yet another grouping, namely, those loyal to Yahweh. While great sadness pervades the book, and while the poet is evidently moved and sickened by the horrors of the situation, there is little sign of doubt displayed. This is a point worth pondering. The poet remains loyal to Yahweh. Nowhere do we find a tendency to syncretism; not a trace of a view that credited the fall of Jerusalem to the superior strength of the enemy or its gods. But as Gottwald says, that the prophetic response to the catastrophe