Lamentations

Bergant's AOTC Lamentations is readable and literarily sensitive, but contains problems serious enough to warrant caution. Most concerning is a persistent pattern of framing God's character negatively: she dismisses omniscience and omnipotence as "not really biblical" (a claim contradicted by Ps 139, Jer 32, and her own subsequent exegesis); she labels God's actions in chapter 3 "divine brutality" as her own theological verdict rather than as the sufferer's lament rhetoric; she repeatedly asks whether God's punishment was "excessive" or "vindictive," which cuts against the text's own declaration that "the LORD is in the right" (1:18); and she flatly asserts that "the voice of God is never heard" in the book, overlooking 3:57 where God explicitly speaks ("Do not fear"). Other unusual moves include raising — as a genuine open question — whether the mothers who cannibalized their children were morally wrong, apparently finding the mothers' intent to survive a mitigating factor, whereas every other commentary treats these passages (Lam 2:20; 4:10) with unambiguous horror as the nadir of devastation and the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 in their most extreme form. She also states a methodological commitment to avoid historical presuppositions that she then ignores throughout. These tendencies are compounded by a selective bibliography that omits significant pre-2003 evangelical works (Harrison TOTC, Kaiser, Huey NAC), meaning perspectives that read Lamentations within a robust doctrine of God — affirming divine justice, covenant faithfulness, and the ultimate goodness of God's discipline — are largely absent from the conversation and contribute to the commentary's overall theological tilt. Useful as a supplementary voice on poetic structure, but a poor first choice.

Fits somewhere between introductory/popular level and semi-technical commentary. User-friendly, but still sufficiently detailed. Focuses considerable attention on the raw emotional power of the dramatically worded poetry.