Lamentations 5

This is the final chapter of Lamentations. Chapters 1–4 lament the devastation of Jerusalem's fall in acrostic poems, in which each verse or stanza begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 5 has 22 verses, matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, but it does not follow alphabetical order. It takes the form of a prayer offered by the whole people, who speak as "we."

Outline

• Verse 1 The people call on the LORD to remember what has come upon them and to consider and behold their reproach (disgrace).
• Verses 2–6 Their inheritance and houses have passed to strangers, and they have become like orphans and widows. They must pay for water and firewood, and they have given the hand to Egypt and Assyria to obtain bread.
• Verses 7–10 They bear the iniquities of their fathers, servants rule over them, and they get their bread at the peril of their lives because of the sword of the wilderness. Their skin has grown black like an oven from famine.
• Verses 11–14 Women and virgins are ravished, princes are hanged up, and elders are not honored. Young men carry the millstone, and the old men no longer sit at the gate.
• Verses 15–18 Joy and dancing have turned to mourning, and the crown has fallen from their head. The people confess that this has come because of their own sins, and they lament that Mount Zion lies desolate, with foxes roaming over it.
• Verses 19–22 After confessing that the LORD's throne endures forever, the people ask why He has forsaken them so long. They plead with Him to turn them back and renew their days as of old, and the chapter closes with the statement that His wrath against them is very great.

Key Verses

• Lamentations 5:7 "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." This verse raises the question of how the sins of earlier generations relate to the sufferings of the present one.
• Lamentations 5:19 "Thy throne from generation to generation." In contrast to the ruined city, the people confess that God's reign is eternal.
• Lamentations 5:21 "Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned." This prayer asks God for the very act of turning (repentance) itself and is the central petition of the chapter.

People and Places

• The LORD: Addressed as the one who receives the prayer.
• Zion: The mount on which Jerusalem and the temple stood. In this chapter it is portrayed as desolate.
• Judah: The southern kingdom. The chapter mentions that the virgins in its cities were ravished.
• Egypt, Assyria: Nations to which the people turned for bread or help.

Points for Reflection

• The text does not name its author. The attribution of the book to Jeremiah is a tradition handed down through the Septuagint and other sources, and its setting is understood to be the period after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon.
• Verse 7 seems to blame the fathers, yet verse 16 confesses "we have sinned." This tension is often read alongside the discussion of the proverb "The fathers have eaten sour grapes" in Ezekiel 18:2–4.
• Depending on the translation, verse 22 is rendered as a declarative statement, a question, or a conditional clause. When the book is read in the synagogue, there is reportedly a custom of repeating the hopeful verse 21 at the end.
• The chapter is read together with the confession of hope in chapter 3 (Lamentations 3:19–26), and the petition in verse 21 to "renew our days" is sometimes connected with God's making all things new in Revelation 21:5.