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Jerry A. Gladson, «Postmodernism and the Deus absconditus in Lamentations 3», Vol. 91 (2010) 321-334
Lamentations reflects the silence of God. God seemingly does not act or speak. To some, this detachment represents an absence of God; to others, a «hiddenness» of God (Deus absconditus). Analysis of Lam 3,55-57, the crux interpretum for the divine silence, suggests the q strophe may break this oppressive silence. The strophe reflects an awareness of God who speaks. God stands in the background of the whole of life for this poet, emerging only fleetingly and in ways oblique. This perspective is similar to the ambiguous, indeterminate approach to reality in postmodernism. The divine Voice thus joins other voices in Lamentations.
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Postmodernism and the Deus absconditus in Lamentations 3
The book of Lamentations is often considered a prime example of
the silence of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. A heartrending
experience of the Deus absconditus seems to prevail in its poetry.
Lamentations 3, the third of five poems in the book, is
probably in this respect the most controversial. It gives voice to
the rbg, “who has seen affliction under the rod of his [God’s]
wrath ” (3,1). This voice joins others in Lamentations who decry
the horrors of Jerusalem’s destruction. W. Lanahan’s seminal study
identifies five distinct voices in the book: an objective reporter
who approaches the devastated city (Lam 1,1-11b [except v. 9c].
15.17 ; 2,1-19); Jerusalem, or Daughter Zion (1,11c-22; 2,20-22); the
bourgeois, who give voice to the national communal outcry
(Lam 4) ; the choral voice of the people of Jerusalem (Lam 5); in
addition to the rbg in Lam 3, whom Lanahan identifies as a
veteran, defeated soldier 1. Observing that “multiple poetic voices
interweave, overlap, and contradict”, K. O’Connor narrows this to
four : a narrator; Jerusalem (princess, lover, widow, daughter, and
mother) ; a humiliated man; and the community 2.
Among all these “voices”, however, the Voice of God is
apparently missing. “The book is God-abandoned”, O’Connor
tersely puts it 3. There seems to be in Lamentations a singular,
experiential absence of God, the dreaded Deus absconditus.
“ Missing from the poetic voices in Lamentations is the voice of
God. The missing voice looms over the book. The speakers refer to
God, call for help, ask God to look, accuse God of hiding from
W. LANAHAN, “The Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations”,
1
JBL 93 (1974) 41-49.
K. O’CONNOR “ The Book of Lamentations”, The New Interpreter’s
2
Bible (ed. L. KECK) (Nashville, TN 2001) VI, 1020.
K. O’CONNOR, Lamentations & the Tears of the World (Maryknoll,
3
NY 2002) 15. Cf. also K. O’CONNOR, “Speak Tenderly to Jerusalem: Second
Isaiah’s Reception and Use of Daughter Zion”, Princeton Seminary Bulletin
20 (1999) 287.