Targum Lamentations 1:1 (dating perhaps to AD 8th century) reads:
1 Jeremiah the
Prophet and High Priest said, “How was it decreed that Jerusalem and her people
should be punished with banishment and that they should be mourned with ´ekah.
Just as when Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the Garden of Eden
and the Master of the Universe mourned them with ´ekah?” The Attribute of
Justice replied and said, “Because of the greatness of her rebellious sin that
was within her, thus she will dwell alone as a man plagued with leprosy upon
his skin who sits alone. And the city that was full of crowds and many peoples
has been emptied of them and she has become like a widow. She who was great
among the nations and a ruler over provinces that had brought her tribute has
become lowly again and gives head tax to them from thereafter.”
As my friend Allen Hansen pointed out, this echoes the theme in the Book
of Mormon of justice not robbing mercy, a theme that some critics to be much
more modern (and therefore, an anachronism in the Book of Mormon).
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