly fixed upon 550 as an approximate date for the completion of the book. This would
* Who assigns chs. 2 and 4 to an eye-witness (not Jeremiah) of the calamities they describe, dates chs. 1 and 5 (from diferent hands) about 530 (or later) and 550 respectively, while he fixes the date of ch. 3 much later, in the pre-Maccabwan period in the 8rd cent. B.C.
allow sufficient time to account for the references to Ezekiel. In a later work (1893) Lohr is willing to come down as late as 530, but objects to a post-exilic date, because he holds that the Kinah measure, although found in Deutero-Isaiah, can- not be traced in any post-exilie work (not occur- ring in Hag, Zec, Mal, Jl, or Jon). Wildeboer finds ndthing in the contents of the book to compel us to fix upon the close of the Exile as the fer- minus ad quem for the publication of Lamenta- tions. Some of the elegies might well have been composed in Babylon by an exile who did not share the sanguine expectations of Deutero-Isaiah, or even in Judea by one who had returned with Zerubbabel in 536. Wildeboer thinks, however, that the latest poral date is 516, the year when the rebuilding of the temple was finished. But if the possibility of Lamentations being post-exilic is admitted, some plausibility must be conceded to Cheyne’s suggestion (Founders of OT Criticism, 356) that as the church of the second temple composed its own psalms, it is far from impossible that it preferred to indite fresh elegies for use on the old fast-days. There were details enough in the historical books to enable a poet possessed of dramatic imagination to draw the pictures in Lamentations. | The tone of the book, however, is inconsistent with the contention of Fries (ZATW, 1893), that chs. 4 and 5 belong to so late a period as that of the Maccabees. ‘This is conclusively proved by Lohr (ZATW, 1894), who exhibits the complete contrast between the Maccabzean Psalms, where the people protest that they suffer in spite of their innocence, and the Bk. of Lamentations, which confesses throughout that the nation’s suffering is due to the nation’s sin. LITERATURE.—Driver, LOT® 456-465; Cornill, Hinleit.2 244~- 248; W. R. Smith, OT JC? 181, 219, also art. ‘Lamentations’ in Encyc. Brit.9; Wildeboer, Lit. ἃ. AT, 298-303; Noldeke, AT Lit. 142ff.; artt. by Budde, Smend, Lohr, Fries in ZATW (1882-1894) ; rine Canon of OT, 69, 115, 121, 219; Wildeboer, Entsteh, ἃ. AT Kan. 9, 12, 17, 77, 181ff.; Buhl, Canon and Text of OT, 20, 39f. Of modern foreign commentaries may be mentioned those of Thenius, Keil, Ewald, Gerlach, Reuss, Nigelsbach, Lohr (1891 and 1893, the latter in Nowack’s Hand- kom. z. AT; both Lohr’s works are exceedingly valuable, and there is an important review of the first by A. B. Davidson in Crit. Review, Jan. 1892); Minocchi, Le Lament. di Geremia, 1897; Budde in Kurzer Hdcomm., 1898. Amongst Eng. com- mentaries are those of Payne Smith (in Speaker's Comm.), Plumptre (in Ellicott's Comm. on OT), Cheyne (in Pulpit Comm.), cf. the same author’s Jeremiah in ‘ Men of the Bible’ series, and his Founders of OT Criticism, 356f.; Streane (Camb. Bible for Schools), Adeney (in Expositor's Bible). See also Greenup, Targum on Lam., Comm, of Rabbi Tobia ben Elieser on Lam., Short Comm, on Lamentations. J. A. SELBIE.
LAMP (15, Ὁ, λύχνος, \aurds).—The first of these words is tr’ ‘torch’ in Nah 2* and Zee 12° (AV and RV); and in Gn 15", Je 78, Job 41°, Ezk 1.8 the same tr? is adopted by RV in place of ‘lamp’ of AV. The other Heb. word, as well as the Gr. λαμπάς," may mean torch likewise, but is more properly lamp, with oil and wick, as in the description of the golden candlestick (Ex 2551::-5 of the tabernacle, and those made by Solomon for the temple (2 Ck 4-21) which were kept burning all night (Ex 307-5, Lv 945.
The common lamps of Pal. were of terra-cotta, as we have abundant evidence from the numerous specimens found in all parts. Glass lamps of Egyp. or Phen. make might have been known, and bropze lamps are not infrequently found. Very little is known of the lamps used in Egypt. Herod. (ii. 62) describes them as flat saucers filled with a mixture of salt and oil, on the top of which floated the wick. The oldest form of lamp found in Pal. is not unlike that described by Herodotus. It is like a shallow saucer, the rim of which, on one side, is pinched together, forming a narrow channel through which the wick passed (see Fig. 1). This style is
* See under art. Lantern.
24 LAMP
called Pheen., and is found in the tombs and ruins of the oldest cities in Phoenicia and Palestine (PEFSt, 1893, p. 14; and Bliss, Mound of Many Cities, p. 87). The more common forms are oblong, but not open like the above. There is a saucer- like depression in the upper surface, at the bottom of which there is an orifice for the admission of the oil into the lamp, and another opening at the
Fig. 1.
extremity for the admission of the wick. At the opposite end there is often a small handle (see Figs. 2 and 3: Fig. 3 is bronze). Sometimes the form is circular, an open saucer-shape, with a smaller saucer inverted in the larger (see Fig. 4). This form of lamp, especially No. 2,* with or with- out the handle, is called Roman, and was doubtless