Lamentations.
Lamentations.
§ 153. The Hebrews call Lamentations 
from its first word. The rabbinic scholars in their commentaries call it 
, “complaints,” and the Greeks, 
, “Lamentations,” because of its subject matter. Rabbi Salomon thinks that this is the book that the king of Judah read from the beginning, then threw into the fire (Jer. 36:23). This, however, we can refute from c. 45 [of Jeremiah]. It contains the pathetic, mournful complaints about the wretched condition of the state of Israel into which it fell after the death of King Josiah. In the place of the introduction, the Septuagint translators present a summary of this book in these words: “After Israel had been led into captivity and Jerusalem was deserted, it happened that the prophet Jeremiah sat down, wept, and mourned over Jerusalem with this lamentation. He sighed bitterly, cried out, and said,” etc.
In the Hebrew text, Lamentations was written in this order: the first verse begins with 
, the second with 
, and so on to the end, keeping intact the order of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In the third chapter, the first three verses begin with 
, the second three with 
, and so on, with each succeeding three verses keeping the pattern to the end of the alphabet. In the introduction to his commentary, Jerome believes that a mystery is not lacking here. The book consists of five chapters, which we can divide into lamentation and prayer.