4.
Those often erroneously called “The early church fathers,” Origen and Jerome, understood without question that Jeremiah was the author of Lamentations.
C.
Someone, who was there through the siege and fall, wrote the Book of Lamentations. Consider carefully that person was Jeremiah.
1.
Jeremiah saw the destruction, the famine and the disease.
2.
Jeremiah obviously saw women eating their own children.
3.
In writing Lamentations, he comes to terms with those memories and the place that the Lord God had in their making.
D.
Many hold that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, and that is certainly what I believe.
1.
To my thinking, it is not probable that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, it is altogether true that he is the author of the Book. With that said, I submit to you that it really does not matter who the author is because it is in the content and value of the Book that the treasure and meat is to be found.
2.
The grief and the emotion Lamentations expresses belong to all of us. That is yet another value of the Book.
3.
The important issues found in Lamentations do not find their summation in the author but in the facts that Lamentations is a universal poem of grief, a look at the thinking of folks about why things happen and then how there is reason for hope when there appears to be no man to care and no hope available.
E.
It is not necessary to be dogmatic about the Prophet Jeremiah being the author of the book; but it seems more than reasonable and highly assured by context and Jewish tradition in this matter to identify its author as being none other than Jeremiah the Prophet.
II.
TITLE OF THE BOOK.
A.
Hebrew: The title to the book in Hebrew is hkya (Ekah). This is the Hebrew term for “How,” “Alas,” or “Oh” that appears as the first word in the Hebrew text in 1:1; 2:1; 4:1. This word was commonly used in Israelite funeral dirges (cf. 2 Sam 1:19; Isa 42:12).
B.
Greek: The title to the book in Greek is QRHNOI (Threnos) meaning “lament.”