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They ravish the women in Zion,

       The virgins in the cities of Judah.

       Princes are hanged up by the hand,

       The person of the elders is not honored.

       The young men bear up the mill,

       And the children stumble under the wood.

      [Sidenote: Lam. 5:14–18]

       The elders have ceased from the gate,

       The young men from their music.

       The joy of our heart has ceased,

       Our dance is turned into mourning.

       The crown has fallen from our head;

       Woe to us! for we have sinned.

      For this reason our heart is faint,

       For these causes our eyes are dim;

       For the mountain of Zion is desolate;

       The jackals walk over it.

      [Sidenote: Jer. 43:8–12] The word of Jehovah also came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thy hand, and bury them in the loose foundation in the brick-covered place before Pharaoh's palace door in Tahpanhes in the sight of the men of Judah; and say to them, 'Thus saith, Jehovah hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that you have buried, and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come and shall smite the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, and such as are for captivity shall be given to captivity, and such as are for the sword shall be given to the sword. And he will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt, and will burn them and carry them away. And he shall wrap himself in the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his mantle, and shall go forth from there in peace. He shall also break the obelisks of Heliopolis and the temples of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire."'

      [Sidenote: Jer. 44:1–10] The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who dwelt in the land of Egypt, who dwelt at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and in upper Egypt, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah; and behold, they are this day a desolation, and no man dwelleth in them, because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger in that they went to offer sacrifices to other gods, that they knew not, neither they nor ye, nor your fathers. However, I constantly sent to them all my servants the prophets, saying, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate." But they neither hearkened nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to offer no sacrifice to other gods. And so my wrath and mine anger was poured forth and was kindled against the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and they were wasted and desolate, as is now the case.' Therefore now thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Why do you commit a great Crime against yourselves to cut off from you man and woman, infant and sucking child, out of the midst of Judah so that ye leave none remaining, in that ye provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, offering sacrifice to other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye have gone to sojourn, that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be an object of cursing and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? Have ye forgotten the crimes of your fathers, and the crimes of the kings of Judah, and the crimes of their princes, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared nor walked in my law nor in my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.'

      [Sidenote: Jer. 44:11–13, 22] 'Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I set my face against you for evil to cut off the remnant of Judah in the land of Egypt, and they shall fall by the sword and by famine; they shall die, small and great, and they shall be an object of execration, of astonishment, of cursing, and of reproach. For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to reside there, shall escape or be left to return to the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return; for none shall return except as fugitives. And they who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall be confirmed, mine or theirs."'

      I. The Significance of the Destruction of the Hebrew State. The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. resulted in a mighty Transformation of the life and thought of Israel. It marked the final Overthrow of the old Hebrew kingdoms, and the gradual rise of that new and important factor in human history known as Judaism. For over three centuries the Jews who survived the great catastrophe were helpless under the rule of the great world powers which in succession conquered southwestern Asia. For the great majority of the Jewish race it represented the beginning of that long exile which has continued until the present. Scattered from the desert of Sahara to the distant land of China, and from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean, the different groups of exiles quickly began to adapt themselves to their changed surroundings and to absorb the new knowledge and the powerful influences which gradually transformed their beliefs and ideals. While their vision was vastly broadened by this contact, the danger and horror of being completely engulfed in the great heathen world bound the faithful more closely together, and in time made Judaism the solid, unbreakable rock that has withstood the assaults and the disintegrating forces of the ages. At first the survivors of the great catastrophe were stunned by the blow that had shattered their nation. They lived only in their memories of the past and in their hopes for the future. At last, in the long period of misery and enforced meditation, they began not only to accept but also to apply the eternal principles proclaimed by their earlier prophets. Thus amidst these entirely new conditions they gained a broader and deeper faith and were still further trained for the divine task of teaching mankind.

      II. The Book of Lamentations. After describing the destruction of the little kingdom established at Mizpah under Gedaliah, the Hebrew historical records suddenly become silent. This silence is due to the fact that there was little of external interest to record. The real history of this tragic half-century is the record of the anguish and doubts and hopes in the hearts of the scattered remnants of the race. The little book of Lamentations expresses dramatically and pathetically the thoughts of the people as they meditated upon the series of calamities which gathered about the great catastrophe of 586 B.C. Like the ancient Torah, or five books of the Law, it contains a quintet of poems. These are very similar in theme and form to many of the psalms of the Psalter. In the first four the characteristic five-beat measure, by which the deep emotions, especially that of sorrow, were expressed, is consistently employed. Each of these four is also an acrostic, that is, each succeeding line or group of lines begins with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This acrostic form was probably adopted in order to aid the memory, and suggests that from the first these poems were written to be used in public. Even so the Jews of Jerusalem to-day chant them on each of their sabbaths beside the foundation walls of the great platform on which once stood their ruined temple. Although the artificial character of these poems tends to check the free expression of thought and feeling, it is possible to trace in them a logical progress and to feel the influence of the strong emotions that inspired them.

      III. Authorship and Date of the Book. In theme and literary form these poems are so strikingly similar to Jeremiah's later sermons that it was almost inevitable that tradition should attribute them to the great prophet of Judah's decline. This tradition, to which is due the position of the book of Lamentations in the Greek and English Bibles, cannot be traced earlier than the Greek period. The evidence within the poems themselves strongly indicates that they were not written by Jeremiah. It is almost inconceivable that he would subject his poetic genius to the rigid limitations of the acrostic structure. Moreover, he would never have spoken of the weak Zedekiah, whose vacillating policy he condemned, in the terms of high esteem which appear in Lamentations 4:20. These poems also reflect the popular interpretation of the great national calamity, rather than Jeremiah's searching analysis of fundamental causes. A careful study of Lamentations shows that chapters 2 and 4 were probably written by one who was powerfully influenced by Ezekiel's thought. They both follow in their acrostic structure an unusual order

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