1. Called in the Hebrew canon _’ Ekhah_, meaning
"How," being the formula for the commencement of a song of
wailing. It is the first word of the book (see) #2Sa
1:19-27 The LXX. adopted the name rendered
"Lamentations" (Gr. threnoi Heb. qinoth) now in common use,
to denote the character of the book, in which the prophet mourns over
the desolations brought on the city and the holy land by Chaldeans. In
the Hebrew Bible it is placed among the Khethubim. See
Easton on BIBLE 580
2. As to its authorship, there is no room for hesitancy in
following the LXX. and the Targum in ascribing it to Jeremiah.
The spirit, tone, language, and subject-matter are in accord with the
testimony of tradition in assigning it to him. According to tradition,
he retired after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to a
cavern outside the Damascus gate, where he wrote this book. That
cavern is still pointed out. "In the face of a rocky hill, on the
western side of the city, the local belief has placed ‘the grotto of
Jeremiah.’ There, in that fixed attitude of grief which Michael
Angelo has immortalized, the prophet may well be supposed to have
mourned the fall of his country" (Stanley, Jewish Church).
3. The book consists of five separate poems.
a. In chapter 1 the prophet dwells on the manifold miseries
oppressed by which the city sits as a solitary widow weeping sorely.
b. In chapter 2 these miseries are described in connection
with the national sins that had caused them.
c. Chapter 3 speaks of hope for the people of God. The
chastisement would only be for their good; a better day would dawn
for them.
d. Chapter 4 laments the ruin and desolation that had come
upon the city and temple, but traces it only to the people’s sins.
e. Chapter 5 is a prayer that Zion’s reproach may be taken
away in the repentance and recovery of the people.
4. The first four poems (chapters) are acrostics, like some of
the Psalms (25, 34, 37, 119) i.e., each verse begins with a letter of
the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. The first, second, and fourth have
each twenty-two verses, the number of the letters in the Hebrew
alphabet. The third has sixty-six verses, in which each three
successive verses begin with the same letter. The fifth is not
acrostic. Speaking of the "Wailing-place (q.v.) of the Jews"
at Jerusalem, a portion of the old wall of the temple of Solomon,
Schaff says: "There the Jews assemble every Friday afternoon to
bewail the downfall of the holy city, kissing the stone wall and
watering it with their tears. They repeat from their well-worn Hebrew
Bibles and prayer-books the Lamentations of Jeremiah and suitable
Psalms."
