Lamentations

LAMENTATIONS

Author and Period. In 586 B.C., the impossible happened: the impregnable city and the inviolable Temple, from which God’s protection radiated (Ps 46:6ff; Ps 48:4-9; Ps 72:2-4), fell into the hands of their enemies. Jeremiah was the only one who foresaw the catastrophe, announced it, and paid for it with imprisonment. Now, events have proven him right. This is the second siege, with its consequences of hunger, thirst, massacres, fires, looting, and then forced exile.
These events, which lead to the Lamentations, are detailed in the Second Book of Kings and in Jeremiah 39 and 52, and are turned into a vision in Ezekiel (Ezk 9). “Lamentations” or “Jeremiah’s Lamentations” is the traditional name for these five elegies or funeral songs about the fall of Jerusalem.
The attribution of the writing to Jeremiah—whose name inspired the word “jeremiad”—offers authority to the work, but it seems unlikely that he is the true author. One or more anonymous poets are the likely creators of the songs that focus on the event. It appears that these poets experienced the events firsthand and wrote about them afterward. These songs may have been recited or sung at community gatherings to mourn the city.

Literary Genre. The elegy offers great freedom of development: a singer can speak, and the chorus of those present can respond. The main character, Jerusalem, can express her feelings and experiences. Through Jerusalem’s singer, we can also hear the voices of enemies or outside spectators. There are descriptions of individual features, imaginative transpositions, lamentations, supplications, bewildered questions, and exhortations—all of which provide wealth and variety of material.

Message of the Lamentations. It is a time of mourning for Israel and its beloved city, Jerusalem; for the Temple, beautiful as a bride and as a wife (Ezk 24:21). It is also a time of lamentation for the pain of the innocent (2:12). Whose lamentation? That of the enemy who goes too far, or of God who ordains or allows it? (3:37). The poet of the third elegy suppresses his complaint to explore deeper reflection (3:40). The abyss of pain calls to the abyss of sin with an elegiac voice, and the abyss of confessed sin appeals to the abyss of mercy (3:21f). In these songs of pain, hope is encouraged; an old ember glows, which the poet calls upon in a measured way (5:21).
The Lamentations, due to the magnitude of pain (2:13) and the intensity of their expression, lead us to the limits of our human experience where we feel small in the face of suffering’s enormity, human cruelty’s vastness, and the threat of hatred within us. From the depths of our tears, we lift our eyes and hearts (3:41) in search of something greater than pain and hatred: 5:19; 3:23; 3:32.