The Bible In A Year 
Jeremiah week 3 of 3
February 4-9, 2019
Readings for the Week
Theme of the week: Continuing Jeremiah’s telling of the fall of Jerusalem and subsequent events, this week we begin with the book of Lamentations..
Monday -Lamentations chapters 1, 2, 3 & 4
Tuesday -Lamentations chapter 5, Jeremiah chapters 40, 41, 42 & 43
Wednesday -Jeremiah chapters 44, 45, 46 & 47
Thursday -Jeremiah chapters 48 & 49
Friday -Jeremiah chapter 50, Psalm 94
Saturday -Jeremiah chapters 51 & 52
The Bible In A Year
Jeremiah week 3 of 3
A Framework for Understanding
Lamentations
The book of Lamentations is a series of 5 poems written after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, when the city was razed and the temple destroyed by the Babylonians.
The book translated into Greek and Latin, gives credit for authorship to Jeremiah. This is why the book is placed with the prophets, right after Jeremiah’s prophetic work.
The Hebrew scrolls do not indicate Jeremiah as the author. In fact, the use of language and vocabulary, even the religious ideas contained in the book, are different from those of the prophet’s work as recorded by his scribe. It is quite likely the authorship was a later addition in the other translations. It was the tradition to attribute anonymous writings to famous people.
In the Jewish canon the book of Lamentations is not placed with the prophets, but is grouped with “the writings,” such as Proverbs, Daniel, Esther and Ruth.
The poetry is often quite brutal and violent. It does not offer much hope. It does, however, point to the tenacity of life – even through tremendously violent devastation life continues.
Lamentations is very similar to Mesopotamian laments. However, in the Mesopotamian writings there is always a happy ending. In this lament in our Bible, there is no happy ending.