LAMENTATIONS, BOOK OF. The book of Lamenta tions is one of the books of the Old Testament included among the Five Rolls or Megilloth. In the Jewish Canon the book bears the title " How! " because a lament usually begins with this word. There are five lamenta tions in the book, and all of them are concerned with the destruction of Jerusalem. All the chapters, except chapter v., are alphabetical, that is to say, each verse (in chap. iii. every third verse) begins with a letter of the alphabet. In the Septuagint Version the following words are prefixed to the book : " And it came to pass, after Israel was led into captivity, and Jerusalem laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said . . ." The first four chapters are composed in what has become known as the " Kina-verse." The elucidation of the Kina-verse owes much to K. Budde. " He had observed that wherever the Hebrew text yields a song of lamentation a well-defined and characteristically constructed form. clearly distinguishable from its context, shows itself, and that this consists of two members of unequal length so arranged that the second is the shorter. The second
shorter member is everywhere sharply marked off, and therefore as a rule follows on the first longer clause acruaerwg : normally a first clause was composed of three, a second of two, words " (Cornill). Both Jewish and Christian tradition regards Jeremiah as the author of the book, and there is no reason to doubt his authorship. The lamentations are for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., and the descriptions in part seem to be those of an eye-witness. The English and German Bibles follow the Septuagint and Vulgate Versions in connecting Lamentations closely with the Book of Jeremiah. But if Jeremiah was the original author, it must at least be admitted that the work was afterwards edited and added to. There are passages which can hardly have been written by Jeremiah (e.g., v. 7; ii. 9; iv. 17; with v. 7 compare Jeremiah xxi. 29-30). See C. Cornill, Intr.; G. H. Box; O. C. Whitehouse.