Lamentations Rabbah

The Midrash on Lamentations (Hebrew: אֵיכָה רבה, romanized: Ēkhā Rabbāh) is a midrashic commentary to the Book of Lamentations.

It is one of the oldest works of midrash, along with Genesis Rabbah and the Pesikta de-Rav Kahana.

The midrash is quoted, perhaps for the first time, by Chananel ben Chushiel under the name "Aggadat Eichah." Many passages are quoted by R. Nathan, who invariably calls the work Megillat Eichah. The term Eichah Rabbati, which is general even now, is used to designate the many extracts in Yalkut Shimoni which have been included with the other Biblical books. In Lamentations Rabbah itself, the sources are almost always missing. The names Midrash Eichah, Midrash Kinot, Megillat Kinot, are also found in the old authors. In Yalkut Shimoni, there are likewise long extracts from a Midrash on Lamentations published under the name Midrash Zutta.

According to Galit Hasan-Rokem, Lamentations Rabbah was composed in Roman Palestine "approximately in the middle of the first millennium C.E.".

Leopold Zunz concluded that "the last sections were added later" and, furthermore, "that the completion of the whole work must not be placed before the second half of the seventh century," because the empire of the Arabians is referred to even in a passage of the first chapter. However, according to a reading of Salomon Buber's edition (which is the only correct one as shown by the context), Seir, not Ishmael, is mentioned in connection with Edom in this passage to 1:14. Zunz's other arguments likewise fail to prove such a late date for the Midrash, especially since Zunz himself concludes that the authorities mentioned therein by name are not later than the Jerusalem Talmud. All that can be definitely stated is that Lamentations Rabbah was edited after the completion of the Yerushalmi, and that Genesis Rabbah must also be considered as of earlier date, not so much because it was drawn upon, as because of the character of the proem collection in Lamentations Rabbah. Like Genesis Rabbah, Lamentations Rabbah is of Judean origin, and rich in foreign words, especially Koine Greek.

It certainly is not strange that the "Vive domine imperator!" with which Yohanan ben Zakkai is said to have approached Vespasian in his camp, should have been reproduced. The same phrase was likewise transmitted in Aramaic and Hebrew form, in Buber's edition and in the Arukh.

The work begins with 36 consecutive proems forming a separate collection, certainly made by the author of the Midrash. They constitute more than one quarter of the work. These proems and, perhaps, most of the annotations, which are arranged in the sequence of the verses, originated in the discourses of which, in olden times, the Book of Lamentations had been the subject. The aggadic explanation of this book—which is a dirge on the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the national destruction that came along with it—was treated by scholars as especially appropriate to Tisha B'Av, to the day of the destruction of the Temple, and to the evening before Tisha B'Av.

The sources from which Jerusalem Talmud drew must have been accessible to the author of Lamentations Rabbah, which was certainly edited some time after the completion of the former, and which probably borrowed from it. In the same way older collections must have served as the common source for Lamentations Rabbah, Genesis Rabbah, and especially for the Pesiqta de-Rab Kahana. The aggadic comment on Hosea 6:7 appears earlier as a proem to a discourse on Lamentations, and is included among the proems in this Midrash as a comment on Genesis 3:9. The close of this proem, which serves as a connecting link with Lamentations 1:1, is found also in the Pesiqta as the first proem to pericope 15 (p. 119a) to Isaiah 1:21, the Hafṭarah for the Sabbath before Tisha B'Av.