SOURCE: “Lamentations,” in Introduction to the Old Testament, Abingdon Press, 1968, pp. 295-99.

In the following excerpt from an essay originally written in German in 1965, Fohrer concisely describes the literary type and style of Lamentations and discusses what can be deduced of its origin and authorship.

… 1. Terminology. Hebrew manuscripts and printed editions call the book of Lamentations by the first word of chapters 1, 2, and 4, 'êkâ, “Alas, how. … ” This title, which usually introduces a dirge, is appropriate to the content of the songs. The earlier name, according to Talmud Bab. Baba bathra 15a, was qîlnôt, “dirges,” corresponding to the name given in the translations: Greek threnoi, Latin lamentationes, German Klagelieder. In most of the translations the title also ascribes the book to Jeremiah, after whose book it is placed. This view is probably based on II Chron. 35:25, although the laments for Josiah mentioned in this passage, one...