Lamentations. An appendix to the preceding, in the shape of a pathetic ode, expresses Jeremiah's grief for the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the miseries of slavery and famine, inculcating the benefit of chastisement. It is full of pathetic tenderness. It is, in the Hebrew, an acrostic, each stanza beginning with a fresh letter of the alphabet, probably to assist the memory.

Chaps, i., ii., and iv. consist of twenty-two verses each (i.e. the number of Hebrew letters), in alphabetical order. Chap. v. contains the same number of verses, but not in alphabetic order; while chap. iii. has three verses to each letter of the alphabet, which is repeated at the beginning of each of the three verses. The book, however, is not one poem divided into five chapters, but consists of five distinct poems. Its original Hebrew title was " Echah," the usual prefix to a song of wailing.

Date and Authorship. The external evidence rests entirely on a preface in the LXX.: " And it came to pass, that after Israel was led captive, and Jerusalem was laid waste, Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation on Jerusalem;" which is followed by Josephus and others. The internal evidence connects it in style and subject-matter so closely with the book of Jeremiah's prophecies, as to leave no doubt as to the authorship. Some have supposed it to be the lamentation on the death of Josiah (2 Chron. xxxv. 25), mentioned by Josephus as extant in his time (Antiq. v.); but this conjecture does not accord with the tone of these poems, which evidently pourtray Jerusalem in ruins, and leave no doubt that they were composed after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.

Its Canonicity has never been doubted; but it is regarded as the work of an inspired prophet, rather than as a prophetic inspiration. It has been variously placed among the sacred writings, either between Ruth and Ecclesiastes, among the five Megillolh, as in the Hebrew, or grouped with Jeremiah's writings, but separated from the prophetical book by that of Baruch, as in the LXX.