JEREMIAH, LAMENTATIONS OF. The name given in the English Bible to a short book placed immediately after the Book of the Prophet Jere miah. In the Hebrew it is called 'Ekah ('How,' the first word). sometimes also Kinoth(Wirges'). and is placed among the Hagiographa. The Sep tuagint title is epipoL, Thffnoi, a translation of KinOth. The hook consists of five chapters. which may be designated as so many elegies or dirges over the desolation of the land. the exile of the people, the destruction of the first temple, the fall of the of Judah. and the writer's own woes. Properly speaking. only chapters i.. ii., and iv. are dirges, bewailing the death of the Jewish nation. Chapter iii. deals with H: affliction of the people. or rather of the pious section of the community. Chapter v. is in the form of a prayer. Th'e elegies are in poetical fc rm. the metre of the first four being that com monly employed in dirges in the ancient and modern Orient—the so-called Kinah strain. Each verse member is divided by a c:esura into two unequal parts. of which the first is the longer; the second usually presents an enforcement of the thought contained in the first. This unequal proportion between the two parts of a verse member gives to the lines a 'limping' character. In chapters i. and ii. the verses consist of three members: in chapter iii. of one member; in chap ter iv. of two members. The metre of the fifth poem consists of three-toned lines. The structure of the elegies is very artificial. The first, second, and fourth each contain twenty-two verses, each verse beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet arranged in the usual order except that in i. and iv. the seventeenth letter of the alphabet, according to the ordinary arrange ment (pe), precedes the sixteenth (ayin). Chap ter iii. follows the same arrangement as i. and iv. multiplied by 3-66 verses in all. Chapter v. contains twenty-two verses, but their initial let ters are not in alphabetic order.
The contents of the five elegies may be sum marized as follows: (1) Lamentation over the state of Jerusalem after the people had been carried captive; its sins acknowledged as the just cause of its misfortunes; Yahweh approached with penitence as the only source of help. (2) The destruction of the city, and sufferings of its people lamented; false prophets condemned; Yah weh again invoked as alone able to save. (3) Description of the affliction of the religious com munity under the type of a single individual, as in the songs of the 'servant of Yahweh' in Isaiah (q.v.). The sufferings are regarded as just pun
ishments, and the speaker expresses confidence in Yahweh's ultimate compassion. (4) Lamenta tion over present conditions in contrast with former prosperity; all misfortune confessed to be the result of transgression and sin. (5) A final appeal to Yahweh; the calamities of the nation again recited; the sins that caused them penitently confessed; and Yahweh entreated to turn His people back to Himself and to renew the blessings they had formerly enjoyed. The last verse contains a sentiment that was con sidered to be of ill omen. and hence in reading the book it became customary to repeat the preceding verse, which embodies the appeal for a return of divine grace.
Concerning the authorship and date of the poems. opinions are at variance. The internal evidence is not conclusive. The tradition assign ing the entire hook to Jeremiah may be traced to the Septuagint, but it should he noted that not all manuscripts contain this ascription. The tradition is thought by some to be based upon the late statement in II. Citron. xxxv. 25 that Jeremiah was the author of an elegy upon King Josiah. On the whole, modern scholars reject Jeremiah's authorship of the book. But it is freely admitted that it shows influences of his style and thought. Some think that it may be the work of a contemporary (or contemporaries). Others assign a later date. The compositions are evidently specimens of the elegiac literature of the Hebrews (or Jews) suggested by the national catastrophe and the sufferings of the post-exilic community, especially during the first century after the return and again under the Seleucidan rule. Some critics think that no two poems have the same author, and the most plausible arrangement with respect to date is ii.. iv.. i., v., iii. Chapters ii. and iv. have more in common than any of the others. Comparison with sentiments in the Psalms that belong to the later Persian period speaks in favor of Plac ing these two chapters about the middle of the fourth century B.C. There is no reason to assume a long interval between ii. :Ind iv. on the one side and i. and v. on the other. Chapter iii. may belong to the age of Greek supremacy.
Consult the commentaries of Ewald. Nagels barb, Keil, Payne, Smith, (lieyne, l'Iumptre, and especially 1.611r, Die Kbtycii(der•remios Ittiittingen, IS:11-941. For the metre. consult Budde's articles in the Zvi tschrif t file tilt!, stri ps( ntliehr Wissenmohaf t 1SS2-94 ), and in the A ' it It t Alarch, 1S93).