SOURCE: “The Date of Lamentations V,” in The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. LVII, No. 1, July, 1966, pp. 46-56.

In the following essay, Lachs contends that the fifth chapter of Lamentations was written around 168-65 b.c.e., justifying the conclusion with his interpretations of its verses.

Ancient tradition ascribes the authorship of the book ofLamentations to the prophet Jeremiah and interprets its content as referring to the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 b.c.e.¹ Down to modern times few have questioned this assumed authorship or the event described. One notable exception in this regard was R. Abraham Ibn Ezra who, in his introduction to Lamentations, made the following observation: “… and this is not the scroll burned by Jehoiakim for we do not find [in Lamentations] two statements of God which are contained in the book of Jeremiah. One verse reads (Jer. 36.2) ‘Take thee...