%0 Journal Article
%T Vindicating Yahweh: A Close Reading of Lamentations 3.21
%A Mark P. Stone
%J Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
%@ 1476-6728
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0309089215701325
%X Recent scholarship on Lamentations has focused on the voice of Daughter Zion in chs. 1¨C2. 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¨C39 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¡¯
%K Lamentations
%K Lamentations 3
%K theodicy
%K secular theodicy
%K Bakhtin
%K dialogism
%K double-voicing
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309089215701325