Vindicating Yahweh: A Close Reading of Lamentations 3.21-42

Abstract

Recent scholarship on Lamentations has focused on the voice of Daughter Zion in chs. 1–2. Interpreters argue that the frank protests constitute an antitheodicy and have placed these poems in opposition to the voice of the man in Lamentations 3, specifically 3.21-42. This section utilizes Deuteronomistic and Wisdom material to offer a theodicy, counseling penitent acceptance of God's righteous judgment. This article nuances previous analyses of Lam. 3.21-42, arguing in particular that vv. 33–39 subtly manipulate the expected theodic solution until Yahweh's culpability as oppressive agent is denied rather than justified. It is argued that the poet glimpses a ‘secular’ theodicy. This is accomplished through close exegesis of Lam. 3.21-42, and by utilizing Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts of ‘dialogism’ and ‘double-voicing’.