Lamentations is a companion to Jeremiah. Both were written by the prophet Jeremiah during the closing years of the southern kingdom, Judah. For more on the history read or reread the “Intro to Jeremiah“. While the book of Jeremiah was a collection of messages that Jeremiah delivered over the course of his life, put together to show the purpose, plan, purity, faithfulness and love of God, Lamentations is the personal feelings of the prophet about the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the nation of Israel. Both were written after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. While the book of Jeremiah contains predictions of the coming disaster and confirmation of their fulfillment, Lamentations was written after the fact to express Jeremiah’s (and probably God’s) feelings about the situation. It was clearly written by an eyewitness after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
Some Bible experts doubt that Jeremiah wrote the book based on the style and content. The book is made up of 5 poems. Each chapter in the book contains one poem. To us poetry usually has a meter (you might think of timing or a “beat” like a song) and often uses rhyme. Jeremiah wrote in the Hebrew language. For Israelite people of his day rhyming wasn’t a main feature of their poetry, structure was. In the case of these poems the structure is called “acrostic”. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters. If you look at Lamentations you will notice that there are 22 verses in each of chapters 1 and 2. Each verse has three lines (66 lines in each chapter). In Hebrew the first letter of each verse begins with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. If it were in English Lamentations 1:1 would begin with the letter “A”, Verse 1:2 would begin with “B”, and so on. Chapter 3 is made up of 66 verses of one line each. The first 3 verses each start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second three verses start with the second, and so on. The fourth chapter has 22 verses and each has two lines. In this chapter the acrostic pattern is verse by verse. Chapter 5 has 22 verses but they do not follow an acrostic pattern.
The first four poems also have a particular “meter”. If they were read in Hebrew they would flow out of your mouth in ascertains sort of way. The meter they all share is called “Qinah” and it was used for funerals or other sad situations. Chapter five does not share the same meter nor, as I mentioned above, pattern. We will want to think about this as we read each poem. Of course, because the poems have been translated from another language, they wont have the same style for us as they do to a Hebrew reader.
Above I mentioned that some Bible experts doubt that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. Some are bothered by the fact that the book of Jeremiah doesn’t contain any acrostic parts and that the words used in Jeremiah and Lamentations are different. That’s a crazy idea that is often used by people who want an excuse not to believe the Bible is what it says it is. We all have a group of words that we know and use different sets of them in different situations. The book of Jeremiah contains sermons or messages, public speeches given to groups of people, information. Lamentations expresses personal feelings of Jeremiah. I’m sure we all use differed language for a speech on a classroom or in a paper for a class that we do when we are talking to our friend about our feelings. Also I’m sure modern day songwriters and poets don’t talk in rhyme when they are having a normal conversation.
Other critics don’t see how someone as close to the situation as Jeremiah was could have been so structured in his style. Well someone close enough to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to be expressing the feelings found in Lamentations wrote the poems in the style we see them, and there is no reason to doubt it could have been Jeremiah. In fact who better to feel this sort of sorrow and loss than the prophet who had spent over 40 years trying to prevent the destruction? Style and vocabulary are very squishy and subjective reasons to reject a person as an author of a book. Of course if there was a very technical book out there on brain surgery with my name on it you could probably bet I didn’t write it. It would be pretty easy to show I don’t have that technical knowledge and vocabulary, but then I am here now and can be tested. It is presumptuous to limit what Jeremiah knew and how he was able to express himself from two books.
A couple of other details about he book of Lamentations. The name of the book reflects the tone and content of the book, it is sad and deals with feelings of loss. In Hebrew Bibles the title of the book is “eka”. That is the first word in chapters 1,2 and 4. The word means “how” or “in what way”. It was a common opening word for a dirge or song of sorrow in ancient time. Things aren’t so different today when we ask Why?” or “How did this happen?” in the midst of sorrow an pain. A second detail is that the acrostic pattern is broken in poems 2,3 and 4 with the reversal of two letters. Modern experts don’t seem to know why, I guess we aren’t as smart as we often think we are. Third, although we cannot prove that Jeremiah was the author, Jeremiah was considered the author both by Jews and Christians up until the 1700’s AD., that’s 2000 years of agreement and unless there is very convincing proof we should accept the understanding of those much closer to the situation that we will ever be. Fourth, some think that the lack of acrostic pattern in in chapter five is a way of showing chaos. And fifth, the acrostic pattern in the first four poems, some say, is a way of showing completeness, like saying, “My poems express all there is to know about he sorrow and loss I feel over Jerusalem, from A to Z.” Keep theses things in mind as we feel loss and pain through the eyes and heart of God’s faithful servant and messenger Jeremiah.