LAMENTATIO.NS, BOOK OF, in the Hebrew Cation • 0 how . (a plaintive exclam ation)t ; in the Talmud and later authorities r-m+p,1: elegies, dirges ; LXX. epljpot 'lepektiou ; Vulg. Threni, id est Lamentationes Yerentiee Prophetce ; Jerome, lamentationes quee Cynoth hebraice insert buntur ; Syr. 1.-4-=..3 C31Li-L01, etc.: one of the Hagiographa (n,zln:) in the Masoretic Code (the third of the five Megilloth, between Ruth and Ecclesiastes), but in the LXX., Vulg., and our Bibles—which follow their example—placed after the Book of Jeremiah. It is a collection of five elegies sung on the ruins of Zion; and the fall of Judma, the destruction of the Sanctuary, the exile of the people, and all the terrors of sword, fire, and famine in the city of Jerusalem are the principal themes upon which they turn in ever new variations.
The first chapter opens, in the most striking manner, with the picture of Jerusalem, the widowed queen herself, bereft of her inhabitants and of her crown, sitting alone in the vast stillness of night, § and weeping„ bitterly weeping : without comfort, without friends—for these have turned foes. Her children are far away, in exile, ever hunted, ever overtaken. And she remembers all her former glory now in the depths of her woe (1-7).*—Yet, it was her own sin that brought her down so wondrously.' . . Behold, 0 God, my woe,' she bursts out suddenly (9) :--The enemy is in the very Sanctuary, famine stares in her face, she humbles herself before the chance passers by, appeals to them for pity, asks them whether they saw in the wide wide world a grief like unto hers, which the Lord has wrought in the fulness of His day of ire. Fire above, a snare below, a yoke on her neck. . . . Over these things do I weep. . . . my children are destroyed . . . and no comforter' (ro-r6). She wrings her nands in vain—foes all around 07). But the Lord is just, she has rebelled,± she does not complain of IIis judgment ; only let all the peoples hear her pitiful wail.' But nay :—even her beloved friends mock her' (z 8, 19). And in the bitterness of her upheaved heart, and in the darkness of her woe, she turns to Him who has caused all this—‘ sword with out, death within.' She does not ask for mercy, but she cries out for veng,eance. . . . For many are my groans, and my heart is faint' (2o-22). Commiseration for her own state—the saddest phase of suffering—confession of her own guilt, and the appeal to God's justice in avenging her on her foes on the score of their sins :—these form the loosely connected but leading thoughts of the first chapter.
Chap. ii. again intones the asking in sad wonderment how the Lord could have thus laid low the splendour of Zion ? . . . for getful of His own footstool on the day of His wrath' 0). The strong-holds are fallen, His very tabernacle is sunken to the ground ; king and priest in exile—no law, no prophet ; old men and young maidens sit on the ground in silence, ashes on their heads, and the babes pour out their young souls on their mothers' breasts (S-12). To what—the writer suddenly breaks the weird description—shall I com pare thee, 0 daughter of Jerusalem, to what liken time, how comfort thee? . . . For deep as the sea is thy wound ; who shall heal thee? (13). And the cause —false prophets' false burdens, to which thou foolishly hast lent thine car (14). Oh, see how the passers-by clap their hands, shake their heads, mock and scoff! . . . But Up, thou widowed city of sorrows! Up and cry unto Him whose hand has wrought all this shame and all this misery . . . cry unto Him in the night, and rest not and cease not, and cry out thy whole heart before Him, lift up thy hands and show Him the corpses of the suckling babes slain by hunger at the top of every street ! 091. Let him behold—oh horror !— tender mothers feasting on the offspring that has lain under their own hearts. Show Him His own Sanctuary . . . and amid its ashes and broken stones lie slain His priest and His prophet, and the streets run red with the blood of boy and grayllead (2o). in truth He has called together, as to a solemn assembly, every terror and every horror. He has slaughtered and not sprued. No remnant, no fugitive, not one of the precious children saved—no comfort, no hope . . . the enemy has consumed them all—a11.— It would perhaps be more difficult to indicate a 'running thought ' in this than in any other elegy,. The most heartrending, most desperate pictures of terror and woe are conjured up one after the other, without any perceptible logical sequence ; and the ideas, as they come and go and return almost un controlled, have something of the ghastly, mechani cal rocking to and fro of the body, which at times accompanies the wild wail or the tearless sorrow of women. The only new features of this section consist in the direct charge against the false pro phets, and in the utterly crushed state of mind, which does not ask for vengeance any longer—but for mercy.