The Lamentations of Jeremiah
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
- a book of five chapters - is truly the most sublime and at the same time most moving song of lamentation, full of the tenderest and most plaintive groanings over Jerusalem, once flourishing and most glorious, queen of all cities and daughter of Zion, now abandoned by all, mourning her solitude, deprived of friends, betrayed by those near her, pleading vainly for help, and possessing not one comforter. The prophet saw with his own eyes every disaster that befell this once glorious city and people; he lived through and suffered them all.
In bitter tears and heart-rending lamentation he pours out his soul upon the ruins of Jerusalem. For all who are afflicted by sorrow and loss, Lamentations can serve as a most beautiful source of consolation and a most faithful mirror of repentance. A few verses are enough to show the full force of the prophet's inward grief and heartfelt lamentation: 'How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!... She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.… The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate.… And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed.… Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us' (Lam 1:1-2, 4, 6, 12; 4:1, 5; 5:1, 21-22).