Lamentations
Lamentations
Lamentations is part of the Major Prophets, where extended collections of oracles, visions, and narratives confront empires and console the bruised. Prophecy here is not fortune‑telling but covenant proclamation—exposing injustice, idolatry, and false security, while promising renewal beyond exile. Historically, Lamentations engages the rise and fall of regional powers and the trauma of displacement; literarily, it uses sign‑acts, apocalyptic imagery, and poetic parallelism. Readers hear God’s holiness and compassion together: judgment is real, but not God’s last word. In synagogue and church, Lamentations has shaped hope for return, new hearts, and a restored people, and furnished Christian writers with language for messianic promise and new‑covenant life.
Annotated Bibliography (Chicago Style)
- Dillard, Raymond B., and Tremper Longman III. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. Standard introduction covering authorship, date, literary features, and theology for each OT book.
- Alexander, T. Desmond. From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. Thematic and historical overview of the Torah within the Old Testament story.