Book of Lamentations
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The Book of Lamentations (Template:Langx, Template:Transliteration, from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.Template:Sfn In the Hebrew Bible, it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillot ("Five Scrolls") alongside the Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Esther. In the Christian Old Testament, it follows the Book of Jeremiah, for the prophet Jeremiah is traditionally understood to have been its author.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn By the mid-19th century, German scholars doubted Jeremiah's authorship, a view that has since become the prevailing scholarly consensus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Most scholars also agree that the Book of Lamentations was composed shortly after Jerusalem's fall in 586 BCE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Some motifs of a traditional Mesopotamian "city lament" are evident in the book, such as mourning the desertion of the city by God, its destruction, and the ultimate return of the deity; others "parallel the funeral dirge in which the bereaved bewails... and... addresses the [dead]".Template:Sfn The tone is bleak: God does not speak, the degree of suffering is presented as overwhelming, and expectations of future redemption are minimal. Nonetheless, the author repeatedly makes clear that the city—and even the author himself—has profusely sinned against God, thus justifying God's wrath. In doing so, the author does not blame God but rather presents God as righteous, just, and sometimes even merciful.
SummaryEdit
The book consists of five separate poems.Template:Sfn In the first chapter, the city sits as a desolate weeping widow overcome with miseries. In chapter 2, these miseries are described in connection with national sins and acts of God. Chapter 3 speaks of hope for the people of God: that the chastisement would only be for their good; a better day would dawn for them. Chapter 4 laments the ruin and desolation of the city and temple but traces it to the people's sins. Some of chapter 5 is a prayer that Zion's reproach may be taken away in the repentance and recovery of the people. In some Greek copies, and in the Latin Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic versions, the last chapter is headed "The Prayer of Jeremiah".<ref name="gill">Template:Cite book</ref>
ThemesEdit
Lamentations combines elements of the kinah, a funeral dirge for the loss of the city, and the "communal lament" pleading for the restoration of its people.Template:Sfn It reflects the view, traceable to Sumerian literature of a thousand years earlier, that the destruction of the holy city was a punishment by God for the communal sin of its people.Template:Sfn However, while Lamentations is generically similar to the Sumerian laments of the early 2nd millennium BCE (e.g., "Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur," "Lament for Sumer and Ur," and the "Nippur Lament"), the Sumerian laments were recited on the occasion of the rebuilding of a temple and, therefore, have optimistic endings. In contrast, the book of Lamentations was written before the return/rebuilding and thus contains only lamentations and pleas to God with no response or resolution.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Beginning with the reality of disaster, Lamentations concludes with the bitter possibility that God may have finally rejected Israel.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> Sufferers in the face of grief are not urged to have confidence in the goodness of God; in fact, God is accountable for the disaster. The poet acknowledges that this suffering is a just punishment. Still, God is held to have had a choice over whether to act in this way and at this time. Hope arises from a recollection of God's past goodness, but although this justifies a cry to God to act in deliverance, there is no guarantee that he will. Repentance will not persuade God to be gracious since he can give or withhold grace as he chooses. In the end, the possibility is that God has finally rejected his people and may not again deliver them. Nevertheless, it also affirms confidence that the mercies of Yahweh (the God of Israel) never end but are new every morning.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref>Template:Sfn
StructureEdit
Lamentations consists of five distinct (and non-chronological) poems,Template:Sfn corresponding to its five chapters. Two of its defining characteristic features are the alphabetic acrostic and its qinah meter. However, few English translations capture either; even fewer attempt to capture both.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
AcrosticEdit
The first four chapters are written as acrostics. Chapters 1, 2, and 4 each have 22 verses, corresponding to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the first lines beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, the second with the second letter, and so on. Chapter 3 has 66 verses, so that each alphabet letter begins three lines.Template:Sfn
The fifth poem, corresponding to the fifth chapter, is not acrostic but still has 22 lines.Template:Sfn
Although some claim that purpose or function of the acrostic form is unknown,Template:Sfn it is frequently thought that a complete alphabetical order expresses a principle of completeness, from Template:Transliteration (first letter) to Template:Transliteration (22nd letter); the English equivalent would be "from A to Z".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
English translations that attempt to capture this acrostic nature are few in number. They include those by Ronald KnoxTemplate:Sfn and by David R. Slavitt.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In both cases their mapping of the 22 Hebrew letters into the Latin alphabet's 26 uses 'A' to 'V' (omitting W, X, Y and Z), thus lacking the "A to Z" sense of completeness.
Acrostic orderingEdit
Template:See also Unlike standard alphabetical order, in the middle chapters of Lamentations, the letter Template:Transliteration (the 17th letter) comes before Template:Transliteration (the 16th). In the first chapter, the Masoretic text uses the standard modern alphabetical order; however, in the Dead Sea Scrolls version of the text (4QLam/4Q111, Template:Circa), even the first chapter uses the Template:Transliteration order found in chapters 2, 3, and 4.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Template:TransliterationEdit
The book's first four chapters have a well-defined qinah rhythm of three stresses followed by two, although the fifth chapter lacks this.Template:Sfn Dobbs-Allsopp describes this meter as "the rhythmic dominance of unbalanced and enjambed lines".Template:Sfn Again, few English translations attempt to capture this. Exceptions include Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible<ref name="w594">Template:Cite book</ref> and the New American Bible Revised Edition.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
CompositionEdit
The traditional ascription of authorship to Jeremiah derives from the impetus to ascribe all biblical books to inspired biblical authors. Jeremiah, a prophet who prophesied its demise at the time, was an obvious choice.Template:Sfn In 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah is said to have composed a lament for the death of King Josiah,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn but there is no reference to Josiah in the book of Lamentations and no reason to connect it to Jeremiah.Template:Sfn However, the modern consensus amongst scholars is that Jeremiah did not write Lamentations; like most ancient literary texts, the author or authors remain anonymous.
Scholars are divided over whether the book is the work of one or multiple authors.Template:Sfn According to the latter position, a different poet wrote each of the book's chapters and then joined to form the book.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn One clue pointing to multiple authors is that the gender and situation of the first-person witness changes—the narration is feminine in the first and second lamentations, but masculine in the third, while the fourth and fifth are eyewitness reports of Jerusalem's destruction.Template:Sfn Conversely, the similarities of style, vocabulary, and theological outlook and the uniform historical setting are arguments for one author.Template:Sfn
The book's language fits an Exilic date (586–520 BCE), and the poems probably originated from Judeans who remained in the land.Template:Sfn The fact that the acrostics of chapters 2–4 follow the Template:Transliteration order of the pre-Exilic Paleo-Hebrew alphabet further supports the position that they are not postexilic compositions.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, the sequence of the chapters is not chronological, and the poems were not necessarily written by eyewitnesses to the events. The book was compiled between 586 BCE and the end of the 6th century BCE, when the Temple was rebuilt.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Because Second Isaiah, whose work is dated to 550–538 BCE, seems to have known at least parts of Lamentations, the book was probably in circulation by the mid-6th century, but the exact time, place, and reason for its composition are unknown.Template:Sfn
In liturgyEdit
Lamentations is recited annually by Jews on the fast day of Tisha B'Av (the Ninth of Av) (July–August), mourning the destructions of both the First Temple (by the Babylonians in 586 BCE) and the Second Temple (by the Romans in 70 CE).Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In many manuscripts and for synagogue liturgical use, Lamentations 5:21 is repeated after verse 22, so that the reading does not end with a painful statement—a practice also performed for the last verse of Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and Malachi,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> "so that the reading in the Synagogue might close with words of comfort".<ref>Skinner, J., Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on Isaiah 66, accessed 1 July 2019</ref>
In Christian tradition, readings from Lamentations are part of the Holy Week liturgies.Template:Sfn
In Western Christianity, readings (often chanted) and choral settings of extracts from the book are used in the Lenten religious service known as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Latin for 'darkness'). In the Church of England, readings are used at Morning and Evening Prayer on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, and at Evening Prayer on Good Friday.
In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the book's third chapter is chanted on the 12th hour of the Good Friday service, which commemorates the burial of Jesus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Surviving manuscriptsEdit
Many of the oldest surviving manuscripts are from centuries after the period of authorship. In Hebrew, the Leningrad Codex (1008) is a Masoretic Text version.Template:Sfn Since 1947, the whole book is missing from the Aleppo Codex.<ref name="nce2-bible">Template:Citation</ref> Fragments containing parts of the book in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls: 4Q111 (30–1 BCE),Template:Sfn<ref name=thewaytoyahuweh>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Sfn 3Q3 (30 BCE–50 CE), 5Q6 (50 CE), and 5Q7 (30 BCE–50 CE).<ref name=thewaytoyahuweh/>Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. The Septuagint translation added an introductory line before the first stanza:
- And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremias sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said,<ref>Brenton, C., Brenton Septuagint Translation of Lamentations 1, accessed 19 June 2019</ref>
Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (4th century), Codex Sinaiticus (4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (5th century) and Codex Marchalianus (6th century).Template:Sfn
In musicEdit
- The King James Version of Lamentations 1:12 are cited as texts in the English-language oratorio "Messiah" by George Frideric Handel (HWV 56).<ref name="Block 2001">
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- Handel also used verses from Lamentations in the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline's second movement, "The Ways of Zion do Mourn."Template:Citation needed
- Edward Gibbons adapted some of the text in his verse anthem How hath ye City sate solitary.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See alsoEdit
- Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet: musical settings.
ReferencesEdit
CitationsEdit
SourcesEdit
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Further readingEdit
- Kotzé, Gideon. "The Qumran Manuscripts of Lamentations: A Text-Critical Study". Studia Semitica Neerlandica BRILL, 2013. Template:ISBN
External linksEdit
Template:Sister project Template:Sister project Jewish translations
- Lamentations with multiple translations of the text & Rashi's commentary, as well as numerous other classic Hebrew commentaries at Sefaria.org
- Book of Lamentations with Hebrew/English and MP3 chanting of the entire book in Hebrew. (Website also contains other books of the bible.)
- Laments (R. David Seidenberg): a fresh translation with linear Hebrew and English, on neohasid.org
- A synopsis of Eichah's chapters
Christian translations
- Lamentations at Sacred Texts KJV, Tan, Sep, Vul
- Template:Librivox book Various versions
Translations maintaining acrostic structure
- Knox Translation (22 letters: A to V, omitting W to Z)
Translations maintaining metrical rhythm (qinah)
Translations maintaining both acrostics and qinah
- ServiceMusic translation (22 letters: A to Z, omitting four intermediate letters)
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