These dirges originated as a funeral spell to keep the dead in place and thus protect the living.
These dirges were composed by women professionals.
Lamentations has to do with sorrow over the fall and destruction of Jerusalem.
The first four poems are arranged as an alphabetic acrostic of twenty-two lines-one for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
The book is a good illustration of perfect metrical structure.
These poems are really elegies.
It is the intent of this book to memorialize the tragic destruction of Jerusalem-to teach the lesson of the penalty for sin and, afford hope for the future.