order. Besides this, the Alexandrine exhibits a
number of variations larger and smaller from the Hebrew text.
The explanation of these differences in arrangement and in the
text is a matter of uncertain conjecture.

13. _The book of Lamentations_ is designated in Hebrew by the opening
word _Echa_, _how_. The unanimous voice of antiquity ascribes it to
Jeremiah, and with this tradition agree its internal character and
style. It was written in view of the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem
by the Chaldeans, by an eye-witness of all the unutterable miseries
connected with that catastrophe. While it laments, in strains of the
deepest anguish, the desolation of Jerusalem with the slaughter and
captivity of its inhabitants, and heaps together images of horror, it
ascribes righteousness to God, and acknowledges the manifold sins of the
rulers and people as the cause of the overwhelming calamities that had
come upon them. We see throughout the feelings of a tender-hearted and
compassionate man, of a sincere patriot, and of a devout worshipper of
Jehovah beautifully blended together. Sad as is the picture, it is to us
who contemplate it in the light of history, not without its lessons of
comfort as well as of warning. It teaches us that in the midnight of
Zion's adversity her covenant God is with her, and that she has an
indestructible life. The prerogative which the Roman bard applied to his
country: "Plunge her in the deep, she comes out the stronger"--this high
prerogative belongs to the true spiritual Jerusalem, which no fire can
destroy, nor floods overwhelm.

The structure of this book is peculiar. Its five chapters constitute
five poetical compositions, each complete in itself so far as outward
form is concerned, but the whole inwardly bound together as parts of one
great theme. The first and second chapters consist each of twenty-two
verses, arranged in the order of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew
alphabet; that is, the first verse beginning with the first letter, the
second with the second, and so on. Each of the verses, moreover,
contains as a rule _three_ clauses. The third chapter contains sixty-six
short verses of _one_ clause each, the first three beginning with the
first letter of the alphabet, the next three with the second, and so
throughout. In this central chapter, therefore, the alphabetic structure
reaches its culmination. The fourth chapter is like the first and
second, with the exception