[104] See Jer. xxvi. 24, xxix. 3_ff_, xl. 5. It is much questioned whether the five elegies are the work of one man. The second, the third, and the fourth follow a slightly different alphabetical arrangement from that which is employed in the first--in reversing the order of two letters,[105] while the internal structure of the verses in the third shews another variation--the threefold repetition of the acrostic. Then the personality of the poet emerges more distinctly in the third elegy as the centre of interest--a marked contrast to the method of the other poems. Lastly, the fifth differs from its predecessors in several respects. Its lines are shorter; it is not an acrostic; it is chiefly devoted to the insults heaped upon the Jews by their enemies; and it seems to belong to a later time, for while the four previous poems treat of the siege of Jerusalem and its accompanying troubles, this one is concerned with the subsequent state of servitude, and reflects on the ruin of the nation across some interval of time. Thus the poet cries-- "Wherefore doest thou forget us for ever, And forsake us _so long time_?"[106] [105] ע and פ. [106] v. 20. A recent attempt to assign the last two elegies to the age of the Maccabees has entirely broken down. The points of agreement with that age which have been adduced will fit the Babylonian period equally well, and the most significant marks of the later time are entirely absent. Is it conceivable that a description of the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes would contain no hint of the martyr fidelity of the devout Jews to their law which was so gloriously maintained under the Maccabees? The fourth and fifth elegies are as completely silent on this subject as the earlier elegies.