already been softened by time. To assert, witb Dean Plumptre, tbat tbe bom poet " accepts tbe discipline of a self-imposed law just in proportion to tbe vehemence of his emotions," is incapable of proof from modern Euro- pean poetry, and, if possible, still more opposed to the facts of Hebrew literature Some of the examples which the dean addnces are merely the rhetorical exercises of poets learning their craft ; others merely concessions to the taste which every now and then prevails for superfine elaboration in every branch of art ; others, again (and these few examples are alone in point), the attempts of the artists to help Nature to recover her balance, when the recovery has already begun and emotion has already lost its over- whelming vehemence. Members of the much-sufEering Jewish race have many a time, since the Lamentations were written, had recourse for comfort to similar styles of composition, and verified the words of a great French critic, " When the passion is sincere, even the most artificial form assumes something of beauty."
Before we conclude, let ns briefly review our position. The first, second, and fourth chapters of Lamentations may conceivably be by the same author; and though that author is certainly not Jeremiah, yet he is probably acquainted, whether by the ear or by the eye, with the prophecies of Jere- miah. He was contemporary with the fall of Jerusalem, and indited these elegies not long after for a liturgical purpose. It is, however, equally possible that they are the work of different authors, belonging to the same circle or school of literary craftsmen. About the same time, or a little later, the fifth and last seems to have been written, and very certainly not by the author of any of the foregoing Lamentations. The date of the third elegy may have been as early as that of the others, or it may have been written at some later time J — the personification of the people is thought by many critics to be a characteristic of those quif t literary men among the Jewish exiles in Babylon, to one of whom they attribute most if not all of the second part of the Book of Isaiah. In any case the author of the third Lamentation must have been acquainted with the other elegies (except the fifth), as there is a general similarity in the diction of the first four chapters of the book.' There seems, in fact, to have been a peculiar and fixed vocabulary, traditional in this school of elegiac poets, just as there has been in other schools of writers. Jeremiah was probably the favourite book of these poets (next to the Psalter, so far as this book was in existence) ; and so, if a title must be given by way of defining the authorship, we might, perhaps, style the entire book, on the analogy of a portion of the Pt>alter, "The Book of the Lamentations of tbe sons of Jeremiah."
The elegies on which we have been engaged were the forerunners of a large body of synagogue poetry ; many of the kinoth (as one large class of the post- canonical as well as the five canonical elegies were called) were suggested by passages of the Book of Lamentations. Most of them, indeed,
' Bee tbe third section of the Introduction to Naegelsbaoli's ' Ommentary on Lamenta- Uoni,' appended to the same writer's 'Jeremiah' in Lange's Old Testament scries (translated).
nil IKTBODUCTION TO THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.
were speciallj written for that rerj fast-daj which we have already coii< jectnred to hare occasioned the composition of the canonical Lamentations. The most beantifnl of the ktnoth is probably that of Yehnda ben Samuel Halevi (twelfth century a.d.), which may be known even to some general readers by Heinrich Heine's poem in the ' Bomanzero,' and which has been critically illustrated by A. von Oettingen, ' Die synagogale Elegik des Volkes Israel u. 8. w.' (Dorpat, 1853), with which may be compared Delitzsch's delightful and instructive work, ' Zur Geschichte der judischen Poesie.' Lastly, for a comprehensive article on the Hebrew elegy (in its Biblical forms) see a paper by Professor 0. Bndde, of Bonn, which opens the second volume (1882) of Stade's Zeitschrift for Old Testament studies.
For the exegetical and critical literature on Lamentations, we need only ^dEer to the list of works on Jeremiah in Vol. I., adding, however, Bickell, ' Carmina Veteris Testamenti Metrice,' Innsbruck, 1882 (a critically revised text of the chief poetical passages in the Old Testament, moie to be feasted in the Lamentations than in the Psalms) ; Plnmptre, 'Jeremiah and Lamentations,' in vol. iv. of Bishop Ellicott's ' Commentary,' London, 1884 (• troly popular and interesting work bj • mftnj-iided 8cholar)i
THE LAMENTATIONS OP JEREMIAH.
EXPOSITION.
CHAPTER L
Veri. 1 — 11. — A Wail op Distbess pob /erdsalem.
Vers. 1, 2. — The fate of Joruealcm is lescribed in language which resembles here ind there that used in Isaiah of fallen Babylon (Isa. xlvii. 1, 8). It is probably the finest passage in the whole bock, anil lias inspired some grand lines in Mr. Swin- burne's picture of the republican mater dolorosa —
'* Who ii she that sits by the way, by the wild wayside. In a rust-stained garment, the robes of a
oast-olf bride, In the dust, in the rainfall, sitting with
soiled feet bare. With the night for a garment npon her, with torn, wet hair," etc. ?
Ver. 1. — How. The characteristic introduc- tory word of an elegy (comp. Isa.i. 21 ; xiv. 4, 12), and adopted by the early Jewish divines as the title of the Book of Lamentations. It Is repeated at the opening of ch. li. and ch. iv. Sit solitary. Jerusalem is poetically personified and distinguished from the per- sons who accidentally compose her popula- tion. She is " solitary," not as having retired into solitude, but as des(;rted by her inhabitants (same word as in first clause of Isa. xxvii. 10). How is she become as a widow ! etc. Bather, She it become a widow that was great among the nations ; a princess among the provinces, she is become a vassal. The alteration greatly conduces to the effect of the verse.jwhich consists of three parallel lines, like almost all the rest of the chapter. We are not to press the phrase, " a widow," as if some earthly or heavenly husband were alluded to ; it is a kind of symbol of desolation and misery (comp. Isa. xlvii. 8). " The provinces " at once suggests the period at the writer, who mu«t bav* been a gubject
JtAMSSTAtlOSO.
of the Babylonian empire. The term is also frequently used of the countries under the Persian rule(e.3. Esth.i. 1, 22), and in Ezra ii. 1 anil Neh. vii. 6 is used of Judah itself. Here, however, the " provinces," like the " nations," must be the countries formerly subject to David and Solomon (comp. Eccles. ii. 8).