Lamentations

Lamentations was written during the time of exile in Babylon.  It is the heartfelt lamentation of the writer after being torn from their land, separated from all they knew, from Jerusalem and the temple due to their rebellion and subsequent judgment.  Traditions says it was written by Jeremiah when he made his way from Egypt to Babylon.  He wrote these five poems to show that to disobey God was to invite disaster.  But also, to show that God also suffers when his people suffer.   It was written in about 586_B.C. right after the fall of Jerusalem.  The book is a dirge or funeral song written for the death of Jerusalem.