Verse 1
THE STEADFAST LOVE OF THE LORD NEVER CEASES[1]
This chapter begins with the words, "I am the man"; and this writer confidently identifies the prophet Jeremiah as "the man," not merely the man in this chapter, but also the author of the whole book. We are aware, of course, that this is disputed.
Most of the current scholars follow the notion that "the man" is, "A typical sufferer who represented many in the nation,"[2] "An individual, but not an historical figure, but anyone who has suffered greatly, ... Everyman ... who may feel that God is against him,"[3] "One who is playing the role of Jeremiah in the poem,"[4] "O man, (he is) the very image of thyself,"[5] "An individual whose fate is bound up with that of the nation (i.e., as kind of personification of Israel),"[6] "A representative sufferer, and eyewitness, and a type of Christ."[7] etc. However, not all current scholars agree in this. Ross Price wrote (in 1962) that, "Here Jeremiah bares his heart to the reader as he often does in his prophecy."[8] Also Hillers, while not accepting it, admitted that, "The tradition that Jeremiah is the author of Lamentations provides a ready-made answer to the questions of the chapter."[9] Also, Theophile J. Meek noted that, "The author seems to have the experiences of Jeremiah in mind."[10] Thus, even those who are unwilling to accept Jeremiah as the author, nevertheless admit that it is indeed Jeremiah whose person and experiences dominate the chapter. In fact, no other theory is acceptable. Take the "Personification" idea, for example. How could God's wife (Israel) be personified by a male character in a chapter where the masculine pronouns dominate it? "The claim that in this chapter the personified nation is speaking is altogether improbable; and in some passages, absolutely impossible."[11]
In addition to this, many of the greatest scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enthusiastically accept Jeremiah as "the man." Jamieson wrote that, "In chapter 3, Jeremiah proposes his own experiences under sufferings as examples of how the Jews should behave under theirs."[12] "The penman is Jeremiah the prophet, who is here Jeremiah the poet."[13] "Not merely the ancient traditions of Josephus, the Targum, the Talmud and the LXX, but also the internal evidence, identify Jeremiah as the author."[14] In 1915, C. von Orelli gave this emphatic summary of why Jeremiah is most certainly the author of Lamentations:
"A serious difficulty arises if we claim that Jeremiah was not the author of Lamentations in his denunciations of the prophets in Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:14; 4:13). How could the great prophet of the Destruction be ignored if he were not the author of these sentiments? If Jeremiah was indeed the author, we can easily understand it. In his `Jeremiah' he had spoken in exactly the same way (the very same words) about those evil prophets. To this it must be added that this third chapter forces us to regard Jeremiah as the author, because of his personal sufferings that are here described."[15] We have over- emphasized this point here in order to demonstrate that consensus among many current scholars in regard to a given interpretation frequently means that only one of them is thinking, or perhaps that all of them are merely repeating the allegations of other critics. There is no excuse whatever for the near-unanimous denial of many writers that "someone else ... we don't know who" wrote Lamentations.
I
THE CRY OF THE AFFLICTED[16]
"I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
Of all the men who lived through that terrible period, no one had a better right to say this than Jeremiah. "In more ways than one this brings us to the very heart of the book. It even gives us a foreglimpse of the sufferings of Christ with which it has affinities (Isaiah 3; Psalms 22)."[17]
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