The Book of Lamentations by John Goldingay

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Book of Lamentations by John Goldingay Megan D. Alsene-Parker john goldingay, The Book of Lamentations (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022). Pp. xix + 288. $40. With his recent commentary, John Goldingay adds a valuable and timely voice to the conversation surrounding the Book of Lamentations. In this work, G. reads Lamentations in light of its literary and poetic features, textual witnesses, deeply "traumatic" backdrop (p. 2), intertextual links with the prophets, and likeness with certain psalms. In this way, G. portrays Lamentations as a text that teaches the believing community a kind of worship that asks hard questions of God and prompts God toward action when they feel as if God has abandoned them (p. 206). Lamentations, he writes, "is not just theory. … As the poem melds theology and spirituality, it makes key theological statements about God. But part of its point in doing so is to lean on Yahweh to be himself" (p. 139). Goldingay's exposition of Lamentations provides a balanced and well-researched textual analysis, steering away from what he terms "ideological criticism" (p. 30) and avoiding an oversimplification of Lamentations' complexities. One of G.'s key presuppositions about Lamentations is that "it holds together in an unstable unity a variety of theological themes and convictions" without resolving their perspectives or pain (p. 27). Goldingay's work itself contains two main sections, introduction and commentary. His thorough introduction covers matters such as the unity of composition, authorship and date, historical backgrounds, canonicity, theology, and main themes. The remainder of the work consists of verse-by-verse original translation and commentary. In each chapter's comments, G. focuses first on the broadest strokes, noting the overall similarities as well as differences between the poem at hand and Lamentations' other poems. Next, G. proceeds with a close translation of the Hebrew text, translating primarily from the MT but also incorporating and, at times, revising his translation based on other ancient witnesses (the LXX, Vulgate, 4QLam, etc.). G.'s original translations prove insightful, as he elucidates the literary and poetic features in the Hebrew text, including how careful attention to word order can influence the rhythm and emphasis of a given verse in striking ways (e.g., Lam 3:2 [p. 128]). G. also makes some novel translational decisions on particular words or phrases, for example, glossing (bat ṣîyôn) as "Ms. Zion" (pp. 59–60). Next comes the bulk of G.'s comments, through which he invites the reader to become more familiar with Lamentations; he does this by pointing out questions and tensions in the text, discussing its theological import, or painting a picture of a given verse's meaning in the time of the Judahites. At times, G. will embark on a theological excursus, discussing the nature of God's anger (p. 90) or Yhwh's nature (pp. 144–45). At others, he explores questions that help the reader understand the world of Lamentations, for example, the question, "What's so bad [End Page 335] about carrying a millstone?" that arises from Lam 5:13 (p. 200). Finally, G. provides a brief "Reader's Response" section, which reimagines and paraphrases the sentiment of each poem as an individual's reflection on Jerusalem during a worship gathering at Mizpah or Bethel. This imaginative space helpfully frames the thrust of each poem as it may have been received and processed by the generations following Jerusalem's fall, proving formative and fruitful for the reader in beginning to process both the emotional and spiritual import of each poem. When reading G.'s commentary, the great extent to which he has read, weighed, and integrated both old and new ideas from Lamentations scholarship quickly becomes apparent: he includes works from as early as 1546 to as recent as 2021, and everything in between. He distills this diverse breadth of voices into a succinct and nuanced reading of the text, making his commentary eminently accessible, despite, or perhaps, precisely amid his academic depth. There are only a few quibbles I have with this work. First, in G.'s extensive use of secondary sources, he does not always clarify his own position or attempt to draw opposing sources together. For...