ChristianAnswers.Net WebBible Encyclopedia Book of Lamentationscalled in the Hebrew canon 'Ekhah, meaning “How,” being the formula for the commencement of a song of wailing; It is the first word of the book (see 2 Samuel 1:19-27). The Septuagint Version adopted the name rendered “Lamentations” (Greek: threnoi = Hebrew: qinoth) now in common use, to denote the character of the book, in which the prophet mourns over the desolations brought on the city and the holy land by Chaldeabs. In the Hebrew Bible, it is placed among the Khethubim. (See BIBLE.) As to its authorship, there is no room for hesitancy in following the LXX [Septuagint] and the Targum in ascribing it to Jeremiah. The spirit, tone, language, and subject-matter are in accord with the testimony of tradition in assigning it to him. According to tradition, he retired after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to a cavern outside the Damascus gate, where he wrote this book. That cavern is still pointed out.
The book consists of five separate poems.
The first 4 poems (chapters) are acrostics, like some of the Psalms (25, 34, 37, 119), i.e., each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet taken in order. The first, second, and fourth have each 22 verses, the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The third has 66 verses, in which each 3 successive verses begin with the same letter. The fifth is not acrostic. Speaking of the “Wailing-place of the Jews” at Jerusalem, a portion of the old wall of the temple of Solomon, Schaff says:
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