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Lamentations

The Complete Story11:11

Overview

Lamentations is a short book of five poems mourning the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The poems are anonymous, but ancient tradition (the Greek Septuagint introduction and the Talmud) links them with Jeremiah, who witnessed the fall; many modern scholars see them as the work of one or more poets living in Judah soon after. In Jewish practice the book is read on Tisha B'Av, the fast commemorating the temple's destruction. Its Hebrew title, Eikhah ("How!"), is the cry that opens chapters 1, 2 and 4.

The book is carefully crafted. Chapters 1, 2 and 4 are acrostics with 22 verses, each beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet; chapter 3 is a triple acrostic of 66 verses; chapter 5 has 22 verses but no acrostic. The form gives order to overwhelming grief, mourning "from aleph to tav". The structure is: Poem 1 (ch 1) the widowed city; Poem 2 (ch 2) the Lord's anger; Poem 3 (ch 3) the man of affliction and the turn to hope; Poem 4 (ch 4) the horrors of the siege; Poem 5 (ch 5) the community's prayer.

Poem 1 — The widowed city (chapter 1)

Alone and abandoned (1:1–11). "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!" Jerusalem, personified as Daughter Zion, weeps through the night with "none to comfort her" among all her lovers — the allies she trusted. Judah has gone into exile; the roads to Zion mourn because no one comes to the feasts. The poet is clear about the cause: "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned." Zion speaks (1:12–22). The city herself cries out to passers-by: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" (1:12). She feels the LORD has sent fire into her bones. Yet she confesses, "The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment" (1:18), and asks God to see her distress.

Poem 2 — The Lord's anger (chapter 2)

God as enemy (2:1–10). The second poem dwells on God's role in the catastrophe. "The Lord was as an enemy" (2:5): he has swallowed up Israel's palaces, thrown down the strongholds, "cast off his altar" and abandoned his sanctuary. The king and princes are among the nations, "the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD" (2:9). The elders sit silent in sackcloth. Children in the streets (2:11–22). The poet's eyes fail with tears as infants faint in the streets, asking their mothers, "Where is corn and wine?" (2:12). The false prophets had "seen vain and foolish things" instead of exposing sin. Passers-by mock. The poet urges the city: "Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children" (2:19).

Poem 3 — Hope in the darkness (chapter 3)

The man of affliction (3:1–20). A single voice now speaks: "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath." He describes being driven into darkness, walled in, weighed down with chains, his prayer shut out, his teeth broken with gravel. "My strength and my hope is perished from the LORD" (3:18). The turning point (3:21–39). At the very centre of the book he recalls something else: "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (3:22–23). "The LORD is my portion… therefore will I hope in him." It is good to "hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD", for "the Lord will not cast off for ever" and "doth not afflict willingly". Repentance and plea (3:40–66). "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD" (3:40). The speaker recalls crying from the pit: "Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not" (3:57). He asks God to judge his enemies.

Poem 4 — The gold grown dim (chapter 4)

Reversal of fortunes (4:1–12). "How is the gold become dim!" The precious sons of Zion are treated like clay pots. The princes, once "purer than snow", are blackened and unrecognised in the streets. Famine was worse than the sword; the poet records the most terrible extremes of the siege. Kings of the earth could not believe an enemy would enter Jerusalem's gates. Why it happened (4:13–22). The sins of prophets and priests, who shed innocent blood, brought this. The people looked in vain for help from a nation that could not save (Egypt). The pursuers chased them on the mountains; "the anointed of the LORD", the king, "was taken in their pits" (4:20) — an allusion to Zedekiah's capture. Edom rejoiced at Jerusalem's fall, but the cup will pass to her too. For Zion: "The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished… he will no more carry thee away into captivity" (4:22).

Poem 5 — The community's prayer (chapter 5)

Remember, O LORD (5:1–18). The final poem is a prayer of the whole people: "Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us." Their inheritance has passed to strangers; they pay for their own water and wood; "servants have ruled over us". Women are violated, princes hanged, young men grind at the mill. "The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head" (5:15–16). Mount Zion lies desolate, with foxes walking on it. An open ending (5:19–22). "Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation." The people plead, "Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old" — and end with a question that hangs in the air: "But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us" (5:22, KJV), often rendered "unless thou hast utterly rejected us". In synagogue reading, verse 21 is repeated after verse 22 so the book does not end on despair.

Key themes, and the bridge to Ezekiel

  • Honest grief. Lamentations gives permission to mourn loss fully, in God's presence, without hurrying to answers.
  • Sin and judgment. The poems do not deny Judah's guilt; the disaster fulfils the prophets' warnings.
  • God's faithfulness. Even in ruins, "his compassions fail not… new every morning" stands at the book's heart.
  • Order in chaos. The alphabetic form shapes grief into prayer.
  • Waiting. Hope is expressed as quiet waiting and a plea to be turned back to God.

Lamentations ends with the city in ruins and a question unanswered: has God rejected his people for ever? The next book answers from among the exiles in Babylon, where the priest Ezekiel sees God's glory leave Jerusalem — and promises that it will return.