Lamentations 1 is the first chapter of the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, part of the Ketuvim. This book contains the elegies of prophetJeremiah, as he laments the former excellence and present misery of Jerusalem, complaining of her grief ; he confesses the righteousness of God's judgments and prays to God.
Some early witnesses for the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, i.e., 4Q111 with extant verses 1–15, 17, 16, 18 and 3Q3 with extant verses 10‑12. There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. The Septuagint translation added an introductory line before the first stanza: Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Marchalianus.
Verse 1
"How" : the Hebrew word is the title more frequently given by the Jews to these Elegies. In the Septuagint the initial word is πως, pós. This is the characteristic introductory word of an elegy, and adopted as the title of the Book of Lamentations. It is repeated at the opening of and.
"Sit solitary": The city of Jerusalem here is "poetically personified and distinguished from the persons who accidentally compose her population". The word "solitary" does not mean "into solitude", but "deserted by her inhabitants".
"Great among the nations": one that "ruled over many nations" and, in the times of David and Solomon, received tribute from the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, and Syrians, but later was forced to pay tribute herself, e.g. to PharaohNecho, king of Egypt, then, in the times of Jehoiakim until Zedekiah, to the king of Babylon.
Mockery at her "sabbaths" reflects the wording in the Vulgate: deriserunt sabbata ejus. "Mocking over her downfall" is the standard translation in modern English versions. There is an alternativereading in 4QLam, which reads:
Verse 9
This verses introduces a transition to the first person, similarly in verse 11b. "Such movement from one grammatical person to another, found throughout the book, is not at all unusual in Hebrew poetry".
