Lamentationschapter 5
22 verses · BSBLamentations book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 44×2Psalms 89×2Isaiah 1×2Isaiah 3×2Deuteronomy 28×2Ezekiel 4×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The closing prayer breaks the pattern: still twenty-two verses, but no acrostic: the alphabet abandoned, as if grief will no longer hold its shape. 'Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: behold, and see our reproach.' Their inheritance is turned over to strangers, their houses to aliens; they are orphans and fatherless; they buy their own water and wood; servants rule over them; their skin is black like an oven because of the burning heat of famine. 'The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us! for we have sinned.' Yet the throne stands ('Thou, O Jehovah, abidest for ever') and the plea is 'Turn thou us unto thee… and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.'
Context
Poetry · Jeremiah — Lamentations overview
- A. 1–10 Remember, O LORD, What Is Come Upon Us
- B. 11–18 Princes Hanged by Their Hand; the Crown Fallen from Our Head
- C. 19–22 Turn Thou Us Unto Thee, O LORD, and We Shall Be Turned
The outline
A.Remember, O LORD, What Is Come Upon Usvv. 1 to 10
Read vv. 1 to 10 →B.Princes Hanged by Their Hand; the Crown Fallen from Our Headvv. 11 to 18
Read vv. 11 to 18 →C.Turn Thou Us Unto Thee, O LORD, and We Shall Be Turnedvv. 19 to 22
Read vv. 19 to 22 →
The world behind this chapter
Lamentations 5The history
This last poem breaks the pattern. It still has twenty-two verses, one for each letter of the alphabet, but it does not begin them with those letters in order. The alphabet has come apart, and the chapter is a straight prayer rather than a lament.
The economics of occupation are described exactly. We must pay for the water we drink, and our wood comes only at a price — that is, the springs and the woodlands are now controlled and taxed by someone else. We stretch out our hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get enough bread. Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners. Servants rule over us, and there is no one to deliver.
The humiliations are listed by group. Women assaulted in the towns of Judah; princes hung up by their hands; elders shown no respect at the gate where they used to judge; young men made to carry the grinding stones and boys staggering under loads of wood — grinding grain was daily work done by women and slaves, so putting the young men on the millstones was designed to shame.
And the temple mount: Mount Zion lies desolate, and jackals prowl over it. Jackals moving into an abandoned site is what a ruined place in that country actually looks like within a year or two.
What it meant to them
The prayer's shape is what the first hearers needed. Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace. It asks God to pay attention before it asks him to fix anything.
It ends unresolved, and that honesty is the point: restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old — unless you have utterly rejected us and remain exceedingly angry with us. In later Jewish practice, when this book is read aloud the hopeful verse is repeated after that last line, so the reading does not end on the word anger. But the text itself leaves the question open, and a people sitting in the rubble was allowed to end there.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah and Lamentations
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Lamentations 5. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.