This work provides a definitive translation into English of the Targum of Lamentations, based on a critical reading of all the extant versions, with textual annotations and extensive notes. An appendix offers, in addition, a translation and annotation of the Yemenite version.

It is out of the unspeakable pain of the destruction of Jerusalem that Lamentations speaks, through poetry of astonishing beauty and intricacy. In this BST volume, Christopher Wright argues that the book of Lamentations offers deep challenge and deep rewards that come with wrestling with the massive theological issues that permeate it.

In this accessible volume, Adele Berlin explicates the five poems of Lamentations and builds a convincing case for Lamentations' immense power to address violence and grief. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

In this volume Robin Parry not only builds on traditional scholarship to interpret the book of Lamentations within its ancient context but also ventures further, exploring how the book can function as Christian Scripture. Parry provides the first systematic attempt to read Lamentations in light of the cross and resurrection. --from publisher description

The book of Lamentations cannot be truly appreciated without knowing suffering and the agony that follows tragic experiences. In this commentary Dr. Federico Villanueva relates the experience of his fellow country men and women in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda to the experience of the Jewish people after the destruction of Judah and the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. By drawing these parallels the author hopes that together we will read Lamentations in collective solidarity with a suffering people.

The book of Lamentations is often perceived as a difficult book to read and study. The emphasis of this commentary is on providing information to help the reader determine what the real meaning of the text might be, rather than on providing easy answers.

Dr. Bailey’s commentary on Lamentations portrays the God of Righteousness who corrects and disciplines His wayward children, and in His great faithfulness brings the repentant back to His fold. Lamentations shares with us a message that hope can spring even from defeat to present us faultless before the throne of God with exceeding joy.

Covering a landscape of literary, theological and cultural creativity, the authors explore the variety of interpretations inspired by Lamentations. The book explores a examples ranging from the Dead Sea Scrolls; Yehudah Halevy; John Calvin; and composer, Thomas Tallis; through to the interpretations of Marc Chagall; contemporary novelist, Cynthia Ozick; and Zimbabwean junk sculpture. It deploys "reception exegesis", a new genre of commentary that creatively blends reception history and biblical exegesis. --From publisher's description.