INTRODUCTION TO THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.

The third chapter contains sixty-four verses, each, as before, formed of three hemistichs, but with this difference, that each hemistich begins with the same letter, so that the whole alphabet is thrice repeated in this chapter.

The fourth chapter is made up of twenty-two verses, according to the number of the Hebrew letters; but the composition is different from all the rest, for each verse consists of only two hemistichs, and those much shorter than any in the preceding chapters.

"Never,"

Í have called this an inimitable poem; better judges are of the same opinion. says Bishop Lowth, "was there a more rich and elegant variety of beautiful images and adjuncts arranged together within so small a compass, nor more happily chosen and applied.' "One would think," says Dr. South, "that every letter was written with a tear; every word, the sound of a breaking heart: that the author was compacted of sorrows; disciplined to grief from his infancy; one who never breathed but in sighs, nor spoke but in a groan." "Nor can we too much admire," says Dr. Blayney, "the full and graceful flow of that pathetic eloquence in which the author pours forth the effusions of a patriotic heart, and piously weeps over the ruins of his venerable country. But it was observed before that the prophet's peculiar talent lay in working up and expressing the passions of grief and pity ; and, unhappily for him as a man and a citizen, he met with a subject but too well calculated to give his genius its full display."

David in several places has forcibly depicted the sorrows of a heart oppressed with penitential sorrow; but where, in a composition of such length, have bodily misery and mental agony been more successfully painted? All the expressions and images of sorrow are here exhibited in various combinations, and in various points of view. Misery has no expression that the author of the Lamentations has not employed. Patriots! you who tell us you burn for your country's welfare, look at the prophecies and history of this extraordinary man; look at his Lamentations; take him through his life to his death, and learn from him what true patriotism means! The man who watched, prayed, and lived for the welfare of his country; who chose to share her adversities, her sorrows, her wants, her afflictions, and disgrace, where he might have been a companion of princes, and have sat at the table of kings; who only ceased to live for his country when he ceased to breathe;— that was a patriot, in comparison with whom almost all others are obscured, minished, and brought low, or are totally annihilated!

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 Lacedæmon, of the family of the Proclidae.-Twentieth year of Leon. king of Lacedæmon, of the family of the Eurysthenida. Thirty-second year of Alyattes II., king of Lydia. This was the father of the celebrated Croesus.-Fifteenth year of Eropas, 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.

the Bible into English, may be found at the end of Jeremiah, taken from an ancient MS. in my own possession.

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 εγένετο μετα το αιχμαλωτισθήναι τον Ισραηλ, και Ιερουσαλημ ερημω θηναι, εκάθισεν Ιερεμίας κλαίων, και εθρήνησεν τον θρήνον τούτον 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 lamen-makinge his mone in Jerusalem; so that with an tation 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 flens, et planxit lamentatione hac in Jerusalem, et amaro animo suspirans et ejulans, dixit." The translation of this, as given in the first translation of

I subjoin another taken from the first PRINTED edition of the English Bible, that by Coverdale, 153. “And it came to passe, (after Israel was brought into captyvitie, and Jerusalem destroyed ;) that Jeremy the prophet sat weeping, mournynge, and

hevy herte he sighed and sobbed, sayenge."

this:

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

5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

6 And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become

4 The ways of Zion do mourn, because none like harts that find no pasture, and they are

b Jer. iv. 30. xxx. 14. Ver. 19. < Ver. 9, 16, 17, 21.- d Jer. lii. 27. g Dent. xxviii, 43, 44.- Jer. xxx. 14, 15. Dan. ix. 7, 16. Heb. for the greatness of servitude. f Deut. xxviii. 64, 65. Ch. ii. 9. Jer. lii. 28.

Verse 3. Between the straits.] She has been brought into such difficulties, that it was impossible for her to escape. Has this any reference to the circumstances All these show that it was the ancient opinion that in which Zedekiah and the princes of Judah endeathe Book of Lamentations was composed, not over voured to escape from Jerusalem, by the way of the the death of Josiah, but on account of the deso-gates between the two walls? Jer. lii. 7. lations of Israel and Jerusalem.

The desolations and

A. M. cir. 3416.
B. C. cir. 588.,
Ol. XLVIII. 1.
Tarquinii Prisci,
R. Roman.,
cir. annum 29.

the pursuer.

LAMENTATIONS.

miseries of Jerusalem.

A. M. cir. 3416.

B.

cir. 588. OL. XLVIII. 1. Tarquinii Prisci, R. Roman., cir. annum 29.

gone without strength before they have given their pleasant
things for meat " to relieve the
soul: see, O LORD, and con-
sider; for I am become vile.
12 " 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.

7 Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; there- 13 From above hath he sent fire into my fore she is removed: all that honoured her bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath despise her, because they have seen her naked- 4 spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me ness : yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. | back : he hath made me desolate and faint all 9 Her filthiness is in her skirts; she re- the day. membereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: 'she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

10 The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

11 All her people sigh, ' they seek bread

a Or, desirable. Ver. 10.-b1 Kings viii. 46.-c Heb. is become a removing, or wandering- d Jer. xiii. 22, 26. Ezek. xvi. 37. xxiii. 29. Hos. ii. 10.- -e Deut. xxxii. 29. Isai. xlvii. 7. Ver. 2, 17, 21.- Ver. 7.- bOr, desirable. Jer. li. 51.- kDeut. xxiii. 3. Neh. xiii. 1.

r

14 : The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the LORD hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

15 The LORD hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the LORD hath trodden *the vir; gin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press.

1 Jer. xxxviii. 9. lii. 6. Ch. ii. 12. iv. 4. m Or, to make
-n Or, It is nothing.
the soul to come again.-
Heb. pass
by the way. - Dan. ix. 12.- -9 Ezek. xii. 13. xvii. 20.
Deut. xxviii. 48. Isai. Ixiii. 3. Rev. xiv. 19, 20. xix.
15.- — Or, the winepress of the virgin, &c.

ferme partem ætatis suæ perdent vacando, et multa in tempore urgentia non agendo lædantur. "That they lost the seventh part of their life in keeping their sabbaths; and injured themselves by abstaining from the performance of many necessary things in such times." He did not consider that the Roman calendar and customs gave them many more idle days

Verse 5. Her adversaries are the chief] They have than God had prescribed in sabbaths to the Jews. now supreme dominion over the whole land.

Verse 7. Did mock at her sabbaths.] nawn mishbatteha. Some contend that sabbaths are not intended here. The Septuagint has Karoukkala aurns, “ her habitation ; the Chaldee, 720 sy al tubaha, "her good things;" the Syriac, al toboroh, "her breach." The Vulgate and Arabic agree with the Hebrew. Some of my oldest MSS. have the word in the plural number, a mishbatteyha, "her sabbaths." A multitude of Kennicott's MSS. have the same reading. The Jews were despised by the heathen for keeping the sabbath. Juvenal mocks

them on that account :

cui septima quæque fuit lux Ignava et partem vitæ non attigit ullam.

Sat. v.

To whom every seventh day was a blank, and
formed not any part of their life."

St. Augustine represents Seneca as doing the same :—
Inutiliter id eos facere affirmans, quod septimani

The sabbath is a most wise and beneficent ordinance.

Verse 9. She remembereth not her last end] Although evident marks of her pollution appeared about her, and the land was defiled by her sinfulness even to its utmost borders, she had no thought or consideration of what must be the consequence of all this at the last.-Blayney.

Verse 11. They have given their pleasant things] Jerusalem is compared to a woman brought into great straits, who parts with her jewels and trinkets in order to purchase by them the necessaries of life.

The desolations and distress brought upon this city Verse 12. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?] and its inhabitants had scarcely any parallel. Excessive abuse of God's accumulated mercies calls for singular and exemplary punishment.

Verse 14. The yoke of my transgressions] I am now tied and bound by the chain of my sins; and it is so wreathed, so doubled and twisted round me, that I cannot free myself. A fine representation of

CHAP. I.

16 For these things I weep; ghost in the city,
amine eye, mine eye runneth
down with water, because the

comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

Verse 19. I called for my lovers] My allies; the tion is public enough; but no one comes to comfort Egyptians and others.