What follows is a section from my paper which summarizes the various possibilities regarding the purpose behind the use of an acrostic in Lamentations. At the moment, I am most convinced of the idea that the acrostic (at least here) somehow expresses completeness. However, I am open to other convincing arguments!

Lamentations 2:18-22 is part of a chapter, indeed a book, that makes use of the literary device of the acrostic. Each of the five chapters has 22 stanzas, the number of letters in the Hebrew alephbet. In chapter one, each stanza has three lines, with the exception of verse 7. The first line in each stanza begins with a consecutive letter of the alephbet. In chapter two, the chapter in which the passage under consideration here resides, each stanza also has three lines, and again the first line in each stanza begins with a consecutive letter of the alephbet. Chapter three also has three lines per stanza, however in this chapter each line of every stanza begins with its respective letter.¹ Chapter four has two lines per stanza, and again, the first line of each stanza begins with its respective letter. Chapter five is the only anomaly, as the letters of the alephbet are not actually utilized in an acrostic form. However, there are still exactly 22 single line stanzas in chapter five. This seems to be too close to the acrostic form to be a coincidence.

Many have speculated on why the author used the acrostic so extensively. The acrostic is a known literary device, and in fact shows up in several other places in the Bible, Psalms 119 being the most well known.² For a book filled with such raw emotion, it seems strange to impose such a rigid structure on the text. There are several theories as to the purpose of acrostics generally, and several more on why the poems in Lamentations, specifically, appear in acrostic form.

Acrostics are thought to serve one or more of several possible purposes. Later literature could have utilized the acrostic because of some belief in the magical power of the alephbet; however, this was a later development and highly unlikely to have been involved in the purpose of the acrostics in Lamentations, as the book is dated too early for this to be an influence.³ The second option and probably at least part of the reason for the use of the acrostic in Lamentations is that it was a pedagogical tool designed to aid in memorization (a mnemonic device).⁴ A third possibility is that using an acrostic allowed the author to show the full extent of his skill in vocabulary and arrangement of the poem.⁵

Why use acrostics in Lamentations? The suggestion has been made, the artificial feeling of the acrostic having been noted, that the acrostic form was a later addition to the poems and thus meaning should not be gleaned from its usage.⁶ However, the organization of the five poems with an intensified acrostic at the middle in chapter three, shorter stanzas in chapter four, and a quasi-acrostic in chapter five, seems to suggest a more meaningful purpose behind the arrangement.⁷ There is one other proposed purpose of the acrostic that is most prominent in Lamentations: the acrostic gives a feeling of completeness. In Lamentations, the completeness would not be the feeling of having exhausted the topic in each poem, but in having expressed the completeness of the grief and anguish of the poet, a “complete cleansing,” so to speak.⁸ In the historical books, an account is given of the events behind the grief of Lamentations. However, whereas the descriptions of the events that would lead to the writing of Lamentations were matter-of-fact, even cold, in the historical accounts, in Lamentations the stark, heart-wrenching reality of what this judgment from God meant for the people is eloquently elucidated. Their grief is all-encompassing, and they are utterly spent in their sorrow.