the book of lamentations forward: lamentations describes the funeral of a city. it is a tearstained portrait of the once proud jerusalem, now reduced to rubble by the invading babylonian hordes. in a five poem dirge, jeremiah exposes his emotions. a death har occured: jerusalem lies barren. jeremiah writes his lament in acrostic or alphabetical fashion. begining each chapter with the first letter a -aleph- he progresses verse by verse through the hebrew alphabet, literally weeping from a to z. and then in the midst of this terrible holocaust, jeremiah triuphantly cries out, great is thy faithfulness -3:23-. in the face of death and destruction, with life seemingly coming apart, jeremiah turns tragedy into a triumph of faith. god has never failed him in the past. god has promised to remain faithful in the future. in the light of the god he knows and loves, jeremiah finds hope and comfort. the hebrew title of this book comes from the first word of chapters 1,2,and 4: ekah, -ah, how!- another hebrew word ginoth -elegies or lamentations- has also been used as the title because it better represents the contents of the book. the greek title threnoi means dirges or laments and the latin title threni tears or lamentations war derived from this word.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 01:20:05 +0000
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