Lamentations 1:1

THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH

Chronological notes relative to the Book of the Lamentations

- Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3416.

- Year of the Jewish era of the world, 3173.

- Year from the Deluge, 1760.

- First year of the forty-eighth Olympiad.

- Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian account, 166.

- Year before the birth of Christ, 584.

- Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 588.

- Year of the Julian Period, 4126.

- Year of the era of Nabonassar, 160.

- Cycle of the Sun, 10.

- Cycle of the Moon, 3.

- Second year after the fourth Sabbatic year after the seventeenth Jewish jubilee, according to Helvicus.

- Twenty-ninth year of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of the Romans: this was the seventy-ninth year before the commencement of the consular government.

- Thirty-eighth year of Cyaxares or Cyaraxes, the fourth king of Media.

- Eighteenth year of Agasicles, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.

- Twentieth year of Leon, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.

- Thirty-second year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia. This was the father of the celebrated Croesus.

- Fifteenth year of AEropas, the seventh king of Macedon.

- Nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

- Eleventh year of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah.

CHAPTER I

The prophet begins with lamenting the dismal reverse of fortune

that befell his country, confessing at the same time that her

calamities were the just consequence of her sins, 1-6.

Jerusalem herself is then personified and brought forward to

continue the sad complaint, and to solicit the mercy of God,

7-22.

In all copies of the Septuagint, whether of the Roman or Alexandrian editions, the following words are found as a part of the text: Και εγενετο μετα το αιχμαλωτισθηναι τον Ισραηλ, και Ιερουσαλημ ερημωθηναι, εκαθισεν Ιερεμιας κλαιων, και εθρηνησεν τον θρηνον τουτον επι Ιερουσαλημ, και ειπεν· - "And it came to pass after Israel had been carried away captive, and Jerusalem was become desolate, that Jeremiah sat weeping: and he lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem; and he said."

The Vulgate has the same, with some variations: - "Et factum est, postquam in captivitatem redactus est Israel, et Jerusalem deserta est, sedit Jeremias propheta fiens, et planxit lamentations hac in Jerusalem, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, digit." The translation of this, as given in the first translation of the Bible into English, may be found at the end of Jeremiah, taken from an ancient MS. in my own possession.

I subjoin another taken from the first PRINTED edition of the English Bible, that by Coverdale, 1535. "And it came to passe, (after Israel was brought into captyvitie, and Jerusalem destroyed;) that Jeremy the prophet sat weeping, mournynge, and makinge his mone in Jerusalem; so that with an hevy herte he sighed and sobbed, sayenge."

Matthew's Bible, printed in 1549, refines upon this: "It happened after Israell was brought into captyvite, and Jerusalem destroyed, that Jeremy the prophet sate wepyng, and sorrowfully bewayled Jerusalem; and syghynge and hewlynge with an hevy and wooful hert, sayde."

Becke's Bible of the same date, and Cardmarden's of 1566, have the same, with a trifling change in the orthography.

On this Becke and others have the following note: - "These words are read in the LXX. interpreters: but not in the Hebrue."

All these show that it was the ancient opinion that the Book of Lamentations was composed, not over the death of Josiah, but on account of the desolations of Israel and Jerusalem.

The Arabic copies the Septuagint. The Syriac does not acknowledge it; and the Chaldee has these words only: "Jeremiah the great priest and prophet said."

NOTES ON CHAP. I

Verse Lamentations 1:1. How doth the city sit solitary] Sitting down, with the elbow on the knee, and the head supported by the hand, without any company, unless an oppressor near, - all these were signs of mourning and distress. The coin struck by Vespasian on the capture of Jerusalem, on the obverse of which there is a palm-tree, the emblem of Judea, and under it a woman, the emblem of Jerusalem, sitting, leaning as before described, with the legend Judea capta, illustrates this expression as well as that in Isaiah 47:1. Isaiah 3:26, where the subject is farther explained.

Become as a widow] Having lost her king. Cities are commonly described as the mothers of their inhabitants, the kings as husbands, and the princes as children. When therefore they are bereaved of these, they are represented as widows, and childless.

The Hindoo widow, as well as the Jewish, is considered the most destitute and wretched of all human beings. She has her hair cut short, throws off all ornaments, eats the coarsest food, fasts often, and is all but an outcast in the family of her late husband.

Is she become tributary!] Having no longer the political form of a nation; and the remnant that is left paying tribute to a foreign and heathen conqueror.