Lamentations is a little-read poetic book of Scripture. The book reflects on the traumatic event of the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. Even fewer people read it in Hebrew. But, if you do, you notice something remarkable: the “acrostic” structure of chapters 1–2 and 4. The first verse starts with the (Hebrew) letter A, and each new verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (In the central chapter 3, this pattern is tripled: three verses begin with A, the next three with B, and so on. The Hebrew equivalent of an “A through Z” of grief.) The grieving
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