• Lamentations, Ekha in Hebrew, is a book or wailing and weeping.
• Lamentations was written in the time between the fall of Judah and the return of the remnant people after 70 years of captivity,

There are 5 poems in this book, each begins at a new chapter (posted at the bottom).  Judah is personified as a woman in this book,  but it is important to remember WHY all this is happening to her.  An avoidable tragedy,  all caused by sin and lack of repenting.  Always read the Bible from God’s character, His Covenant, and His Love.  God is Holy, God is Just, God Perfect, and God punishes sin and disobedience in His timing.

In the Bible, Lamentations follows Jeremiah, who is most likely the author,  and which gave Jeremiah the name the “weeping prophet”.  You could read the last chapter of Jeremiah as the introduction to Lamentations.  However, the Hebrew Old Testament puts Lamentations with a group of books called the Ketubin or “writings”.  The group includes:

• Song of Songs,
• Ruth,
• Ecclesiastes,
• Esther,
• Lamentations.

They are in their own category  (our Bible is grouped by category too, that is why we are jumping around a lot) because these books are read at separate Feasts.  To this day, this book is read in Synagogues throughout the world on the ninth day of the fourth month, a day of fasting, to remember the fall of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah’s grief ran deep in his heart for God’s people.  Jeremiah wept for the Jews not just because of the suffering and the exile they would endure, but because they had rejected the word of the Lord.  This saddened Jeremiah to a level of tears and sympathy.

I read once somewhere this question…and it really should make us all think…

What makes a person cry says a lot about that person whether they are self-centered or God-centered.