LAMENTATIONS (lam'en-ta'shims), this book is called by the Hebrews 71;'.$,ey-kawt,'how,' from the first word of the book; but sometimes they call it IM=.7,kee-notht, tears, or 'lamentation,' in allusion to the mournful character of the work, of which one would conceive, says Bishop Lowth, 'that every letter was written with a tear, every word the sound of a broken heart.' From this, or rather from the translation of it in the Septuagint, tears, comes our title of Lamentations.
(1) Ascription. The ascription of theLamenta tions in the title is of no authority in itself, but its correctness has never been doubted. The style and manner of the book arc those of Jeremiah, and the circumstances alluded to, those by which he is known to have been surrounded. This reference of the Lamentations to Jeremiah occurs in the introductory verse which is found in the Septuagint :=And it came to pass, after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said.' It is disputed whether or not this verse existed in the Hebrew copies from which the translation of the Seventy was made. We are certainly not bound by its authority if disposed to. question the conclusion which it supports. But It at least shows the opinion which prevailed as to the au thor, and the occasion of the book, at the time the translation was made. That opinion, as re gards the author, has been admitted almost with out dispute. Funeral lamentations, oomposed by Jeremiah upon the death of King Josiah, are men tioned in 2 Chron. xxxv :25, and are there said to have been perpetuated by an ordinance in Israel. That the lamentations thus mentioned are those which we now possess has been the opinion of many scholars of great eminence. Josephus clear ly takes this view (Antiq. x:5, 1), as do Jerome (Commcnt. in Zech. iii:t1), Theodoret, and oth ers of the Fathers; and in more modern times, Archbishop Usher (De LXX Interpret.), Michae lis (Note on Lowth's Sac. Poet. Hebr. Przelect. xxii), who afterwards changed his opinion, Datne (Proph. Major. ed. t ), and others. De Wette (Ein/eit. sec. 273) is clearly of opinion that the passage in 2 Chronicles refers to the existing book of Lamentations, and that the author considered the death of Josiah as its principal subject. This daring writer uses so little ceremony with the author of the book of Chronicles on other oc casions that his own opinion is not to be in ferred from this admission; and we are not sur prised to find from what follows that he feels at liberty to take a different view from the one which he believes the writer of Chronicles to have entertained.
(2) General View of Commentators. The re ceived opinion, namely, that in accordance with the argument prefixed to the books in the Septua gint, is now quite generally accepted. It is adopted by nearly all commentators who, as they proceed through the book, find that they cannot follow out the details on any other supposition. Indeed, but for the reference suggested by the pas sage in Chronicles, no one would have been likely to imagine that such expressions as are found in ch. i :17 could point to any other circumstances
than those which attended and followed the de struction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Be sides the prophet speaks throughout the book of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple as ruined, profaned and desolated ; and this was not the case during the reign of Josiah or at the dine of his death. We may, under this view, regard the first two chapters as occupied chiefly with the circum stances of the siege and those immediately fol lowing that event. In the third the prophet deplores the calamities and persecutions to which Ile had himself been exposed; the fourth refers to the ruin and desolation of the city, and the unhappy lot of Zedekiali ; and the fifth and last seems to be a sort of prayer in the name, or on behalf, of the Jews in their dispersion and cap tivity. As Jeremiah himself was eventually com pelled to withdraw into Egypt much against his will (Jer. xliii :6), it has been suggested that the last chapter was possibly written there. Pareau refers ch. i to Jer. xxxvii :5, sq.; ch. iii to Jer. xxxviii :2, sq.; ch. iv to Jer. xxxix :1, sq., and 2 Kings xxv:i, sq.; ch. ii to the destruction of the city and temple ; ch. v is admitted to be the latest. and to refer to the time after that event. Ewald says that the situation is the same throughout, and only the time different. In ch. i and ii we find sorrow without consolation ; ch. iii consolation for the poet himself ; in ch. iv the lamentation is renewed with greater violence ; but soon the whole people, as if urged by their own spontaneous im pulse, fall to weeping and hoping.
Dr. Blayney, regarding both the date and oc casion of the Lamentations as established 13y the internal evidence, adds, 'Nor can we admire too much the flow of that full and graceful pathetic eloquence, in which the author pours out the effusions of a patriotic heart, and piously weeps over the ruins of his venerable country' (Jeremiah p. 376). 'Never,' says an unquestionable judge of these matters, 'was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images and adjuncts, arranged together within so small a compass, nor more happily chosen and applied (Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebr. Prmlect. xxii.).
In the ancient copies this book is supposed to have occupied the place which is now assigned to it, after Jeremiah. Indeed, from the manner in which Josephus reckons up the books of the Old Testament (Contra Apion. i:8), it has been sup posed that Jeremiah and Lamentations originally formed but one book (Prideaux, Connection, i. 332). In the Bible now used by the Jews, how ever, the book of Lamentations stands in the Ha giographa, and among the five Megilloth, or books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song. They believe that it was not written by the gift of prophecy, but by the spirit of God (between which they make a distinction), and give this as a rea son for not placing it among the prophets. It is read in their synagogues on the ninth of the month Ab, which is a fast for the destruction of the holy city. (Henderson, Commentary, London, 1850; Noyes, Hebrew Profthets, Boston, 1866; Deutsch, in Kitto's Cyc4 of Bib4 Lit.)