Volume III
The Lamentations of Jeremiah
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. III, p. 1304
Are an appendix to his predictions; written not in the foresight, but on observing the desolations which they bewail;—not for Josiah's death, of whom there is not the smallest hint in the book, but for the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the unhinging of the Jewish church and state by Nebuchadnezzar. The composition is poetic and singular, each verse, in each chapter, beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, in order, as in some of the Psalms; only in the third every three verses begin with the same letter, somewhat in the form of Ps. cxix. Nothing can be conceived more tender, expressive, and affecting than the descriptions. The grand design of them is to lead the captives to repentance and humiliation for their sins before God, and to inspire them with some hopes of deliverance. [The author's name is not mentioned in this book, and therefore some have questioned whether it proceeded from the pen of Jeremiah. There is no good reason, however, to doubt the authorship. Jewish tradition reaching back beyond the Christian era ascribes it to Jeremiah; and in a verse prefixed to the Septuagint translation, and apparently of the same date, Jeremiah is mentioned as the author. The verse is as follows: 'And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem had been laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation, and said.' The internal evidence is in entire accord with the historical. The writer was manifestly an eye-witness of the troubles he laments. The language and style, too, closely resemble those of the prophecies. P. The Book of Lamentations may be considered as a sequel to those prophecies of Jeremiah which related to the Chaldean invasion, and the subsequent ruin of Judea, and the captivity or dispersion of the Jews. And although by Josephus, Usher, and others, it has been considered as referring to the death of Josiah (2 Ch. 35. 25), yet the description of the 'captivity' (ch. 1. 3), of the complete ruin of Jerusalem (ch. 4. 5, 12), and of the capture of the king (ch. 4. 20), seems quite conclusive for referring the whole book to the days of Zedekiah. The book is divided into five chapters, each of which contains a distinct subject of lamentation, subdivided into twenty-two stanzas, according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the first four chapters the stanzas begin with the letters following in alphabetical order. In the first two chapters each stanza forms a triplet, except the seventh of the first, and the nineteenth of the second, which have each a supernumerary line. In the third chapter each stanza consists of three verses, which all commence with the same letter; so that the whole alphabet is thrice repeated. In the fourth and fifth chapters the stanzas are merely couplets, the fifth chapter being the only one not alphabetically arranged. This arrangement is not to be considered as originating merely in the personal taste of the prophet, but as divinely directed for some special purposes. Among these purposes, it may be useful to note the following. (1) The Jewish and the Christian religions (and which yet are not two, but one religion, under two forms or dispensations, and calculated for two conditions of mankind, the local and the diffused, the self-governing and the governed); these are the only religions that have ever made education—the education of all ranks, without exception, an integral and necessary part of their constitution. They are, in a word, the only intellectual forms of religion; every false form being calculated either to tolerate ignorance or foster sensuality; and every false, superstitious, and apostatical form of Judaism and Christianity being more or less perverted to the same purposes. Now the alphabet containing the elements of all intellectual education, it is not surprising that an intellectual religion should embody some of its most important documents in an alphabetical form, so that the minds of children under instruction (see De. 6. 6) might associate their first steps in learning with the holy Word of the Lord. No doubt there are those who would pronounce such association unfavourable to future religious impressions; inasmuch as the first steps in learning are generally felt as a toil, and endured but as a slavery. But this, be it remembered, depends altogether upon the temper and the manner of the instructor, who generally has it in his power, by a judicious commixture of kindness and authority, to render a really intellectual education not only tolerable, but agreeable and delightful. (2) It is by no means improbable that, by adopting the alphabetical arrangement in his 'Lamentations,' the prophet meant to inculcate that sorrow was now the proper lesson which Judah and Israel were called to study; while the threefold repetition would, not ineptly, shadow forth the long-continued succession of afflictions which they were destined to undergo. Nor is it contrary to the emblematical manner of the prophets to conclude, that the dropping of the alphabetical form in the last chapter—which consists of an earnest prayer—was intended to show, that when Judah and Israel should return and call upon the name of the Lord, then should their lesson of sorrows have an end, and the joy of their heart be renewed, ver. 15, 21. (3) This alphabetic elegy, this funeral dirge of Zion, may well remind the believer of Him who came near 'the city, and wept over it.' And by comparing ch. 5. 18, 19, with Ps. 102. 25, and He. 1. 10-12, the Lord, before whom the prophet pleads and bemoans the melancholy ruin of his church and his country, is found to be the 'King of Zion,' the Lord Christ, who, in the book of Revelation, ch. 1. 8, is styled the Alpha and Omega, the whole alphabet, as it were the study and instructor of his church. C.]