Lamentations as Social Commentary with Religion in a Supporting Role

Lamentations is more of a political and social writing, with the religious elements simply supporting the social aims. I am not saying that the religious elements are not as important. In fact, they are the means by which the social agenda is put forth.

After such a devastating attack such as the sack of Jerusalem, which left people with no means at all with which to fight back, the first step in the rebuilding of the society is to hold together group identity. As we talked about with early Holocene peoples, organized religion is one thing that holds a large group of people together. Lamentations connects to the people by empathizing with what they are feeling, and holds them together as a cohesive group by referencing both the Lord and Jerusalem. The writing takes the anger, sorrow, and hopelessness people must feel and, through allegory, says that this happened to everyone together, not just individuals (using the “you are not alone” technique).

When such a wholly devastating event occurs, it is hard for people to take in the truth—that an enemy has simply become more powerful. Thus, religion is used as a tool for explanation. Not only is religion something that is common among the people of Jerusalem—and functions in bringing the group closer together—but it can function as a means of social change. With no way to fight back, the group simply needs to survive. This means they must prepare for a hard life with patience and humility, until they save up enough strength and unity to free themselves from their conquerors. Through religion, Lamentations achieves these means. Humility is invoked by blaming the sack of the city on God’s anger, which is caused by the sinfulness of the people themselves. God being like a father figure, it is a natural reaction to be at first ashamed when a father is angry, and continue on with humility. Patience is invoked by saying that God “will not reject forever.” Eventually, the conquering people will become weak, as Jerusalem had, and, as long as the people stick together, those now oppressed will be able to break free. Although this is explained as happening when God wills it, the fact that the writing talks about political rising and falling as time goes on shows the understanding of society’s workings—one cannot be continuously on top. However, this viewpoint is usually not very popular, so religion is used to achieve the same social aims.

One issue I am uncertain about is how this writing would have affected the mass of people. Would people have heard prophets, or learned men reading from the writing? Would that have been too dangerous among their conquerors? Or would only the literate be informed about the writing, and then passed on their knowledge in different versions to the mass of people? Or is what is emoted in this work simply written down as the general belief of the people? In any case, I believe it has much more to do with the keeping of social order and cohesiveness, and religion simply supports these aims.