Non-Recurring Doublets in the Book of Lamentations

TL;DRAbstract

Of all the books of the Bible perhaps none displays such intentional artificial compositional structure as the Book of Lamentations. This is primarily due, of course, to the acrostic form employed by the author, since, as is well known, all five chapters in their outward form are based on the Hebrew alphabet. The first four chapters are alphabetic acrostics with chapter three being more elaborate, having three successive lines begin with the same letter. 1 Chapter five is not an acrostic but has exactly twenty two lines conforming to the Hebrew alphabet. While scholars have debated the precise meaning of an acrostic, for example, whether it was a memory aid or an indication of completeness like our A to Z (Gottwald, 1954, pp. 23-32), there can be little doubt that the acrostic had a literary function. It was a device employed for artistic purposes, just as poets in English utilize the literary device of 14 lines for a sonnet. Another of the compositional techniques which has been widel

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