Lamentations

The Book of Lamentations

The book of lamentations consists of four poems, which commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, when it was conquered by the Babylonians. Over time, this book became a cry of suffering for the people of Jerusalem, as well as a type of anthem for modern-day Jewish people.

Laments for Ur

A piece of the clay tablet that the Laments to Ur are found on.

These laments describe the devastation and rebuilding of the city of Ur, home to the Ubaid peoples, after the Elamites and Amorites conquered and destroyed the city between 2026-2004 BCE These laments may have been sung during the reconstruction of the temple for Nanna, the divine patron of Ur. The tablets that these laments were found on are persevered today at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (Benjamin & Matthews 247-248).

Reconstructed ruins of the town of Ur.

Analysis

There are many similarities that can be easily seen between the Book of Lamentations and the Laments for Ur. There are a few phrases between the two that are very similar in structure and/or meaning. For example, both Lamentations and the Book of Ur discuss how there is no comfort for either nation; Ur nor Jerusalem are receiving comfort. In Laments for Ur, within the Fourth Lament, the people call upon the gods Anu and Enlil for help and comfort, but they receive no help. In Lamentations 1:2, the people call for comfort and help for the city of Jerusalem, but they, too, receive none.

The hopeless feelings of the people within the two cities are also paralleled in Lamentations 5:15 and the Sixth Lament in Laments to Ur. The people of Jerusalem write, “The joy of our hearts has ceased;our dancing has been turned to mourning,” and similarly in the Sixth Lament the Ubaid people write, “In the squares where people danced, Heaps of corpses lie” (Benjamin & Matthews 247-248). These people, experiencing similar hardships, must have been feeling the same devastation towards the loss of their beloved cities.

After much discussion and analysis, we believe that these two laments are truly two distinct, works, regardless of their similarities. Although we have discussed clear examples above, we can once again attribute these similarities to similar social structures, beliefs, and cultural aspects. It could be possible that the “lament-type” form of writing was very common in this time throughout various nations and societies. Also, the cities were going through similar situations from the conquering people and this may be why texts parallel each other. Ultimately, we do not think that the author of Lamentations copied directly from this ANE text.