Book image

Book 25 of 66

The Book Of Lamentations

Log In or Sign up Today!

Who is the Author?

The book doesn’t name its author, but Jewish tradition attributes it to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. The Septuagint added the following words as an introduction to the book: “And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said...” The Aramaic Targum of Jonathan, the Babylonian Talmud, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate all made statements attributing the work to Jeremiah.1 Internal evidence also points to Jeremiah as the author. Several ideas that Jeremiah used in his prophecy reappear in Lamentations (cf. Jer. 30:14 with Lam. 1:2; and cf. Jer. 49:12 with Lam. 4:21). In both books, the writer says his eyes flowed with tears (Jer. 9:1, 18; Lam. 1:16; 2:11), and in both the writer was an eyewitness to Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon and pictured the atrocities that befell Jerusalem in her last days (Jer. 19:9; Lam. 2:20;4:10).

Log In or Sign up Today!