Who is traditionally credited with writing the Book of Lamentations? Jeremiah is the traditional answer. Christian tradition placed Lamentations immediately after Jeremiah and linked the prophet with its sorrowful poems about Jerusalem’s destruction.
The book is a collection of five poetic laments responding to the fall of Jerusalem and the First Temple to Babylon in 586 BCE. Its chapters mourn famine, exile, ruined worship, and the suffering of the people, while also reflecting on national wrongdoing and hope for mercy.
Modern biblical scholarship usually treats the work as anonymous. The poems may have been written by one poet or assembled from several voices, probably soon after Jerusalem’s fall. Jeremiah was an obvious traditional attribution because he had warned of Jerusalem’s destruction and was associated with composing laments, including one for King Josiah.
A common mix-up is to treat the traditional attribution as proven authorship. The question’s wording matters: Jeremiah is the accepted traditional credit, even though most scholars do not regard him as the demonstrable author.