SOURCE: “The Theology of Doom” and “The Theology of Hope,” in Studies in the “Book of Lamentations,”SCM Press Ltd, 1962, pp. 63-111.

In the following excerpt, Gottwald argues that Lamentations stresses the unique nature of the fall of Jerusalem and Israel's sins in order to convince its audience that the destruction must have been the will of God and that, in the face of discouraging external conditions, hope of renewal can nevertheless be found.

The fall of Jerusalem was a clarion call to the entire re-thinking of Hebrew religion. In the truest sense this historic crisis was unparalleled in all Israel's history. At no time in the four hundred years of the monarchy, with the exception of the campaign of Shishak (c. 935), had the sacred city of Jerusalem been captured, much less destroyed, nor had the theocracy been interrupted. Now the sombre announcements of the prophets had come...