And Jeremiah lamented — i.e., wrote a dirge. The special mourning of the land over Josiah is not mentioned in Kings.
The singing men... women. — The LXX. has “the ruling men... women,” reading sârîm... sârôth, instead of shârîm... shârôth.
Spake of Josiah in their lamentations. — In the dirges which they used to sing on certain anniversaries of disaster.
And made them an ordinance. — And they made them (i.e. the laments for Josiah) a standing custom to Israel.
They are written in the lamentations. — The dirges alluding to Josiah’s untimely end, and among them Jeremiah’s, were preserved in a Book of Dirges (qînôth), which may have been extant in the chronicler’s day. (Comp. the allusions in Jeremiah 22:10; Jeremiah 22:18; Zechariah 12:11.)
This collection, however, was quite different from the canonical book of Lamentations, the subject of which is the ruin of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans.