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Correction and modification on June 21 blog

On June 21 I posted part 35 on the Zechariah series in which I mentioned the book of Lamentations in relation of the death of Josiah.

Yesterday I did a deeper study on this topic in order to start a commentary on Lamentations in the monthly FFI’s. Having learned more, I need to clarify and modify what I wrote earlier.

There are two main opinions about the event that caused Jeremiah to write his Lamentations. The first is based on 2 Chron. 35:23-25 when King Josiah of Judah was killed in battle.

²³ The archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” ²⁴ So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in the second chariot which he had and brought him to Jerusalem where he died… ²⁵ Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations.

Based on this Scripture, Josephus, the Jewish historian in the first century, wrote in Antiquities of the Jews, X, ch. 5, par 1,

“But all the people mourned greatly for him, lamenting and grieving on his account many days; and Jeremiah the prophet composed an elegy to lament him, which is extant till this time also. Moreover, this prophet denounced beforehand the sad calamities that were coming upon the city.”

Josephus then explains further:

“Whether Josephus, from 2 Chronicles 35:25, here means the book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, still extant, which chiefly belongs to the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, or to any other like melancholy poem now lost, but extant in the days of Josephus, belonging peculiarly to Josiah, cannot now be determined.”

In other words, Josephus did not know for sure if these lamentations for Josiah were the same or different from the canonical book of Lamentations.

The Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was translated about 380 B.C. and beyond, seems to clarify this question. At the beginning of the book, it adds an explanatory paragraph that reads:

“And it came to pass, after Israel was taken captive, and Jerusalem made desolate, that Jeremias sat weeping and lamented with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and said…”

The rabbis translating the Scriptures were apparently of the opinion that the book of Lamentations was not written after Josiah was killed in 609 B.C. but after Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. Undoubtedly, Josephus was very familiar with the Septuagint, so he would have read the opening paragraph inserted by the rabbis.

The death of godly King Josiah marked a turning point in the history of Jerusalem, paving the way for the ultimate destruction of the city under less godly kings. Divine judgment, once pronounced, cannot be stopped, yet it is delayed as long as a godly king rules. Invariably, judgment is timed to occur in the reign of an ungodly king.

After King Josiah was killed in 609 B.C., Jerusalem was captured in 604 B.C. Years later, when Zedekiah came to the throne, he revolted against Babylonian rule, setting the stage for the city’s destruction in 586 B.C. The king had imprisoned Jeremiah for advising him to submit to King Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 37:18); ironically, the Babylonians set him free (Jer. 40:4).