My next two posts on Lamentations will focus on identifying the form of Lamentations 2 (though it applies generally to Lamentations as a whole as well). Keep in mind that this is a very broad overview of the issues as part of a larger paper, so there is obviously a lot here that could be treated much more in depth. Once again, enjoy, and comments are always welcome!

The genre of Lamentations seems almost laughably obvious, as it is reflected in the English title. Lamentations is part of the broad category of lament literature, a genre which at its core is “a cry uttered when life falls apart.”¹ The book is composed of five separate “laments.” Chapter two is one of these laments, and verses 18-22 are one part of the lament of chapter two. Identifying the type of lament in chapter two, and the laments of Lamentations as a whole, is more complex.

The most well known biblical laments are, of course, the psalmic laments, which are in and of themselves broken down into two types: the individual and the community lament. Other forms of lament are the dirge (funeral lament) and the city lament. The problem with Lamentations, especially chapters one, two, and four, is that it does not fit neatly into any of the lament forms named above. That is to say, it is not just that the lament is missing parts of a typical community lament, for instance, but rather that it appears to be a mixture of several types of laments. Chapter two is one of these “hybrid” forms.

The first type of lament that has similarities to the chapter in question is the community lament. The community lament generally consists of the following parts:²

1. Address to God
2. Complaint (against God, themselves, and/or the enemy)
3. Review of God’s past acts
4. Petition
5. Divine response³
6. Vow to praise

In the community lament, the community cries out to God because of a disaster by which the whole people are affected. The community lament seeks to prompt God to action to help and deliver his people. In many ways, chapter two has similarities with the community lament. A “disaster par excellence” was at hand, and the community cries out to God in the hopes that he will act, or in the case of chapter two, have mercy after all.⁴ However, unlike the community (or individual) lament, the chapter consists entirely of the complaint and petition portions of the lament. There is no summary of God’s past gracious acts and no hint of a response from God. Chapter two, especially, is entirely consumed by reviewing not the gracious acts of God but the recent destructive acts of God (vs. 1-18; complaint against God) and a demand for God to act (vs. 19-22; petition). Certainly, there is no vow of praise (or an expression of confidence, as in the related individual lament). One might then ask, can chapter two really be called a community lament in form, when it is missing so many of the crucial pieces of the lament?

Another possibility that may have had influence on Lamentations chapter two is the funeral dirge, or qinah form. Examples of actual dirges in the Bible are limited, but the prophets make use of the dirge form metaphorically in many instances.⁵ Elements of a dirge may include any of the following:⁶

1. Announcement that a death has occurred
2. Summons to mourn
3. Thematic statement of finality
4. Contrast motif
5. Reference to the impact of the demise upon immediate bystanders
6. Description of a general state of distress

The opening איכה of Lamentations 2 might be said to have similarities to a dirge. Additionally, there is a clear “summons to mourn” and certainly a description of suffering. Nevertheless, a true qinah was used for mourning over the death of an individual; any similarities to the dirge in Lamentations 2 are purely metaphorical in nature. Adele Berlin notes the similarities of the poems in Lamentations to both a community lament and a dirge, and suggests a new form for the laments that is part community lament, part dirge, with a little bit of uniqueness thrown in: the Jerusalem lament.⁷

The final type of lament that has been compared extensively to the laments of Lamentations is the Mesopotamian city lament. These laments, which “describe the destruction of particular cities and their important shrines,” date to the 2nd millennium BCE.⁸ The features of a city lament are as follows:⁹

1. A somber and mournful mood
2. Specific literary techniques: interchange of speakers, contrast and reversal, focus on a deity, kirugu form, lists
3. Divine abandonment
4. Assignment of responsibility to divine council
5. Divine agent of destruction
6. Destruction of the city, sanctuary, people, and their customs
7. A weeping goddess
8. Lamentation
9. Restoration of the city and return of the gods

F. W. Dobbs-Allsop has compared and contrasted each of these elements with the poems in Lamentations and comes to the conclusion that they have many features in common. However, he notes that ultimately the author of Lamentations does not copy exactly the city lament, but molds it to Israelite customs and beliefs.¹⁰ Most scholars now admit at least some similarities between Lamentations and the Mesopotamian city lament genre, though not all agree that the city lament is the most important influence on Lamentations.¹¹