Lamentations

Lamentations is called "the Lamentations of Jeremiah" in Christian tradition, but is not associated with him in Jewish tradition[1 p.24]. It seems to be the people's complaint when they were defeated and exiled, as Jeremiah had prophesied (e.g. in Jeremiah 32). There is recognition that this happened because of sin in 4:13, acknowledgement that they ought to change their ways in 3:24, and celebration of God's merciful nature in 3:22f. However, there is no resolve to "turn over a new leaf".

The book arose because "traumatised people who found themselves as captives in a foreign land needed words to give expression to the overwhelming sense of devastation and loss they had experienced ... in the middle of the book is an astonishing cry of hope [Lamentations 3:21–22], because lamenting in the presence of God opens our hearts to peceiving his compassion and love" [3]. Lamentations is read nowadays in synagogues at the festival of the destruction of the temple.

"The prophet has personified Jerusalem and the whole nation with himself. What he experiences is the same as the whole land."[4] The book is a series of poems: four that comprise verses starting with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and one that has the same number of lines, 22, as there are letters in that alphabet. This may be a reminder that God is lord of everything from A to Z, as well as an aid to memory.[2]

© David Billin 2002–2025