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" ([Hebrew: latzarim]) "we submitted, Saying" ([Hebrew: leemor]), "'We shall be satisfied with bread'" (cf. Jer. xlii. 14); "The yoke of our neck they made heavy" (Neh. v. 15: [Hebrew: ehbidu al haam]); "We toil, and no rest is allowed us." Verse 13: "Nobles endured to grind, And princes staggered under logs" ([Hebrew: horim] for [Hebrew: bahurim], which belongs to verse 14; [Hebrew: sarim] for [Hebrew: nearim]. Eccl. x. 7; Is. xxxiv. 12; Neh. iv. 14; v. 7; vi. 17). Verse 19, "But Thou..." Psalm cii. 13 ([Hebrew: ve] fell out after preceding [Hebrew: vav], verse 18). Verse 22, omit [Hebrew: em]; dittogr. of following [Hebrew: ma].

_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, [Hebrew: mahmadim]; 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 [Hebrew: dumam]; 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.