Old Jew by Hermann Struck, 1911, oil on canvas, 205.5 x 128 cm. Ramat Gan, Bar-Ilan University. Photograph: Liat Elbling. See postscript for more details.
The “Man” in Lamentations
Unlike the other four chapters where the author speaks for the community, the third chapter of Lamentations is written as an individual lament. The chapter begins with “I am the man who has known affliction,” but who is he?
Published July 24, 2017
N.K. Gottwald, Studies in the Book of Lamentations(London 1962), pp. 39-41; B. Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of Lamentations (Lund 1963), pp. 126-128; R.K. Harrison, Jeremiah and Lamentations (London 1973), pp. 223-232; R.B. Salters, Jonah and Lamentations (Sheffield 1994), p. 105.
Similar interpretations were offered by Ibn Ezra, Isaiah di Trani and Joseph Kara ad loc.
See esp. Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations (New York 1974), pp. 170-174.
Compare vv. 3 and 6 to Jeremiah 38:6; vv. 3 and 14 to Jeremiah 20:7-12; vv. 48-51 to Jeremiah 7 15 and more.
Similarly Ibn Ezra:
אמרו קדמוני’ ז”ל כי זאת המגלה ירמיה כתבה אם כן יהיה הוא האומר אני הגבר…:
Our Ancients said, that this scroll (Lamentations) was written by Jeremiah; if so, it was he who said “I am the man….”
Also ibn Caspi says this, as noted in the previous section.
He was deported by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar to Babylonia, imprisoned and later released from prison (see 2 Kings 24:8-16; Jeremiah 22:28-30; 2 Kings 25:27-30).
J. Renkema, Lamentations (Leuven 1998), pp. 349-351.
D.R. Hillers, Lamentations (Garden City, NY, 1992), pp. 122-123; A. Berlin, Lamentations, (Louisville 2002), pp. 84-86.
B.R. Foster, Before the Muses (Bethesda 2005), p. 148
See J. Klein in: The Context of Scripture 1 (ed. by W.W. Hallo; Leiden 1997), pp. 573-574: 46-47, 120.
See especially Berlin in her commentary, p. 85.
