The Midrash on Lamentations or Eichah (Lamentations) Rabbah (Hebrew: מדרש איכה רבה), like Bereshit Rabbah and the Pesiḳta ascribed to Rab Kahana, belongs to the oldest works of the Midrashic literature. It begins with 36 consecutive proems forming a separate collection, certainly made by the author of the Midrash. They constitute more than one-fourth of the work (47b-52b in the Venice ed., 1545). These proems and, perhaps, most of the annotations, which are arranged in the sequence of the verses (52c-66b), originated in the discourses of which, in olden times, the Book of Lamentations had been the subject. The haggadic explanation of this book—which is a dirge on the fall of the Jewish state and the extinction of the national splendor—was treated by scholars as especially appropriate to th