Lamentations: a commentary

I. Introduction

1. The poetry of Lamentations

2. Gender and suffering

Excursus 1: Bat-siyyon, the personified Zion

Excursus 2: Jerusalem's residents: A sociological profile

3. Mourning as a religious concept

4. The theology of destruction and exile

The paradigm of purity

The political paradigm

5. Lamentations in literary context

The biblical context: Qinah, communal lament, and Jerusalem lament

The Mesopotamian context

6. Authorship

7. Date and purpose

8. lamentations at Qumran.

II. Translation and commentary

Lamentations 1:1-22: Mourning and shame

Lamentations 2:1-22: Anger

Lamentations 3:1-66: Exile

Lamentations 4:1-22: Degradation

Lamentations 5:1-22: Prayer.