Editing Book of Lamentations (section)

==Themes==
Lamentations combines elements of the ''[[kinah]]'', a funeral dirge for the loss of the city, and the "communal lament" pleading for the restoration of its people.{{sfn|Berlin|2004|pp=23–24}} It reflects the view, traceable to [[Sumerian literature]] of a thousand years earlier, that the destruction of the holy city was a punishment by God for the communal sin of its people.{{sfn|Hillers|1993|p=420}} However, while Lamentations is generically similar to the Sumerian laments of the early 2nd millennium BCE (e.g., "[[Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur]]," "[[Lament for Sumer and Ur]]," and the "[[Nippur Lament]]"), the Sumerian laments were recited on the occasion of the rebuilding of a temple and, therefore, have optimistic endings. In contrast, the book of Lamentations was written before the return/rebuilding and thus contains only lamentations and pleas to God with no response or resolution.{{sfn|Berlin|2018|p=1163}}{{sfn|Berlin|2014}}

Beginning with the reality of disaster, Lamentations concludes with the bitter possibility that God may have finally rejected [[Jews|Israel]].<ref>{{Bibleverse|Lamentations|5:22|HE}}</ref> Sufferers in the face of grief are not urged to have confidence in the goodness of God; in fact, God is accountable for the disaster. The poet acknowledges that this suffering is a just punishment. Still, God is held to have had a choice over whether to act in this way and at this time. Hope arises from a recollection of God's past goodness, but although this justifies a cry to God to act in deliverance, there is no guarantee that he will. [[Repentance in Judaism|Repentance]] will not persuade God to be gracious since he can give or withhold grace as he chooses. In the end, the possibility is that God has finally rejected his people and may not again deliver them. Nevertheless, it also affirms confidence that the mercies of [[Yahweh]] (the God of Israel) never end but are new every morning.<ref>{{bibleverse|Lamentations|3:22–33|HE}}</ref>{{sfn|Clines|2003|pp=617–618}}