Like a few of the Psalms, Lamentations i.-iv. are alphabetical acrostics. Each poem contains twenty-two stanzas, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet; and each stanza begins with its proper letter. (In ch. iii. each of the three couplets in a stanza begins with the same letter, so that the alphabet is repeated thrice: cf. Psalm cxix. for an eight-fold repetition.) The alphabet of Lamentations ii. iii. iv. varies from the usual order of the letters by placing Pe before Ain. The same was doubtless the case in ch. i. also until some scribe altered it. He went no further, because the sense forbade it in the other instances. The variation may have been one of local use, either in Judea or in Babylonia; or the author may have had some fanciful reason for the transposition, such as, for example, that Pe following Samech (ספ) might suggest the word ספדו, “Wail ye!” (2 Sam. iii. 31). Although the oldest Hebrew elegies are not alphabetic acrostics, it is a curious fact that the word הידך, “Was he a coward?” (Sc. לבו; Is. vii. 4), is formed by the initial letters of the four lines on Abner (om. ו, line 3); and the initials of the verses of David’s great elegy are הא המשכ אצא, which may be read as a sentence meaning, perhaps, “Lo, I the Avenger” (cf. Deut. xxxii. 41, 43) “will go forth!”; or the first two letters (ה′א′) may stand for הוי אחי, “Alas, my brother!” (Jer. xxii. 18; cf. xxxiv. 5). In cryptic fashion the poet thus registers a vow of vengeance on the Philistines. Both kinds of acrostic occur side by side in the Psalms. Psalm cx., an acrostic of the same kind as David’s elegy, is followed by Psalms cxi. cxii., which are alphabetical acrostics, like the Lamentations. Such artifices are not in themselves greater clogs on poetic expression than the excessive alliteration of old Saxon verse or the strict rhymes of modern lyrics. (Alliteration, both initial and internal, is common in Lamentations.)
As the final piece, ch. v. may have suffered more in transmission than those which precede it—even to the extent of losing the acrostic form (like some of the Psalms and Nahum i.), besides half of its stanzas. If we divide the chapter into quatrains, like ch. iv., we notice several vestiges of an acrostic. The Aleph stanza (verses 7, 8) still precedes the Beth (verses 9, 10), and the Ain is still quite clear (verses 17, 18; cf. i. 16). Transposing verses 5, 6, and correcting their text, we see that the Jod stanza (verses 3, 4) precedes the Lamed (verses 6, 5), Caph having disappeared between them. With this clue, we may rearrange the other quatrains in alphabetical sequence, each according to its initial letter. We thus get a broken series of eleven stanzas, beginning with the letters
א (verses 7, 8), ב (9, 10), ה (21, 22), ו (19, cf. Psalm cii. 13; and 20), ן (1, 2), ח
(13, חורים; 14),
י (3, 4), ל
(6, לצרים; 5, הכבידו ... על),
נ (11, 12), ע (17, 18), and ש (15, 16), successively. An internal connexion will now be apparent in all the stanzas.
General subject and outline of contents.—The theme of Lamentations is the final siege and fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), and the attendant and subsequent miseries of the Jewish people.
In ch. i. we have a vivid picture of the distress of Zion, after all is over. The poet does not describe the events of the siege, nor the horrors of the capture, but the painful experience of subjection and tyranny which followed. Neither this nor ch. ii. is strictly a “dirge.” Zion is not dead. She is personified as a widowed princess, bereaved and desolate, sitting amid the ruins of her former joys, and brooding over her calamities. From verse 11c to the end (except verse 17) she herself is the speaker:—
| “O come, ye travellers all! Behold and see If grief there be like mine!” |