NOTES for Lam 1:1-22
Today we begin reading the book of Lamentations. The tradition that Jeremiah himself wrote it was based on the reference in 2 Chr 35:25 and was supported by the content of the poem, which does in fact reflect his era. But modern studies, based on examination of the book's text, hold that Lamentations was written by someone highly skilled in poetic art, while Jeremiah expressed his religious experience more directly. Despite its brevity, the book is complex in construction: it consists of four so-called alphabetic poems, while the fifth and final one contains exactly twenty-two verses, matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Today's reading is written in the genre of funeral laments. Before us stands humiliated and destroyed Jerusalem, a people undergoing exile and the trampling of everything that had made up their pride and glory. Yet these disasters are not revenge or rage, but only the consequences of unfaithfulness to the agreement, of failing to keep the Covenant that was made at Sinai. The Lord then offered them the choice of "life and good, or death and evil." The people did not want to choose life, and now death has presented its terrible bill.