LAjNIENTATIONS, Book of, one of the books of the O.T. commonly assigned to Jeremiah, and consisting of a remarkable series of threnodies. In the following treatment of it we largely foUow the articles in Smith and Kitto, s. v.
I. Title.— The. Hebrew name of this book, n^iX, Ey- kah', " How," is taken, like those of the five books of INIoses, from the Hebrew word with which it opens, and which appears to have been almost a received formula for the commencement of a song of wailing (compare 2 Sam. i, 19-27). The Eabbins remark upon this title, " Three prophets have used the word riD'^X with refer- ence to Israel : Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. To what are they to be likened '? To three bridesmen (^'^J'^^TUIty =:Mi)pTt](p6poi) who have seen the afterwards widowed wife in three different stages. The first has seen her in her opulence and her pride, and he said, " Oh, how shall I bear alone your overbearing and your strife ?' (Deut. i, 2). The second has seen her in her dissipation and dis- soluteness, and he said, ' Oh, how has she become a har- lot !' (Isa. i, 21). And the third has seen her in her ut- ter desolation, and he said, ' Oh, how does she sit soli- tary !' (Lam. i, 1)" (Introduction to Echa Rabatkf).
Later Jewish w'riters usually designate the book by the more descriptive title riiD^p, Kinoth', " lamenta- tions" — dirge, a term which they found in Jer. vii, 29 ; ix, 10,20; 2 Chron. xxxv, 25, and which already had probably been applied familiarly to the book itself. See Lajient.
The Septuagint translators found themselves obliged,, as in the other cases referred to, to substitute some title more significant, and adopted Bptji'd 'lepei^iiov as the equivalent of the latter Hebrew term. The Vulgate gives the Greek word, and explains it {Threni, ill est, Lamentationes Jeremiee Propheta'). Lutlier and the A. V. have given the translation only, in " Klagelieder"' and "Lamentations" respectively.
II. Position. — In the present Hebrew Bible the book of Lamentations stands in the Hagiograi)ha (Kethiihim) between Ruth and Ecclesiastes. The Jews believe that it was not written by the gift of prophecy, but by the Spirit of (iod (between which they make a distinction), and give this as a reason for not placing it among the prophets. In the arrangement adopted for synagogue use, and reproduced in some editions, as in the Bomberg Bible of 1521, it stands among the five Megilloth after
LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF 214 LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF
the books of iVrosos, or books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesi- astes, and Solomon's SonR. This position of the book proliably had a Utiirgical origin, as it is read in their synagogues on the nintli of the month Ab, which is a fast fnr the destruction of the holy city. In the ancient Hebrew copies, however, this book is supposed to have occupied the place which is now assigned to it in most versions, namely, after Jeremiah. Indeed, from the man- ner in which Josephus reckons up the books of the Old Testament (^Contra Apion, i, 8), it has been supposed that Jeremiah and it originally formed Init one book (Prideaux, Connection, i, 332). The Septuagint groups the writings connected with the name of Jeremiah to- gether, but the book of Baruch comes between the prophecy and the Lamentation. On the hypothesis of some ^Titers that Jer. lii was originally the introduction to the poem, and not the conclusion of the prophecy, and that the preface of the .Sept. (which is not found cither in the Hebrew or in the Targum of Jonathan) was inserted to diminish the aljrnptness occasioned by this separation of the book I'rom that with which it had been originally connected, it woidd follow that the ar- rangement of the Yulg. and tlie A. Y. corresponds more closely than any other to that which we must look upon as the original one.
III. Form. — The structure of this book is peculiarly artificial, being strictly poetic, and in many portions acrostic.
(1.) Ch. i, ii, and iv contain 22 verses each, arranged in alphabetic order, each verse falling into three nearly balanced clauses (Ewald,/'oe^/?wc/^ p. 1-47); ii, 19 forms an exception, as having a fourth clause, the result of an interpolation, as if the writer had shaken off for a mo- ment the restraint of his self-imposed law. Possibly the hiversion of the usual order of " and £ in ch. ii, iii, iv, may have arisen from a like forgetfulness. Grotius (ad loc.) explains it on the assumption that here Jere- miah followed the order of the Chaktean alphabet. Similar anomalies occur in Psa. xxxvii, and have re- ceived a like explanation (De Wette, Psa. p. 57). It is, however, a mere hypothesis that the Chaldajan alpha- bet differed in this respect from the Hebrew; nor is it easy to see why Jeremiah should have chosen the He- brew order for one poem, and the Chaldiean for the oth- er three.
(2.) Ch. iii contains three short verses under each let- ter of the alphabet, the initial letter being three times repeated.
(3.) Ch. V contains the same number of verses as ch. i, ii, iv, but without the alphabetic order. The thought suggests itself that the earnestness of the prayer with \vhieh the book closes may have carried the writer be- yond the limits within which he had previously con- lined himself: but the conjecture (of Ewald) that we liave here, as in Psa. ix and x, the rough draught of ■what was intended to have been finished afterwards in the same manner as the others, is at least a probable one.