Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 81:321 (Jan 1924)
Article: The Authorship Of Lamentations
Author: William Walter Cannon

BSac 81:321 (Jan 1924) p. 42

The Authorship Of Lamentations

William Walter Cannon

IN contrast with many books of the 0. T., Lamentations has an external tradition as to its authorship. The L.X.X. has the following preface:

Καὶ ἐγένετο μεπὰ τὸ αἰχμαλωτισθῆναι τὸν ᾿Ισραὴλ καὶ ῾Ιερουσαλὴμ ἐρημωθῇναι ἐκάθισεν ῾Ιερεμίας κλαίων καὶ ἐθρήνησεν τὸν θρῆνον του`τον ἐπὶ ῾Ιερουσαλὴμ καὶ εἶπεν.

The Vulgate has the same with some additions: 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 Targum begins thus:

אמר ירמיהו נביא וכהנא רבא

The old Latin also has the above preface in the same words as the Vulgate, and the Syriac heads the text with the name of “Jeremiah the prophet.” On the other hand, the Masoretic text has not this preface and it was not found in the versions collected by Origen.1

It is very difficult to say how much value is to be assigned to this preface. In its Greek form it is obviously translated Hebrew,2 and so, too, in the Vulgate, where the added words suggest a different, if an allied, source. We have no information as to its date, or the authority on which it rests. This much it does seem to prove, that there was a family of Hebrew Mss. once extant in which it appeared, and which, like all the Mss. which are behind the LXX, disappeared before the predominant authority of the received text, and that this took place before the date of Aquila’s version. If this be the case, the tradition has a certain amount of value and must be taken into account with the rest of the evidence. Another

BSac 81:321 (Jan 1924) p. 43

tradition, and, it would seem, a later one, is found in these words of the Targum:

שמעו כל עמיא אםפדא דאםפד ירמיהו על יאשיהו

and these of Jerome:3 (Josias) super quo Lamentationes scripsit Jeremias quæ legunter in Ecclesia et scripsisse eum Paralip: testatur liber. This tradition is based on a misunderstanding of 2 Chr. 35:25, which states (1) that Jeremiah wrote an elegiac poem or Kinah about Josiah; (2) that the professional singers of the C...