Jeremiah and probably two or three other poets composed four lamentations corresponding to the four stages of the trouble which befell the city. The first lamentation was written immediately after the capture of Jerusalem. The city still stood, the walls, palaces, and Temple were not yet destroyed, but it was deprived of its inhabitants and its joys. This lamentation chiefly deplores the friendlessness of Jerusalem; her greatest sorrow lies in the faithlessness of her allies, who now delight in her fall. The second lamentation deplores the destruction of the city and its walls, and especially the fall of the Sanctuary. The third lamentation bemoans the destruction of all that was noble by the lingering famine, and the despair which fell upon the survivors on the capture of the king. The fourth lamentation describes the utter desolation of Jerusalem after its complete destruction by the enemy. CHAPTER XVII. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DESTRUCTION. The National Decay--The Fugitives--Enmity of the Idumæans--Johanan, Son of Kareah--The Lamentation--Nebuchadnezzar appoints Gedaliah as Governor--Jeremiah Encourages the People--Mizpah--Ishmael Murders Gedaliah--The Flight to Egypt--Jeremiah's Counsel Disregarded--Depopulation of Judah--The Idumæans make Settlements in the Country--Obadiah--Condition of the Judæans in Egypt--Defeat of Hophra--Egypt under Amasis--Jeremiah's Last Days. 586-572 B. C. E. About a thousand years had passed since the tribes of Israel had so courageously and hopefully crossed the Jordan under their brave leader, and half that interval had elapsed since the first two kings of the house of David had raised the nation to a commanding position. After such a career, what an ending! The greater part of the Ten Tribes had been scattered for more than a century in unknown countries. Of the remaining tribes, composing the kingdom of Judah, the greater part had been destroyed by war, famine and pestilence; a small number had been led away into captivity, and an insignificant few had emigrated to Egypt or fled elsewhere, or lived in their own country, in constant terror of the fate which the victors might have reserved for them. Manifold enemies, in fact, let loose their anger against these few, in order to bring about their destruction, as if not a single Israelite was to survive in his own country.