Appendix. 

Lamentations. 

The position of Lamentations in the English Bible is due to the LXX. In the Hebrew Bible it is found in the Writings, as the third of the five Megillot, or Rolls (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther); the order within this small collection is not based on authorship, but on the order in which they are read in the Synagogue during the year at the major feasts and fasts. The English name is derived from the Vulgate. In Hebrew, the book is occasionally called Oinot, i.e. Lamentations, but normally Ekah, i.e. How — the first word of the 1st, 2nd and 4th lamen­tation.

        The book is composed of five lamentations, or dirges, over the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; quite under­standably it is read in the Synagogue on the 9th of Ab, when a fast is held in remembrance of the destruction of both the first and the second temple. Authorship.

        The book is anonymous, and it is far from certain that all five poems are by the same writer. Both the LXX and Talmudic tradition ascribe it to Jeremiah, and this has been adopted by both the A.V. and R.V.; we should, however, do better to treat this tradition with reserve. Young sums up the position thus: “In the light of these arguments it seems most likely that Jeremiah did compose Lamentations.” (Young, p. 334).

        Our insistence on the anonymity of the book comes from no mere scholarly pedantry. It comes rather from the con­viction that we show the Holy Spirit no respect, when we go beyond the indications of Scripture itself. There are some traditions, like that of the authorship of the Gospel according to Mark, which are so close to the time involved and so borne out by the evidence of the book, that we do not hesitate to accept them; but this does not apply to the traditions about the Old Testament. We are much safer and more reverent in accepting the anonymity imposed by the Holy Spirit Himself.

        There is yet another reason. Whenever we make improvable assertions about the Bible, however good our motive, we open the door wide to the equally improvable assumptions of the modernist scholar. The fact that the conservative assumption is considered to be “edifying,” and the modernist one the reverse, does not lift the former to a higher plane of legitimacy.