Taking Root in the Rubble: Trauma and Moral Subjectivity in the Book of Lamentations

Abstract

Written in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 bce, the book of Lamentations considers moral subjectivity primarily in terms of the Deuteronomic covenant, which attributes the fall of Jerusalem to the sins of the people. While largely affirming this traditional view, this article argues that Lamentations at several points appears to question its adequacy in accounting for the lived experiences of the community. Instead of blaming the community as a whole for wrongdoing, several verses differentiate the righteous actions of the community as a whole from the sinful actions of the priests and prophets (2.14; 4.13), as well as the ancestors (5.7). Further, Lamentations begins to question God's own exercise of moral subjectivity, suggesting that God has acted under the influence of outside forces (3.32–33) and without proper openness to the intervention from the people in the form of prayer (3.43–44). While these isolated challenges to the Deuteronomic model of moral subjectivity ultimately collapse back into the traditional view, they indicate cracks in the veneer of the Deuteronomic model of moral subjectivity where new ways of symbolizing moral subjectivity may take root in the texts of the Second Temple period.