Lamentations

Name, Authorship, and Location in Canon

The name Lamentations is a translation of the Greek Threnoi, the Septuagint's title of the book. In the Hebrew Bible the book is named after its initial word, ’Ekah, “How,” as in “How lonely sits the city.”

In the Christian canon, Lamentations follows the book of Jeremiah because Jeremiah was traditionally thought to have been the author of Lamentations. Jewish tradition also ascribes the book's authorship to Jeremiah, but in the Hebrew Bible Lamentations is located in the Writings, among the Five Scrolls. It is read liturgically on the Ninth of Av (July-August), the day of public mourning for the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 bce and of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 ce. In Christian tradition, readings from Lamentations are part of the Holy Week liturgies. The ascription of authorship to Jeremiah derives from the impetus to ascribe all biblical books to inspired biblical authors. Jeremiah, a prophet who lived during the last days of the kingdom of Judah and prophesied its demise, was an obvious choice for Lamentations. Already by late Second Temple times, he was known for composing laments; 2 Chr 35.25 says that Jeremiah composed laments for the death of King Josiah. Modern scholars do not think that Jeremiah actually wrote Lamentations; like most ancient literature, the author remains anonymous. Most likely, each of the book's chapters was written by a different poet, and they then were joined together to form the book.

Date and Historical Context

The five poems that comprise Lamentations, each with its distinctive tone and theme, lament the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians (see 2 Kings 25.8–21). This was a major and unprecedented catastrophe, both politically and religiously: Judah ceased to exist as an independent country, and sacrificial worship to God could no longer be performed. The sequence of the chapters is not chronological, and despite the vividness of their descriptions, the poems need not to have been written by eyewitnesses to the events. The book was compiled after 586 bce and before the end of the sixth century bce, when the Temple was rebuilt. 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-sixth century, but the exact time, place, and reason for its composition are unknown.

Genre

An ancient Near Eastern tradition of laments over the destruction of cities goes back to the Sumerian laments of the early second millennium bce (e.g., “Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur,” “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur,” “Nippur Lament”). Despite the generic similarity, however, we cannot draw a direct line of influence from the Sumerian laments to the book of Lamentations. Moreover, the Sumerian laments were recited on the occasion of the rebuilding of a temple, so their “story” has a happy ending. Not so in the book of Lamentations, where hopes for the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple remain unrealized, and God, who is so movingly implored to end his people's suffering and exile and to restore them to their former condition, never responds. The origin and development of laments for Jerusalem remain unknown. Perhaps the unprecedented event of the destruction gave rise to a new genre.

Structure and Interpretation

The book's first four poems (chs 1; 2; 3; 4) are alphabetic acrostics, a formal device found elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Pss 111; 112; 145; Prov 31.10–31), in which each verse or stanza begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty-two in all. Chapter 3 is a triple acrostic; each stanza has three short verses beginning with the same letter. Chapter 5, although not an acrostic, also contains twenty-two verses. In Lamentations this formal device gives expression to the enormity or totality of the destruction (“from A to Z”) and also gives structure and closure to the incomprehensible events and unstructured pain that engulfed Judah and its inhabitants.

The language of the book is highly poetic and extraordinarily moving, so that at times we want to avert our eyes from the violence and suffering described. The experience of warfare, siege, famine, and death are individualized—brave men are reduced to begging, mothers are unable to nourish their children. The national catastrophe is thus made concrete, as society disintegrates and people languish and die or are deported. All of this is addressed to God, so that he may feel the suffering of his people and bring it to an end. The entire book may be thought of as an appeal for God's mercy. Yet God remains silent.

If the book fails to move God, it fulfills another function, that of public mourning which both relives and commemorates a catastrophe of incomprehensible proportion. Lamentations does not create a new theology. It assumes the theology of Deuteronomy, where sin leads to divine punishment and exile (see, e.g., Deut 28). God is responsible for the disaster; the Babylonians are merely divine agents. So, God, whose power is not diminished despite the Temple's destruction, must be the one to end the Babylonian dominance and bring about the return from exile. Repentance, the antidote to sin, is mentioned but is not central—this is not penitential prayer; rather, the idea in Lamentations is that the punishment, even if deserved, is unbearable. The immediacy and magnitude of the punishment drowns out everything else.

Adele Berlin

1

How lonely sits the city

  that once was full of people!

How like a widow she has become,

  she that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the provinces

  has become a vassal.

²She weeps bitterly in the night,

  with tears on her cheeks;

among all her lovers

  she has no one to comfort her;

all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,

  they have become her enemies.

³Judah has gone into exile with suffering

  and hard servitude;

she lives now among the nations,

  and finds no resting place;

her pursuers have all overtaken her

  in the midst of her distress.

⁴The roads to Zion mourn,

  for no one comes to the festivals;

all her gates are desolate,

  her priests groan;

her young girls grieve,^a

  and her lot is bitter.

⁵Her foes have become the masters,

  her enemies prosper,

because the Lord has made her suffer

  for the multitude of her transgressions;

her children have gone away,

  captives before the foe.

⁶From daughter Zion has departed

  all her majesty.

Her princes have become like stags

  that find no pasture;

they fled without strength

  before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembers,

  in the days of her affliction and wandering,

all the precious things

  that were hers in days of old.

When her people fell into the hand of the foe,

  and there was no one to help her,

the foe looked on mocking

  over her downfall.

⁸Jerusalem sinned grievously,

  so she has become a mockery;

all who honored her despise her,

  for they have seen her nakedness;

she herself groans,

  and turns her face away.

⁹Her uncleanness was in her skirts;

  she took no thought of her future;

her downfall was appalling,

  with none to comfort her.

“O Lord, look at my affliction,

  for the enemy has triumphed!”

¹⁰Enemies have stretched out their hands

  over all her precious things;

she has even seen the nations

  invade her sanctuary,

those whom you forbade

  to enter your congregation.

¹¹All her people groan

  as they search for bread;

they trade their treasures for food

  to revive their strength.

Look, O Lord, and see

  how worthless I have become.

¹²Is it nothing to you,^a all you who pass by?

  Look and see

if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,

  which was brought upon me,

which the Lord inflicted

  on the day of his fierce anger.

¹³From on high he sent fire;

  it went deep into my bones;

he spread a net for my feet;

  he turned me back;

he has left me stunned,

  faint all day long.

¹⁴My transgressions were bound^a into a yoke;

  by his hand they were fastened together;

they weigh on my neck,

  sapping my strength;

the Lord handed me over

  to those whom I cannot withstand.

¹⁵The Lord has rejected

  all my warriors in the midst of me;

he proclaimed a time against me

  to crush my young men;

the Lord has trodden as in a wine press

  the virgin daughter Judah.

¹⁶For these things I weep;

  my eyes flow with tears;

for a comforter is far from me,

  one to revive my courage;

my children are desolate,

  for the enemy has prevailed.

¹⁷Zion stretches out her hands,

  but there is no one to comfort her;

the Lord has commanded against Jacob

  that his neighbors should become his foes;

Jerusalem has become

  a filthy thing among them.

¹⁸The Lord is in the right,

  for I have rebelled against his word;

but hear, all you peoples,

  and behold my suffering;

my young women and young men

  have gone into captivity.

¹⁹I called to my lovers

  but they deceived me;

my priests and elders

  perished in the city

while seeking food

  to revive their strength.

²⁰See, O Lord, how distressed I am;

  my stomach churns,

my heart is wrung within me,

  because I have been very rebellious.

In the street the sword bereaves;

  in the house it is like death.

²¹They heard how I was groaning,

  with no one to comfort me.

All my enemies heard of my trouble;

  they are glad that you have done it.

Bring on the day you have announced,

  and let them be as I am.

²²Let all their evil doing come before you;

  and deal with them

as you have dealt with me

  because of all my transgressions;

for my groans are many

  and my heart is faint.

2

How the Lord in his anger

  has humiliated^a daughter Zion!

He has thrown down from heaven to earth

  the splendor of Israel;

he has not remembered his footstool

  in the day of his anger.

²The Lord has destroyed without mercy

  all the dwellings of Jacob;

in his wrath he has broken down

  the strongholds of daughter Judah;

he has brought down to the ground in dishonor

  the kingdom and its rulers.

³He has cut down in fierce anger

  all the might of Israel;

he has withdrawn his right hand from them

  in the face of the enemy;

he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,

  consuming all around.

⁴He has bent his bow like an enemy,

  with his right hand set like a foe;

he has killed all in whom we took pride

  in the tent of daughter Zion;

he has poured out his fury like fire.

⁵The Lord has become like an enemy;

  he has destroyed Israel.

He has destroyed all its palaces,

  laid in ruins its strongholds,

and multiplied in daughter Judah

  mourning and lamentation.

⁶He has broken down his booth like a garden,

  he has destroyed his tabernacle;

the Lord has abolished in Zion

  festival and sabbath,

and in his fierce indignation has spurned

  king and priest.

⁷The Lord has scorned his altar,

  disowned his sanctuary;

he has delivered into the hand of the enemy

  the walls of her palaces;

a clamor was raised in the house of the Lord

  as on a day of festival.

⁸The Lord determined to lay in ruins

  the wall of daughter Zion;

he stretched the line;

  he did not withhold his hand from destroying;

he caused rampart and wall to lament;

  they languish together.

⁹Her gates have sunk into the ground;

  he has ruined and broken her bars;

her king and princes are among the nations;

  guidance is no more,

and her prophets obtain

  no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰The elders of daughter Zion

  sit on the ground in silence;

they have thrown dust on their heads

  and put on sackcloth;

the young girls of Jerusalem

  have bowed their heads to the ground.

¹¹My eyes are spent with weeping;

  my stomach churns;

my bile is poured out on the ground

  because of the destruction of my people,

because infants and babes faint

  in the streets of the city.

¹²They cry to their mothers,

  “Where is bread and wine?”

as they faint like the wounded

  in the streets of the city,

as their life is poured out

  on their mothers’ bosom.

¹³What can I say for you, to what compare you,

  O daughter Jerusalem?

To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you,

  O virgin daughter Zion?

For vast as the sea is your ruin;

  who can heal you?

¹⁴Your prophets have seen for you

  false and deceptive visions;

they have not exposed your iniquity

  to restore your fortunes,

but have seen oracles for you

  that are false and misleading.

¹⁵All who pass along the way

  clap their hands at you;

they hiss and wag their heads

  at daughter Jerusalem;

“Is this the city that was called

  the perfection of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

¹⁶All your enemies

  open their mouths against you;

they hiss, they gnash their teeth,

  they cry: “We have devoured her!

Ah, this is the day we longed for;

  at last we have seen it!”

¹⁷The Lord has done what he purposed,

  he has carried out his threat;

as he ordained long ago,

  he has demolished without pity;

he has made the enemy rejoice over you,

  and exalted the might of your foes.

¹⁸Cry aloud^a to the Lord!

  O wall of daughter Zion!

Let tears stream down like a torrent

  day and night!

Give yourself no rest,

  your eyes no respite!

¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night,

  at the beginning of the watches!

Pour out your heart like water

  before the presence of the Lord!

Lift your hands to him

  for the lives of your children,

who faint for hunger

  at the head of every street.

²⁰Look, O Lord, and consider!

  To whom have you done this?

Should women eat their offspring,

  the children they have borne?

Should priest and prophet be killed

  in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹The young and the old are lying

  on the ground in the streets;

my young women and my young men

  have fallen by the sword;

in the day of your anger you have killed them,

  slaughtering without mercy.

²²You invited my enemies from all around

  as if for a day of festival;

and on the day of the anger of the Lord

  no one escaped or survived;

those whom I bore and reared

  my enemy has destroyed.

3

I am one who has seen affliction

  under the rod of God's ^b wrath;

²he has driven and brought me

  into darkness without any light;

³against me alone he turns his hand,

  again and again, all day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away,

  and broken my bones;

⁵he has besieged and enveloped me

  with bitterness and tribulation;

⁶he has made me sit in darkness

  like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;

  he has put heavy chains on me;

⁸though I call and cry for help,

  he shuts out my prayer;

⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones,

  he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me,

  a lion in hiding;

¹¹he led me off my way and tore me to pieces;

  he has made me desolate;

¹²he bent his bow and set me

  as a mark for his arrow.

¹³He shot into my vitals

  the arrows of his quiver;

¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all my people,

  the object of their taunt-songs all day long.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,

  he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel,

  and made me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace;

  I have forgotten what happiness is;

¹⁸so I say, “Gone is my glory,

  and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.”

¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness

  is wormwood and gall!

²⁰My soul continually thinks of it

  and is bowed down within me.

²¹But this I call to mind,

  and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,^a

  his mercies never come to an end;

²³they are new every morning;

  great is your faithfulness.

²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

  “therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

  to the soul that seeks him.

²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly

  for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷It is good for one to bear

  the yoke in youth,

²⁸to sit alone in silence

  when the Lord has imposed it,

²⁹to put one's mouth to the dust

  (there may yet be hope),

³⁰to give one's cheek to the smiter,

  and be filled with insults.

³¹For the Lord will not

  reject forever.

³²Although he causes grief, he will have compassion

  according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

³³for he does not willingly afflict

  or grieve anyone.

³⁴When all the prisoners of the land

  are crushed under foot,

³⁵when human rights are perverted

  in the presence of the Most High,

³⁶when one's case is subverted

  —does the Lord not see it?

³⁷Who can command and have it done,

  if the Lord has not ordained it?

³⁸Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

  that good and bad come?

³⁹Why should any who draw breath complain

  about the punishment of their sins?

⁴⁰Let us test and examine our ways,

  and return to the Lord.

⁴¹Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands

  to God in heaven.

⁴²We have transgressed and rebelled,

  and you have not forgiven.

⁴³You have wrapped yourself with anger

  and pursued us,

killing without pity;

⁴⁴you have wrapped yourself with a cloud

  so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵You have made us filth and rubbish

  among the peoples.

⁴⁶All our enemies

  have opened their mouths against us;

⁴⁷panic and pitfall have come upon us,

  devastation and destruction.

⁴⁸My eyes flow with rivers of tears

  because of the destruction of my people.

⁴⁹My eyes will flow without ceasing,

  without respite,

⁵⁰until the Lord from heaven

  looks down and sees.

⁵¹My eyes cause me grief

  at the fate of all the young women in my city.

⁵²Those who were my enemies without cause

  have hunted me like a bird;

⁵³they flung me alive into a pit

  and hurled stones on me;

⁵⁴water closed over my head;

  I said, “I am lost.”

⁵⁵I called on your name, O Lord,

  from the depths of the pit;

⁵⁶you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear

  to my cry for help, but give me relief!”

⁵⁷You came near when I called on you;

  you said, “Do not fear!”

⁵⁸You have taken up my cause, O Lord,

  you have redeemed my life.

⁵⁹You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord;

  judge my cause.

⁶⁰You have seen all their malice,

  all their plots against me.

⁶¹You have heard their taunts, O Lord,

  all their plots against me.

⁶²The whispers and murmurs of my assailants

  are against me all day long.

⁶³Whether they sit or rise—see,

  I am the object of their taunt-songs.

⁶⁴Pay them back for their deeds, O Lord,

  according to the work of their hands!

⁶⁵Give them anguish of heart;

  your curse be on them!

⁶⁶Pursue them in anger and destroy them

  from under the Lord's heavens.

4

How the gold has grown dim,

  how the pure gold is changed!

The sacred stones lie scattered

  at the head of every street.

²The precious children of Zion,

  worth their weight in fine gold—

how they are reckoned as earthen pots,

  the work of a potter's hands!

³Even the jackals offer the breast

  and nurse their young,

but my people has become cruel,

  like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴The tongue of the infant sticks

  to the roof of its mouth for thirst;

the children beg for food,

  but no one gives them anything.

⁵Those who feasted on delicacies

  perish in the streets;

those who were brought up in purple

  cling to ash heaps.

⁶For the chastisement^a of my people has been greater

  than the punishment^b of Sodom,

which was overthrown in a moment,

  though no hand was laid on it.^c

⁷Her princes were purer than snow,

  whiter than milk;

their bodies were more ruddy than coral,

  their hair^c like sapphire.^d

⁸Now their visage is blacker than soot;

  they are not recognized in the streets.

Their skin has shriveled on their bones;

  it has become as dry as wood.

⁹Happier were those pierced by the sword

  than those pierced by hunger,

whose life drains away, deprived

  of the produce of the field.

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women

  have boiled their own children;

they became their food

  in the destruction of my people.

¹¹The Lord gave full vent to his wrath;

  he poured out his hot anger,

and kindled a fire in Zion

  that consumed its foundations.

¹²The kings of the earth did not

  believe,

nor did any of the inhabitants of the world,

  that foe or enemy could enter

the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³It was for the sins of her prophets

  and the iniquities of her priests,

who shed the blood of the righteous

  in the midst of her.

¹⁴Blindly they wandered through the streets,

  so defiled with blood

that no one was able

  to touch their garments.

¹⁵“Away! Unclean!” people shouted at them;

  “Away! Away! Do not touch!”

So they became fugitives and wanderers;

  it was said among the nations,

“They shall stay here no longer.”

¹⁶The Lord himself has scattered them,

  he will regard them no more;

no honor was shown to the priests,

  no favor to the elders.

¹⁷Our eyes failed, ever watching

  vainly for help;

we were watching eagerly

  for a nation that could not save.

¹⁸They dogged our steps

  so that we could not walk in our streets;

our end drew near; our days were numbered;

  for our end had come.

¹⁹Our pursuers were swifter

  than the eagles in the heavens;

they chased us on the mountains,

  they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰The Lord's anointed, the breath of our life,

  was taken in their pits—

the one of whom we said, “Under his shadow

  we shall live among the nations.”

²¹Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom,

  you that live in the land of Uz;

but to you also the cup shall pass;

  you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.

²²The punishment of your iniquity,

  O daughter Zion, is accomplished,

he will keep you in exile no longer;

  but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish,

he will uncover your sins.

5

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;

  look, and see our disgrace!

²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,

  our homes to aliens.

³We have become orphans, fatherless;

  our mothers are like widows.

⁴We must pay for the water we drink;

  the wood we get must be bought.

⁵With a yoke^a on our necks we are hard driven;

  we are weary, we are given no rest.

⁶We have made a pact with^b Egypt and Assyria,

  to get enough bread.

⁷Our ancestors sinned; they are no more,

  and we bear their iniquities.

⁸Slaves rule over us;

  there is no one to deliver us from their hand.

⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives,

  because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is black as an oven

  from the scorching heat of famine.

¹¹Women are raped in Zion,

  virgins in the towns of Judah.

¹²Princes are hung up by their hands;

  no respect is shown to the elders.

¹³Young men are compelled to grind,

  and boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴The old men have left the city gate,

  the young men their music.

¹⁵The joy of our hearts has ceased;

  our dancing has been turned to mourning.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head;

  woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷Because of this our hearts are sick,

  because of these things our eyes have grown dim:

¹⁸because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate;

  jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹But you, O Lord, reign forever;

  your throne endures to all generations.

²⁰Why have you forgotten us completely?

  Why have you forsaken us these many days?

²¹Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;

  renew our days as of old—

²²unless you have utterly rejected us,

  and are angry with us beyond measure.

1.1–22. Lament over the destroyed Jerusalem. The chapter has two parts, vv. 1–11, the lament of the narrator, and vv. 12–22, the lament of the city. Shame, mourning, and suffering are the main themes. The phrase “no one to comfort her/me” occurs four times (vv. 2,9,17,21; cf. vv. 7,16) and emphasizes unceasing mourning.

1.1–11: The poet laments Jerusalem. Jerusalem, personified as a woman, is widowed, abandoned, and shamed. 1: How, or “woe,” a common beginning of dirges (Isa 1.21; Jer 48.17; Lam 2.1; 4.1). 2: Lovers, Judah's political allies who failed to support her. The term also hints that by taking lovers, Jerusalem was unfaithful to God. 3: Suffering and hard servitude is reminiscent of the Egyptian bondage (Ex 1.14; 2.23; 3.7,17; 4.31; 5.11; 6.6), to which the Babylonian exile is likened. 4: Zion, the eastern hill (also called Ophel) in Jerusalem that was the site of the original Jebusite city (2 Sam 5:6–9), often used as a synonym for Jerusalem (this is a synecdoche, or using a part of something to stand for the whole thing). 6: Daughter Zion, or “Mistress Zion,” a common epithet (e.g., 1.15; 2.1; 4.22), meaning “dear little Zion.” 8: Mockery, or “banished.” Nakedness, shame, especially sexual shame (cf. Isa 47.5; Jer 13.22; Ezek 16.37; Nah 3.5). 9: Uncleanness, probably not from menstruation but from sexual impropriety; see Num 5.19. Jerusalem's sin was unfaithfulness to God, the taking of other “lovers.” 10: Precious things, the Temple treasures looted by the victors (cf. 2 Chr 36.10). The Babylonian invasion is conveyed in sexual terms, as a rape of Jerusalem by someone who had no right of access to her. 11: Jerusalem speaks in the final line, and continues speaking in vv. 12–16 and 18–22.

1.12–22. Jerusalem's lament. 12: Was brought, the Heb word is much stronger and actually conveys violence (cf. 1 Sam 31.4; Jer 38.19; Judg 19.25). Day … anger, like “the day of the Lord,” when God comes in judgment against Judah itself (e.g., Am 5.18). 15: Trodden as in a wine press, crushed so the blood runs out (see Deut 32.14; Isa 63.1–2). Virgin, part of the epithet daughter Judah (compare “daughter Zion and see 1.6n.), Heb “betulah” means a girl of marriageable age. 17: Jacob, a common postexilic term for Judah. Filthy thing, a menstruant, who is ritually impure, not fit to come into contact with holy things and off-limits for sexual relations (see Lev 18.19). Jerusalem's “lovers” (vv. 2,19) distance themselves from her. The narrator interrupts Jerusalem's speech, just as she did his (v. 9c). 18: An admission of sin, but the emphasis is on the suffering. 20: Stomach, better “inner organs,” the seat of emotions. In the street, better “outside,” that is, outside the city walls where the fighting took place. Inside the besieged city the inhabitants were ravaged by famine and disease (see Ezek 7.15). 21: The day you have announced, a day of God's judgment against the enemies of Jerusalem (cf. v. 12n.; Ob 15). 22: Not simply vindictive revenge, this is a plea to restore the world order in which Israel is safe under God's protection and its enemies are banished; chs 3 and 4 end similarly. The trope of the destruction of the enemy is common in psalms of lament.

2.1–22: The Lord has become like an enemy. The tone changes from the despair of ch 1 to anger, and the focus shifts from the victim to God, the perpetrator. Many verbs of strong military action portray God as a destroying enemy: e.g., “thrown down,” “destroyed,” “cut down,” “burned,” “bent his bow,” “killed.”

2.1–10: God in his anger battles against Jerusalem destroying the city and the country of Judah. 1: How, see 1.1n. Humiliated, or “made loathsome.” Daughter Zion, see 1.6n. The splendor of Israel, the Temple, thought of as a link between heaven and earth. That link is now broken and formal ritual access to God is cut off. Footstool, i.e., the ark of the covenant or the Temple. God is envisioned as a king sitting in heaven with his feet touching the Temple (see Ps 132.7; Isa 60.13; Ezek 43.7; 1 Chr 28.2). 3: His right hand, God's fighting arm and the symbol of his power and protection is intentionally withheld from Judah (Ex 15.6,12; Isa 41.10; Pss 48.10; 89.13; 98.1). 4: Tent, an archaic way of referring to the homes in Judah (cf. Jer 30.18) and to the Temple in Jerusalem (cf. Ps 15.1). 6: His booth, a temporary shelter (Job 27.18; Jon 4.5) and also the Temple (Pss 27.5; 76.2). Like a garden: The Temple was destroyed easily, as if it were a booth or hut in a garden. Tabernacle, the “tent of meeting” (cf. Ex 25.1–31.18) constructed during the Exodus from Egypt, used as a metaphor for the Temple. 7: Clamor, the exultant crowing of the invading and plundering enemy has replaced the joyful sounds of the crowds coming to the Temple on festivals. 8–10: We see the towers, walls, and gates disintegrate. The movement is from top to bottom, ending with the inhabitants sitting on the ground in mourning. 8: Stretched the line. Like an architect, God made a plan for unbuilding the city (cf. 2 Kings 21.13; Isa 34.11; Jer 31.39; Zech 1.16; Job 38.5). 9: Guidance, Heb “torah.” 10: Dust and sackcloth, common rituals of mourning (cf. Gen 37.34; Job 16.15; Neh 9.1).

2.11–19: The narrator's reaction. 11: The narrator's words echo those of Jerusalem in 1.20. Stomach, see 1.20n. 11–12: Streets, better “squares,” i.e., broad places near the gates. The babies are starving in public. 12: Where is bread and wine? That is, the stored-up food supplies, the staples. There is no food left anywhere. Bread, lit., “grain.” Bosom, or “lap.” The mothers are holding their children where they should find comfort and nourishment as they starve to death. 13: Virgin daughter Zion, see 1.6n., 1.15n. 14: False and deceptive visions, prophecies of deliverance from the Babylonian threat that were unfounded (see Jer 28.1–17; 29.8–9). 15: Clap … hiss … wag, gestures of surprise and derision. The trope of the passerby witnessing the shame of the victims and reacting with shock is common and provides an additional perspective to that of Zion and the narrator. Perfection of beauty, see Ezek 16.14; 27.3; Ps 50.2; joy of all the earth, see Jer 51.41; Ps 48.2. 16: The enemies mock and taunt the victims, taking credit for Judah's destruction, which v. 17 ascribes to God. The Babylonians never appear in the book; only Edom is named (4.21). 17: Ordained long ago, the decree that if Judah sinned, the Temple would be destroyed and the people exiled from their land (1 Kings 9.6–9). 18: Wall, the physical city should cry out to God on behalf of its people. 19: Watches, the night was divided into three watches (see Ex 14.24; 1 Sam 11.11; Song 3.1–3; 5.7). Nighttime is when suffering seems hardest to bear and when many prayers are offered, with the expectation that God will respond in the morning (cf. Ps 30.5).

2.20–22: Jerusalem's address to God. 20: Eat their offspring. Cannibalism was a result of the famine during a siege (4.10; 2 Kings 6.28) and a punishment for violating the covenant (Deut 28.53–57); this is a common trope in describing a siege. It is the reversal of the norm, in which women feed their children. 21: Slaughtering, as if preparing meat for food or sacrifice. The idea continues in the next verse, where God invites the enemies as if for a day of festival when they would participate in a sacrificial meal in the Temple. 22: Day of the anger of the Lord, the time of punishment, like “the day of the Lord,” when God will punish those who deserve it (cf. 1.12; 2.1).

3.1–66: The complaint of a male speaker who describes the deportation into exile. The longest and most complex poem of the book, arranged as a triple acrostic: each stanza has three short verses assigned to each successive letter of the alphabet. The logical subdivisions according to content do not correspond to the alphabetic structure, with the result that the reader is pulled along from one thought to the next and interrupted by a new stanza in midthought. The chapter uses the language of lament and of wisdom or theological reflection on God's punishment and mercy. The mood alternates between despair and hope. The identity of the male speaker has long been debated. Some think he was a historical individual (Jeremiah, Jehoiachin, or Zedekiah have been suggested), but it is preferable to take him as a literary persona, the counterpart of the female city speaking in 1.12–22. He is a Job-like figure, using some phraseology similar to Job's (especially in vv. 1–19; cf. Job 16:7–15), crying out to God from his suffering, trying to make sense of the terrible event, and to provoke God's response. But unlike Job, this speaker is not successful, for God never answers him.

3.1–20: The lament of the male persona, who speaks in the voice of a survivor in exile, or perhaps in the collective voice of the people. Verses 1–13 imagine God as a bad shepherd who leads his flock into dark and dangerous places (exile), in stark contrast to the image of God as a good shepherd (as in Ps 23). 1: I am one, lit., “I am the man.” Heb “geber” is clearly masculine although NRSV has stripped it of gender. Rod of God's wrath, the shepherd's rod, normally an instrument of protection, is here the rod with which God punishes, as in Isa 10.5, where Assyria is the rod of God's wrath. 2: Driven and brought, like a flock (cf. Isa 40.11; Ps 78.52–53). 6: Darkness like the dead: Exile is often compared to darkness, prison, and death. In exile the Judeans were cut off from access to God's Temple, like a dead person. The dead of long ago, better, “like the eternally dead,” who have no hope of life. 8: He shuts out my prayer, see 3.44n. 10: Bear … lion, from being a bad shepherd God changes into the dangerous wild animals from whom the shepherd should protect his flock (cf. 1 Sam 17.34–37). 12–13: Instead of shooting at the wild animals, God shoots at the speaker. God is elsewhere a divine archer who shoots disaster from his bow; cf. Deut 32.23–24; Ps 38.2; Job 16.12–13. 15: Bitterness... wormwood, a common symbol of suffering, see 3.19; 4.21; Jer 9.14; Job 9.18. 17: My soul, my being or self.

3.21–24: Despair turns to hope in these transitional verses framed by Therefore I have hope / Therefore I will hope in Him. 22: Steadfast love … mercies … faithfulness, attributes of God representing covenant loyalty (Ex 34.6–7; see also 2 Sam 7.15; Ps 89.1–3). 24: My portion, Pss 119.57; 142.5.

3.25–39: Drawing on wisdom thought, the poem finds reasons for hope in the face of suffering. 25–27: Good begins each verse, applied to God and to human patience. Humans must wait for God's merciful help, and in the meantime accept the burden of their suffering (bear the yoke). 29: Put one's mouth to the dust, accept God's discipline submissively (cf. Mic 7.17; Ps 72.9). 30: Isa 50.6. 33: Willingly, better “deliberately” (lit., “from his heart”). God does not mete out punishment capriciously. 34–39: Standard biblical theology: all is ordained by God, who is the source of both good and evil (cf. Job 2.10; Isa 45.7); punishment received is punishment deserved.

3.40–47: Communal lament. The discourse shifts back to lament, although now in the first-person plural with direct address to God. At the beginning the tone is conciliatory, but then becomes accusatory. 40–41: As if persuaded by 3.25–29, the speakers call for self-examination, repentance, and contrition. 41: Lift up our hearts as well as our hands, a call for sincerity in repentance, not merely going through the motions of prayer. 42–44: A devastating turning point: confession of sin does not bring forgiveness. 44: Wrapped yourself with a cloud, the cloud through which God revealed himself at Sinai (Ex 19.16), and which protects the people from fatal direct contact with the divine, is here perceived as a barrier that God erected to prevent prayer from reaching him; cf. 3.8.

3.48–66: Individual lament. The first-person singular “I” returns, emphasizing the personal dimension of the suffering. 53: Pit, a cistern for holding water or for imprisoning people (cf. Jer 38.6), and also the grave or the nether-world (Sheol; cf. Isa 14.15; Pss 30.3; 88.4). 54: Water closed over my head, the water in the cistern, but also a metaphor for desperation (see Jon 2.6–7; 2 Sam 22.5–6 = Ps 18.4–5). 55–56: Ps 130.1–2. 56: The verbs in the past tense here and in the following verses probably express a wish for the future. 57: Do not fear, the words of an oracle of assurance; see Gen 15.1; Isa 41.14; 43.5. 58–60: Legal language. The poet casts himself as a plaintiff in court where God will judge him innocent and the enemy guilty (cf. 3.34–36). 63: Whether they sit or rise, whatever they do, at all times. 64–66: A call for retribution; see 1.22. 66: From under the Lord's heavens, there is no place in God's world for the wicked.

4.1–22: The community under siege in Jerusalem. The physical and social effects of starvation are graphically described. The progression is realistic: first the children are affected and then the adults. Degradation and debasement is the main theme; those once well-off are now destitute, those once healthy are dying or dead. The “before” and the “after,” is achieved by the contrast in color, as the rich palette of the colors of wealth and health (gold, scarlet, white, red, sapphire in vv. 1,2,5,7,8) is drained away to blackness. Heat is another dimension, the unrelenting heat of the summer siege, the dry and blackened skin (v. 8), the parched mouths (v. 4), God's burning anger setting fire to Zion (v. 11). There is no shade, no protection provided by God or the king (v. 20). Like chs 1 and 2, this chapter contains a single alphabetic acrostic and opens with the word How (see 1.1n).

4.1–10: The suffering of the siege. 1: Sacred stones, or gems, and gold, though appearing to be literal, are metaphors for the children (v. 2). 2: Zion, see 1.4n. Earthen pots were cheap and easily broken and discarded, while gold was an expensive and durable material. The children are likened to throwaway objects because no one can care for them. 3: Jackals, considered despicable scavengers. Ostriches, thought to be cruel and neglectful parents (cf. Job 39.13–18). My people has become cruel, not willingly but from desperation; they are no longer able to care for their children. 4: The tongue … sticks to the roof of the mouth, an expression meaning that no sound is uttered (Ezek 3.26; Ps 137.6; Job 29.10). The children are too weak even to cry. 5: Purple, better “crimson” (cf. Isa 1.18). 6: Sodom, whose punishment was legendary (Gen 19.24–25), was overthrown in an instant, whereas Jerusalem was made to suffer long agony. 7–8: The bright colors associated with vigor have turned to black; now people are dried up. 10: See 2.20n.

4.11–16: God's wrathful punishment. 12: The Judean belief in the inviolability of Zion, that God would never permit his city to be destroyed (see Pss 46.5; 48.3–8), is here attributed even to foreigners, a creative use of the “passersby” trope (see 2.15n). 13–14: Priests … prophets, those most associated with purity and visions are described as the most blind and defiled. 15: Away! Unclean! The public warning that lepers must give so that no one will come in contact with them (Lev 13.45–46).

4.17–22: The voice of the community. As in 3.40–47, the speaker is “we,” describing the final days of the siege and the fall of Jerusalem. 17: For a nation that could not save, most likely Egypt, the major power opposed to Babylonia (see Jer 37.5–10; Isa 30.7). Contrary to what prophets like Jeremiah advised, Judah relied on help from another nation, not from God. 19: Perhaps an allusion to the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem, when Zedekiah and his soldiers fled the city and were pursued and captured by the Babylonian army (2 Kings 25.4–5). 20: The Lord's anointed, the breath of our life, … under his shadow, royal epithets (1 Sam 24.7; 2 Sam 1.14,16). The reference is likely to Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, whose defeat signals the failure of the Davidic dynasty to protect the people. 21–22: A curse on Edom, a neighbor of Judah who was a vassal to Babylonia. Edom is often singled out for negative comment in postexilic literature (Ezek 35; Ob 11; Ps 137.7). Edom is synonymous with Esau (Gen 36.1) and therefore the traditional enemy or rival of Jacob/Israel (=Judah); cf. Mal 1.2–5. 21: Rejoice and be glad, an ironic statement. Daughter Edom, an epithet parallel to Daughter Zion (see 1.6n.). Uz, a region in southern Jordan or northwestern Arabia, often connected with Edom (Gen 36.28; Jer 25.20; Job 1.1; 1 Chr 1.42). The cup, of God's wrath (see 3.15; Jer 25.15–29; 49.12; 51.7; Hab 2.15–16), which will make Edom drunk. Strip yourself bare, expose your nakedness and be shamed as Jerusalem was (1.8–10). 22: The most hopeful sentiment in the book (cf. Joel 3).

5.1–22: A prayer of the survivors in Judah in the aftermath of the destruction. A call to God to notice the abject state of his people in Judah and to restore them to their previous condition. The chapter resembles communal laments and also penitential prayers of the Second Temple period. 1: The plea to God to remember is framed by Why have you forgotten in v. 20. Remember means “to pay mind to” and forget means “to ignore.” 2–3: The breakdown of the institution of the family. 2: Our inheritance, ancestral land was to be kept within the family. Here the reference may be to individual real estate or to the country as a whole. Strangers, those outside the family. Aliens, foreigners. 3: Fatherless, an orphan is a person without a father. Widows and orphans are defenseless and required special protection (e.g., Isa 1.23; Ps 68.5). 4–5: Harsh economic conditions; rampant inflation. Water and wood are basic necessities. 6: Egypt and Assyria, traditional superpowers and enemy-invaders of Israel, are often found in parallelism even when, as in this period, Assyria was long gone (Isa 52.4; Zech 10.10–11). 7: Iniquities also means “punishment.” Earlier sinful generations did not suffer punishment like the current generation. Did the current generation also see itself as sinful and deserving of punishment, or did they think they are paying unfairly for the sins of their ancestors? The verse is ambiguous. 8: Slaves rule over us, previously Judah was ruled by its own king but now it is governed by the lackeys of the Babylonian king (cf. 2 Kings 25.24). 9: Food is scarce. The sword in the wilderness, a difficult phrase which may mean that scavenging in the countryside was dangerous because of marauders. Alternatively, it is a metaphor for the dehydration and starvation of the inhabitants of Judah, who suffer famine that resembles the famine of the siege (v. 10 and cf. 4.8). 11–14: Social order has disintegrated; violence and indignity abound. Women are shamed sexually; leaders are shamed publicly; young and old are denied their proper calling and subjected to abusive labor. 12: Hung up, impalement of corpses was a form of public shaming (Deut 21.22; Josh 10.26–27; 1 Sam 31.10). By their hands, probably meaning by the hands of the enemy (see v. 8), since victims were not generally hung by their hands. A better interpretation may be that this is not a form of execution or corpse display, but a form of torture and humiliation of the living, like putting a person in the stocks. 13: To grind, a task normally done by women (Ex 11.5; Isa 47.2; Job 31.10) or slaves (Judg 16.21) and therefore demeaning if undertaken by a man. The Hebrew is “pull the millstone,” which may refer to a large milling operation in which a donkey would normally pull the heavy millstone, making this line parallel in meaning to the next one. Boys stagger under loads of wood, humans are made to do the work of animals, beasts of burden. 14: City gate, the location of business and legal transactions (Ruth 4.1; Job 29.7). 16: The crown, the emblem of kingship, the Davidic dynasty, or perhaps the crenellated walls of the city. We have sinned, an admission of guilt (cf. 3.42 and 5.7n). 18: Mount Zion, see 1.4n. Jackals, or “foxes,” proverbial inhabitants of ruined cities (see 4.3; Ezek 13.4; Isa 34.11–17; Zeph 2.13–15). 19: A strong theological statement: Even though God's earthly throne, the Temple, lies in ruins, God continues to reign forever. 21: A wish that Israel's former relationship with God be reinstated. 22: The book ends in tragic despair, with the suggestion that God's rejection of the people continues. Unless is difficult in the Hebrew; perhaps it is better translated “but instead,” or even more literally, “for if,” suggesting that the conclusion of the conditional clause has been withheld, thus perpetuating indefinitely the divine rejection with which the book ends.

^a Meaning of Heb uncertain

^a Meaning of Heb uncertain

^a Meaning of Heb uncertain

^a Cn: Heb Their heart cried

^b Heb his

^a Syr Tg: Heb Lord, we are not cut off

^a Or iniquity

^b Or sin

^c Meaning of Heb uncertain

^d Or lapis lazuli

^a Symmachus: Heb lacks With a yoke

^b Heb have given the hand to