Lament


Literary Form

AKA complaint

Psalms are technically lyric poems, and the most numerous category of psalms are laments.

Laments have five elements in any order and number of appearance: an invocation or cry to God, a definition of the crisis, petition or supplication, a statement of confidence in God, and a vow to praise God.

(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken, Page 113, 140)