Introduction

Concerning the book “Lamentations of Jeremiah”.

The name of the book. In the Hebrew Bible, the book is called etcha, “how,” that is, the particle with which the first verse of the first chapter begins. The Rabbis called it kinotti — lamentation, which name the Greek translators also adopted, calling it θρηνοι — lamentation, weeping. This name fully characterizes the content of the book, which presents a series of sorrowful songs about the destruction of Jerusalem, similar to those songs that were composed on the occasion of the death of beloved and respected persons (for example, David’s song about the destruction of Saul and Jonathan).

The writer of the book and the time of its writing. The LXX translators directly attribute the book of Lamentations to the prophet Jeremiah, calling it “Lamentations of Jeremiah.” Moreover, the LXX has a special superscription to the book, which is placed also in our Slavonic Bible. It reads as follows: “And it came to pass, when Israel was led into captivity, and Jerusalem was desolated, that Jeremiah the prophet sat down weeping: and he wept with this weeping over Jerusalem and spoke.” From this it is clear that sacred tradition from ancient times considered the prophet Jeremiah to be the author of the book of Lamentations. This same tradition has been preserved among the Jews.

The impression received from the book fully corresponds to this tradition. In all parts of the Lamentations, the distinctive characteristics of Jeremiah’s character, his views, and even the speech of the book clearly testify to the belonging of this book to the prophet Jeremiah. Furthermore, the author of the Lamentations evidently has only just experienced the horrors of the siege and capture of Jerusalem and writes under the fresh impression of the catastrophe that has occurred. It is clear that the book was written soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, before the time when Jeremiah was taken by his fellow countrymen into Egypt.

The subject matter of the book. The entire book represents a depiction of the unfortunate fate of Jerusalem, interrupted from time to time by confession of the sins of the Jewish people and prayers to God for help. It is divided into five chapters or songs, of which the first, wholly pervaded by inconsolable grief over the exile of the Jews into captivity and the destruction of Zion, is devoted to the depiction of the sufferings of the Jews who remained in the ruins of destroyed Jerusalem. The second song contains a new and intensified complaint about the destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah; the prophet recognizes this destruction as a deserved punishment for the transgressions of the Jewish people against God. The third song represents a manifestation of the highest tension of the prophet’s sorrow. If earlier, in the first two songs, only the sounds of an approaching storm were heard, here the storm bursts forth with full force. But just as a storm clears the air, so great sorrow enlightens the soul, and after painful and bitter complaints, the prophet opens before his readers a horizon of bright hopes. The fourth song represents the complaint of the prophet in a confused state. The bitterness of sorrow here is moderated by a clear consciousness of his guilt before God. The misfortune that has befallen Jerusalem appears here as a punishment that the inhabitants of Jerusalem have brought upon themselves by their sins. In the fifth song, finally, the community of believers, together with the prophet, achieves complete peace concerning their fate, and although complaints are still repeated there, they are expressed calmly; they merely state a certain condition of the Jews.

The place of the book in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. Whereas in the Greek Bible the book of Lamentations follows immediately after the book of the prophecies of Jeremiah, in the Hebrew Bible it has been placed in the section called the Ketubim, or Hagiographa, and placed after the book of the Song of Songs. The reason for the collectors of the Hebrew canon may have been the fact that the book of Lamentations contains no direct prophecies as such, but expresses the feelings of the believing heart, and therefore this book is more like works of lyrical character, which is what most of the books of the Ketubim are.

The peculiarities of the external form of the book. Each of the five songs of Lamentations has twenty-two verses, according to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and only in the third song does each verse divide into three parts, so that here there appear sixty-six verses. The first four songs are acrostics, that is, the initial letters of their verses are the initial letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the third song each of the three parts or members of the verse begins with the same letter. All this structure has deep meaning. The prophet, as it were, wishes to say by this that he has expressed the full measure of the sufferings of his people, that he has omitted nothing that can be expressed by ordinary human words, whatever letters they begin with. Only when his sorrow subsides, precisely in the fifth song, does he cease to observe this acrostic order, and the fifth song has retained only the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but is not an acrostic.