Verse 6d, perhaps: “And their ruin tarried not” (פירס ולא יחל); cf. Pro. xxiv. 22. Verse 7d: “Their body” (rd. נויחם) “was a sapphire:” see Ct. v. 14; Dn. x. 6. Verse 9: “Happier were the slain of the sword Than the slain of famine! For they” (Septuagint om.), “they passed away” (הלכו Septuagint; Psalm xxxix. 14) “with a stab” (Ju. ix. 54; Is. xiii. 15; Jer. li. 4), “Suddenly, in the field” (פתאם בש′; Jer. xiv. 18). Verse 13, add היא after נביאיה; cf. Ju. xiv. 4; Jer. xxii. 16. Verse 17c: “While we watched” (Septuagint) “continually:” בצפותנו צפו. Verse 18: “Our steps were curbed” (צרו MSS.; see Pro. iv. 12; Job xviii. 7) “from walking In our open places” (before the city gates: Neh. viii. 1, 3); “The completion of our days drew nigh” (קרב יום מלאות ימינו; cf. Lev. viii. 33; Job xx. 22), “For our end was come” (Ezek. vii. 2, 6, &c.). Verse 21, Septuagint om. Uz (dittogr.?); “Settler in the Land!” (i.e. of Judah; cf. Ezek. xxxv. 10, xxxvi. 5. Perhaps יורשתי הא′ “Seizer of the Land”).
Chapter v.—A sorrowful supplication, in which the speakers deplore, not the fall of Jerusalem, but their own state of galling dependence and hopeless poverty. They are still suffering for the sins of their fathers, who perished in the catastrophe (verse 7). They are at the mercy of “servants” (verse 8; cf. 2 Kings xxv. 24; Neh. v. 15: “Yea, even their ‘boys’ lorded it over the people”), under a tyranny of pashas of the worst type (verses 11 f.). The soil is owned by aliens; and the Jews have to buy their water and firewood (verses 2, 4; cf. Neh. ix. 36 f.). While busy harvesting, they are exposed to the raids of the Bedouins (verse 9). Jackals prowl among the ruins of Zion (verse 18; cf. Neh. iv. 3). And this condition of things has already lasted a very long time (verse 20).
Verses 5 f. transpose and read: “To adversaries” (לצרים) “we submitted, Saying” (לאמור), “’We shall be satisfied with bread’” (cf. Jer. xlii. 14); “The yoke of our neck they made heavy” (Neh. v. 15: הכבידו על העם); “We toil, and no rest is allowed us.” Verse 13: “Nobles endured to grind, And princes staggered under logs” (חורים for בחורים, which belongs to verse 14; שרים for נערים. Eccl. x. 7; Is. xxxiv. 12; Neh. iv. 14; v. 7; vi. 17). Verse 19, “But Thou...” Psalm cii. 13 (ו fell out after preceding ו, verse 18). Verse 22, omit אם; dittogr. of following מא.
Authorship and date.—The tradition of Jeremiah’s authorship cannot be traced higher than the Septuagint version. The prefatory note there may come from a Hebrew MS., but perhaps refers to chapter i. only (“Jeremiah sang this dirge”). The idea that Lamentations was originally appended to Jeremiah in the Hebrew Canon, as it is in the old versions, and was afterwards separated from it and added to the other Megilloth for the liturgical convenience of the Synagogue, rests on the fact that Josephus (Ap. i. 1, 8) and, following him, Jerome and Origen reckon 22 books, taking Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah; whereas the ordinary Jewish reckoning gives 24 books, as in our Hebrew Bibles. There is no evidence that this artificial reckoning according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet was ever much more than a fanciful suggestion. Even in the Septuagint the existing order may not be original. It appears likely that Lamentations was not translated by the same hand as Jeremiah (Nöldeke). Unlike the latter, the Septuagint Lamentations sticks closely to the Massoretic text. The two books can hardly have been united from the first. On the strength of 2 Chron. xxxv. 25, some ancient writers (e.g. Jerome ad Zech. xii. 11) held that Jeremiah composed Lamentations. When, however, Josephus (Ant. x. 5, 1) states that Jeremiah wrote an elegy on Josiah still extant in his day, he may be merely quoting a little too much of Chron. loc. cit.; and it is obvious that he need not mean our book (see Whiston’s note). It is urged, indeed, that the author of Chronicles could not have imagined a prophet to have sympathized with such a king as Zedekiah so warmly as is implied by Lamentations iv. 20; and, therefore, he must have connected the passage with Josiah, the last of the good kings. However that may have been, the Chronicler neither says that Jeremiah wrote all the elegies comprised in The Qinoth, nor does he imply that the entire collection consisted of only five pieces. Rather, the contrary; for he implies that The Qinoth contained not only Jeremiah’s single dirge on Josiah, but also the elegies of “all the singing men and singing women,” from the time of Josiah’s death (608) down to his own day (3rd century). The untimely fate of Josiah became a stock allusion in dirges. It is not meant that for three centuries the dirge-writers had nothing else to sing of; much less, that they sang of the fall of Jerusalem (presupposed by our book) before its occurrence. Upon the whole, it does not seem probable, either that the Chronicler mistook Lamentations iv. for Jeremiah’s dirge on Josiah, or that the book he calls The Qinoth was identical with our Qinoth. Later writers misunderstood him, because—on the ground of certain obtrusive similarities between Jeremiah and Lamentations (see Driver, L.O.T. p. 433 f.), and the supposed reference in Lamentations iii. 53 ff. to Jeremiah xxxviii. 6 ff., as well as the fact that Jeremiah was the one well-known inspired writer who had lived through the siege of Jerusalem—they naturally enough ascribed this little book to the prophet. It is certainly true that the same emotional temperament, dissolving in tears at the spectacle of the country’s woes, and expressing itself to a great extent in the same or similar language, is noticeable in the author(s) of Lamentations i.-iv. and in Jeremiah. And both refer these woes to the same cause, viz. the sins of the nation, and particularly of its prophets and priests.
This, however, is not enough to prove identity of authorship; and the following considerations militate strongly against the tradition. (i.) The language and style of Lamentations are in general very unlike those of Jeremiah (see the details in Nägelsbach and Löhr); whatever allowance may be made for conventional differences in the phraseology of elegiac poetry and prophetic prose, even of a more or less lyrical cast. (ii.) Lamentations i.-iv. show a knowledge of Ezekiel (cf. Lamentations ii. 4c; Ez. xx. 8, 21; Lam. ii. 14; Ez. xii. 24; xiii. 10, 14; Lam. ii. 15; Ez. xxvii. 3; xxviii. 12; Lam. iv. 20; Ez. xix. 4, 8) and of Is. xl.-lxvi. (Lam. i. 10, מחמדים; Is. lxiv. 10; Lam. i. 15; Is. lxiii. 2; Lam. ii. 1; Is. lxvi. 1; Lam. ii. 2c; Is. xliii. 28; Lam. ii. 13 the 3 verbs; Is. xl. 18, 25; Lam. ii. 15c; Is. lx. 15b; Lam. iii. 26 דומם; Is. xlvii. 5; Lam. iii. 30; Is. i. 6; Lam. iv. 14; Is. lix. 3, 10; Lam. iv. 15; Is. lii. 11; Lam. iv. 17c; Is. xlv. 20; Lam. iv. 22; Is. xl. 2). Jeremiah does not quote Ezekiel; and he could hardly have quoted writings of the age of Cyrus. (iii.) The coincidences of language between Lamentations and certain late Psalms, such as Psalms lxix., lxxiv., lxxx., lxxxviii., lxxxix., cxix., are numerous and significant, at least as a general indication of date. (iv.) The point of view of Lamentations sometimes differs from that of the prophet. This need not be the case in i. 21 f. where the context shows that the “enemies” are not the Chaldeans, but Judah’s ill neighbours, Edom, Ammon, Moab and the rest (cf. iv. 21 f.; iii. 59-66 may refer to the same foes). Ch. ii. 9c may refer to popular prophecy (“her prophets”; cf. verse 14), which would naturally be silenced by the overwhelming falsification of its comfortable predictions (iv. 14 ff.; cf. Jer. xiv. 13; Ezek. vii. 26 f.; Psalm lxxiv. 9). But though Jeremiah was by no means disloyal (Jer. xxxiv. 4 f.), he would hardly have spoken of Zedekiah in the terms of Lam. iv. 20; and the prophet never looked to Egypt for help, as the poet of iv. 17 appears to have done. It must be admitted that Lamentations exhibits, upon the whole, “a poet (more) in sympathy with the old life of the nation, whose attitude towards the temple and the king is far more popular than Jeremiah’s” (W. Robertson Smith); cf. i. 4, 10, 19, ii. 6, 7, 20c. (v.) While we find in Lamentations some things that we should not have expected from Jeremiah, we miss other things characteristic of the prophet. There is no trace of his confident faith in the restoration of both Israel and Judah (Jer. iii. 14-18, xxiii. 3-8, xxx.-xxxiii.), nor of his unique doctrine of the New Covenant (Jer. xxxi. 31-34), as a ground of hope and consolation for Zion. The only hope expressed in Lamentations i. is the hope of Divine vengeance on Judah’s malicious rivals (i. 21 f.); and even this is wanting from ch. ii. Chapter iii. finds comfort in the thought of Yahweh’s unfailing mercy; but ends with a louder cry for vengeance. Chapter iv. suggests neither hope nor consolation, until the end, where we have an assurance that Zion’s punishment is complete, and she will not again be exiled (iv. 21 f.). The last word is woe for Edom. In chapter v. we have a prayer for restoration: “Make us return, O Yahweh, and we shall return!” (i.e. to our pristine state). Had Jeremiah been the author, we should have expected something more positive and definitely prophetic in tone and spirit. (The author of chapter iii. seems to have felt this. It was apparently written in view of chapter ii. as a kind of religious counterpoise to its burden of despair, which it first takes up, verses 1-20, and then dissipates, verses 21 ff.). (vi.) It seems almost superfluous to add that, in the brief and troubled story of the prophet’s life after the fall of the city Jer. xxxix.-xliv.), it is difficult to specify an occasion when he may be supposed to have enjoyed the necessary leisure and quiet for the composition of these elaborate and carefully constructed pieces, in a style so remote from his ordinary freedom and spontaneity of utterance. And if at the very end of his stormy career he really found time and inclination to write anything of this nature, we may wonder why it was not included in the considerable and somewhat miscellaneous volume of his works, or at least mentioned in the chapters which relate to his public activity after the catastrophe.
Budde’s date, 550 B.C., might not be too early for chapter v., if it stood alone. But it was evidently written as the close of the book, and perhaps to complete the number of five divisions, after the model of the Pentateuch; which would bring it below the date of Ezra (457 B.C.). And this date is supported by internal indications. The Divine forgetfulness has already lasted a very long time since the catastrophe (“for ever,” verse 20); which seems to imply the lapse of much more than thirty-six years (cf. Zech. i. 12). The hill of Zion is still a deserted site haunted by jackals, as it was when Nehemiah arrived, 445 B.C. (Neh. i. 3, ii. 3, 13, 17, iv. 3). And the conditions, political and economic, seem to agree with what is told us by Nehemiah of the state of things which he found, and which prevailed before his coming: cf. esp. Neh. v. 2-5 with Lamentations v. 2, 10, and Neh. v. 15 with Lamentations v. 5, 8. There is nothing in chapter i. which Nehemiah himself might not have written, had he been a poet (cf. Neh. i. 4). The narrative of Neh. xiii. throws light on verse 10; and there are many coincidences of language, e.g. “The Province” (of Judea), Neh. i. 3, cf. verse 1; “adversaries” (צרים), of Judah’s hostile neighbours, verse 7, Neh. iv. 11; “made my strength stumble,” verse 14, cf. Neh. iv. 4 (Heb.); the prayers, verses 21 f., Neh. iv. 4 f. (Heb. iii. 36 f.), are similar. The memory of what is told in Neh. iv. 5 (11), Ezra iv. 23 f., v. 5, may perhaps have suggested the peculiar term משבת, stoppage, arrest, verse 7. With verse 3 “Judah migrated from oppression; From greatness of servitude; She settled among the nations, Without finding a resting-place,” cf. Neh. v. 18 end, Jer. xl. 11 f. The “remnant of the captivity” (Neh. i. 2 f.) became much attenuated (cf. verse 4), because all who could escape from the galling tyranny of the foreigner left the country (cf. verse 6). Verses 11, 19 (dearth of food), 20 (danger in the field, starvation in the house) agree curiously with Neh. v. 6, 9 f.
Chapters ii. and iv. can hardly be dated earlier than the beginning of the Persian period. They might then have been written by one who, as a young man of sixteen or twenty, had witnessed the terrible scenes of fifty years before. If, however, as is generally recognized, these poems are not the spontaneous and unstudied outpourings of passionate grief, but compositions of calculated art and studied effects, written for a purpose, it is obvious that they need not be contemporary. A poet of a later generation might have sung of the great drama in this fashion. The chief incidents and episodes would be deeply graven in the popular memory; and it is the poet’s function to make the past live again. There is much metaphor (i. 13-15, ii. 1-4, iii. 1-18, iv. 1 ff.), and little detail beyond the horrors usual in long sieges (see Deut. xxviii. 52 ff.; 2 Kings vi. 28 f.) Acquaintance with the existing literature and the popular reminiscences of the last days of Jerusalem would supply an ample foundation for all that we find in these poems.
Literature.—The older literature is fully given by Nägelsbach in Lange’s Bibelwerk A.T. xv. (1868, Eng. trans., 1871, p. 17). Among commentaries may be noticed those of Kalkar (in Latin) (1836); O. Thenius in Kurzgefasstes Exeg. Handbuch (1855), who ascribes chapters ii. and iv. to Jeremiah (comp. K. Budde in Z.A.T.W., 1882, p. 45); Vaihinger (1857); Neumann (1858); H. Ewald in his Dichter, vol. i. pt. ii. (2nd ed., 1866); Engelhardt (1867); Nägelsbach, op. cit. (1868); E. Gerlach, Die Klagelied. Jer. (1868); A. Kamphausen in Bunsen’s Bibelwerk iii. (1868); C. F. Keil (1872) (Eng. trans., 1874); Payne Smith in The Speaker’s Commentary; Reuss, La Bible: poésie lyrique (1879); T. K. Cheyne, at end of “Jeremiah,” Pulpit Commentary (1883-1885); E. H. Plumptre, in Ellicott’s O.T. for English Readers (1884); S. Oettli in Strack-Zöckler’s Kurzgef. Komm. A.T. vii. (1889); M. Löhr (1891) and again Handkommentar zum A.T. (1893); F. Baethgen ap. Kautzsch, Die Heilige Schrift d. A.T. (1894); W. F. Adeney, Expositor’s Bible (1895); S. Minocchi, Le Lamentazioni di Geremia (Rome, 1897); and K. Budde, “Fünf Megillot,” in Kurzer Hd.-Comm. zum A. T. (1898).
For textual and literary criticism see also Houbigant, Notae Criticae, ii. 477-483 (1777); E. H. Rodhe, Num Jeremias Threnos scripserit quaestiones (Lundae, 1871); F. Montet, Étude sur le livre des Lamentations (Geneva, 1875); G. Bickell, Carmina V. T. metrice, 112-120 (1882), and Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes, viii. 101 ff. (1894) (Cf. also his Dichtungen der Hebräer, i. 87-108, 1882); Merkel, Über das A.T. Buch der Klagelieder (Halle, 1889); J. Dyserinck, Theologisch Tijdschrift, xxvi. 359 ff. (1892); S. A. Fries, “Parallele zwischen Thr. iv., v. und der Makkabäerzeit,”Z.A.T.W., xiii. 110 ff. (1893) (chaps. iv. v. Maccabean; i.-iii. Jeremiah’s); and on the other side Löhr, Z.A.T.W. xiv. 51 ff. (1894); id. ib., p. 31 ff., Der Sprachgebrauch des Buches der Klagelieder; and Löhr, “Threni iii. und die jeremianische Autorschaft des Buches der Klagelieder,” Z.A.T.W., xxiv. 1 ff. (1904).
On the prosody, see (besides the works of Bickell and Dyserinck) K. Budde, “Das hebräische Klagelied,” Z.A.T.W., ii. 1 ff. (1882), iii. 299 ff. (1883), xi. 234 ff. (1891), xii. 31 ff. 261 ff. (1892); Preussische Jahrbücher, lxxiii. 461 ff. (1893); and C. J. Ball, “The Metrical Structure of Qinoth,” P.S.B.A. (March 1887). (The writer was then unacquainted with Budde’s previous labours.)