Lamentationschapter 5
22 verses · KJVLamentations book hub →
Key verse
Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 10.
The chapter
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
Where the chapter sits
Lamentations 5 falls in Five poems over a fallen city (chapters 1–5). Acrostic laments over Jerusalem's desolation (ch. 1–4); a non-acrostic closing prayer (ch. 5). At the centre: the great affirmation of 3:22–23, ‘his compassions fail not; they are new every morning.’
Closing prayer. The only non-acrostic chapter; the prayer that closes the book.
The whole shape of Lamentations→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 rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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
A. Remember, O LORD, What Is Come Upon Us
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: Lamentations 5 closes the book as a plain communal prayer of twenty-two verses, the length of the Hebrew alphabet kept but the letter-by-letter form abandoned, grief finally too tired for the acrostic discipline the first four chapters kept, as the bench reads the loosening. The poem opens as direct address rather than description, remember, O Lord, what is come upon us, consider and behold our reproach, and moves straight into loss: the inheritance is turned to strangers and the houses to aliens, foreign hands now holding what the covenant had given.
Lamentations 5:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Lamentations 5:1
“Remember, O Lord - In the Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic, this is headed, “The prayer of Jeremiah.” In my old MS. Bible: Here bigynneth the orison of Jeremye the prophete. Though this chapter consists of exactly twenty-two verses, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, yet the acrostic form is no longer observed. Perhaps any thing so technical was not thought proper when in agony and distress (under a sense of God’s displeasure on account of sin) they prostrated themselves before him to ask for mercy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:2, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:2
“Our inheritance is turned to strangers,.... The land of Canaan in general, which was given to Abraham and his seed to be their inheritance; and their field, and vineyards in particular, which came to them by inheritance from their fathers, were now in the hands of the Chaldeans, strangers to God, and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, as all Gentiles were, Eph 2:12; our houses to aliens; which they had built or purchased, or their fathers had left them, were now inhabited by those of another country.”
Lamentations 5:2
“Our inheritance is turned to strangers - The greater part of the Jews were either slain or carried away captive; and even those who were left under Gedaliah were not free, for they were vassals to the Chaldeans.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.We are orphans and fatherless: Verse 3 states the plainest fact of famine and slaughter, we are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows, a whole generation left without its fathers. Verse 4 measures the siege in commerce turned cruel, drinking water bought for money and wood sold at a price, the poorest necessities now taxed by an occupying hand.
Lamentations 5:3, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:3
“Our mothers are as widows - The particle “as” suggests that the whole verse is metaphorical. Our distress and desolation is comparable only to that of fatherless orphans or wives just bereaved of their husbands.”
Lamentations 5:3
“We - We are all of us without a king, (our common father) we are deprived of thy fatherly protection, and many young children among us are left without an earthly parent.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Lamentations 5:4, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:4
“We have drunken our water for money - I suppose the meaning of this is, that every thing was taxed by the Chaldeans, and that they kept the management in their own hands, so that wood and water were both sold, the people not being permitted to help themselves. They were now so lowly reduced by servitude, that they were obliged to pay dearly for those things which formerly were common and of no price.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:4
“Thus, "our" means the water which we need, the commonest necessary of life. our wood--In Judea each one could get wood without pay; in Babylon, "our wood," the wood we need, must be paid for.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 5-6)
a.Our necks are under persecution: Verse 5 pictures forced labor under the yoke, our necks are under persecution, we labour and have no rest, the language of Egypt's bondage returned on the people once delivered from it. Verse 6 names the diplomacy that failed, giving the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians to be satisfied with bread, alliances sought for survival that the prophets had already warned against before the fall.
Lamentations 5:5, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:5
“Our necks are under persecution,.... A yoke of hard servitude and bondage was put upon their necks, as Jarchi interprets it; which they were forced to submit unto: or, "upon our necks we are pursued" (s); or, "suffer persecution": which Aben Ezra explains thus, in connection with the Lam 5:4; if we carry water or wood upon our necks, the enemy pursues us; that is, to take it away from us.”
Lamentations 5:5
“Our necks ... - i. e. we were pursued so actively that our enemies seemed to be leaning over our necks ready to seize us. We labor - We were wearied, “there was no rest for us:” being chased incessantly.”
Lamentations 5:6, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:6
“We have given our hand to the Egyptians,.... Either by way of supplication, to beg bread of them; or by way of covenant and agreement; or to testify subjection to them, in order to be supplied with food: many of the Jews went into Egypt upon the taking of the city, Jer 43:5; and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread; among whom many of the captives were dispersed; since from hence they are said to be returned, as well as from Egypt, Isa 11:16.”
Lamentations 5:6
“We - The ten tribes were all carried captives into Assyria, and many of the kingdom of Judah fled into Egypt. Giving the hand may signify labouring for them: or, yielding up themselves to their power.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
4. (vv. 7-8)
a.Our fathers have sinned, and are not: Verse 7 states generational consequence honestly, our fathers have sinned and are not, and we have borne their iniquities, the fathers dead and the children left carrying what they began, read by the bench alongside Jeremiah 31:29-30's repeal of the same proverb rather than against it, present suffering held with future personal accountability. Verse 8 completes the humiliation, servants have ruled over us, there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand, the covenant people governed by those they once governed.
Lamentations 5:7, 1 voice
Lamentations 5:7
“And are not; and we ... - Or, they are not; “we have borne their iniquities.” Our fathers who began this national apostasy died before the hour of punishment.”
Lamentations 5:8, 3 voices
Lamentations 5:8
“Servants have ruled over us - To be subject to such is the most painful and dishonorable bondage: - Quio domini faciant, audent cum talia fures? Virg. Ecl. 3:16. “Since slaves so insolent are grown, What may not masters do?” Perhaps he here alludes to the Chaldean soldiers, whose will the wretched Jews were obliged to obey.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:8
“Israel, once a "kingdom of priests" (Ex 19:6), is become like Canaan, "a servant of servants," according to the curse (Ge 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be "servants" of Shem, being descended from Ham (Ge 9:26). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Lamentations 5:8
“The curse of Canaan had now become the doom of Judah: A servant of servants shall he be. They would not be ruled by their God, and by his servants the prophets, whose rule was gentle and gracious, and therefore justly are they ruled with rigour by their enemies and their servants.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
5. (vv. 9-10)
a.We gat our bread with the peril of our lives: Verse 9 puts a price on daily bread, gotten at the peril of life because of the sword of the wilderness, foraging parties risking raiders to feed the city's survivors. Verse 10 reads the famine on the body itself, our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine, the same wasting chapter 4 already pictured in its Nazarites.
Lamentations 5:9, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:9
“We gat our bread with the peril of our lives,.... This seems to refer to the time of the siege when they privately went out of the city to get in some provision, but went in danger of their lives: because of the sword of the wilderness: or, "of the plain" (t); because of the, word of the Chaldean army, which lay in the plain about Jerusalem into whose hand there was danger of falling, and of being cut to pieces. (t) מפני חרב המדבר "propter gladium in deserto, sive plano", Gataker.”
Lamentations 5:9
We gat - Or, We get “our bread at the peril of our lives.” This verse apparently refers to those who were left in the land, and who in gathering in such fruits as remained, were exposed to incursions of the Bedouin, here called “the sword of the desert.”
Lamentations 5:10, 1 voice
Lamentations 5:10
“Our skin was black - because of the terrible famine - Because of the searching winds that burnt up every green thing, destroying vegetation, and in consequence producing a famine.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Princes Hanged by Their Hand; the Crown Fallen from Our Head
1. (vv. 11-12)
a.They ravished the women in Zion: Verse 11 names an atrocity of the conquest without euphemism, women ravished in Zion and maids in the cities of Judah, a war crime the older commentators read as literal history rather than figure. Verse 12 adds a second outrage against rank, princes hanged up by their hand and the faces of elders not honoured, the city's leadership humiliated along with its women.
Lamentations 5:11, 1 voice
Lamentations 5:11
“They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah - The evil mentioned here was predicted by Moses, Deu 28:30, Deu 28:32, and by Jeremiah, Jer 6:12.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:12, 3 voices
Lamentations 5:12
“Princes are hanged up by their hand,.... According to some, as Aben Ezra observes, by the hand of the servants before mentioned; however, by the hand of the Chaldeans or Babylonians; see Jer 52:”
Lamentations 5:12
“Princes are hanged up by their hand - It is very probable that this was a species of punishment. They were suspended from hooks in the wall by their hands till they died through torture and exhaustion. The body of Saul was fastened to the wall of Bethshan, probably in the same way; but his head had already been taken off. They were hung in this way that they might be devoured by the fowls of the air.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:12
“Some think that the dead bodies of the princes, after they were slain with the sword, were hung up, as the bodies of Saul's sons, in disgrace to them, and as it were to expiate the nation's guilt. (3.) No respect was shown to magistrates and those in authority: The faces of elders, elders in age, elders in office, were not honoured.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 13-15)
a.They took the young men to grind: Verse 13 sets the young men to a slave's labor at the millstone and the children stumbling under loads of wood, work once done by servants now forced on the free. Verse 14 empties the city gate of its elders and its music of its young men, the two institutions of civic and social life silenced together, and verse 15 states the result in one line, the joy of our heart is ceased, our dance is turned into mourning, celebration itself gone out of the city.
Lamentations 5:13, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:13
“They took the young men to grind,.... In the mill, which was laborious service; and which persons were sometimes put to, by way of punishment; and was the punishment of servants; see Jdg 16:21. Some render it, "the young men bore the grist" (x); carried the corn, the meal ground, from place to place. The Targum is, "the young men carried the millstones;'' and so Jarchi, they put millstones upon their shoulders, and burdens so as to weary them.”
Lamentations 5:13
“They took the young men to grind - Or, “The young men” have borne the mill, a menial and laborious task usually performed by slaves (compare Isa 47:2). The children fell under the wood - Or, lads have stumbled under burdens of wood. By lads are meant youths up to the age of military service; another form of menial labor.”
Lamentations 5:14, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:14
“The elders have ceased from the gate,.... Of the sanhedrim, or court of judicature, as the Targum; from the gate of the city, where they used to sit and try causes; but now there was nothing of this kind done: the young men from their music; vocal and instrumental; the latter is more particularly specified, though both may be intended; neither were any more heard; their harps were hung upon the willows on the banks of Euphrates, which ran through the city of Babylon, Psa 137:1.”
Lamentations 5:14
“The elders have ceased from the gate - There is now no more justice administered to the people; they are under military law, or disposed of in every sense according to the caprice of their masters.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:15, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:15
“Here reference is made to the exercise of joy: "The joy of our hearts has ceased, our dancing has been turned to mourning." As the prophet Amos states: "I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentations." (Amos 8:10).”
Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Lamentationspatristic
Lamentations 5:15
“The joy of our heart is ceased,.... ward joy was gone, as well as the external signs of it: it "sabbatized" (y), as it may be rendered; alluding perhaps to the cordial joy expressed formerly on their sabbaths and other festivals, now not observed; at least, not with that joy, inward and outward, they formerly were: our dance is turned into mourning; which also was used at their solemn feasts, as well as at their common diversions, Jdg 21:21; but now no more of that; but, instead of it, mourning at the calamities they were oppressed with; and at the remembrance of mercies and privileges, civil and religious, they were deprived of. (y) שבת "sabbatizat".”
3. (vv. 16-18)
a.The crown is fallen from our head: Verse 16 names the cause plainly against every excuse the sufferers might offer, the crown is fallen from our head, woe unto us, that we have sinned, confession rather than complaint. Verse 17 answers in the body, a faint heart and dim eyes, and verse 18 lands the grief on a specific hill, because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it, the temple mount itself gone wild, read by the bench as the poem's lowest point.
Lamentations 5:16, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:16
“The crown is fallen from our head,.... Or, "the crown of our head is fallen" (a); all their honour and glory as a nation were gone; the glory of their kingdom and priesthood, to both which a crown or mitre belonged; the glory of church and state. Aben Ezra interprets it of the temple, the place of the divine Majesty.”
Lamentations 5:16
“The crown is fallen from our head - At feasts, marriages, etc., they used to crown themselves with garlands of flowers; all festivity of this kind was now at an end. Or it may refer to their having lost all sovereignty, being made slaves.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:17, 1 voice
Lamentations 5:17
Second, is the glory of the temple. Here sadness is placed upon it. That is, due to a multitude of tears. For, as the prophet Jeremiah 8:18 declares: "My grief is beyond healing, my heart is sick within me."
Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Lamentationspatristic
Lamentations 5:18, 1 voice
Lamentations 5:18
“The foxes walk upon it - Foxes are very numerous in Palestine, see on Jdg 15:4 (note). It was usual among the Hebrews to consider all desolated land to be the resort of wild beasts; which is, in fact, the case every where when the inhabitants are removed from a country.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
C. Turn Thou Us Unto Thee, O LORD, and We Shall Be Turned
1. (vv. 19-20)
a.Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever: Verse 19 turns from the ruined mountain to the throne that cannot fall, thou, O Lord, remainest for ever, thy throne from generation to generation, the one fixed point named in the whole poem. Verse 20 immediately questions the distance between that permanence and the present abandonment, wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time, an honest complaint the bench reads as faith still speaking rather than faith broken.
Lamentations 5:19, 3 voices
Lamentations 5:19
“Thou, O Lord, remainest for ever - Thou sufferest no change. Thou didst once love us, O let that love be renewed towards us!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:19
“The perpetuity of God's rule over human affairs, however He may seem to let His people be oppressed for a time, is their ground of hope of restoration.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Lamentations 5:19
“Of the never-failing continuance of his dominion: Thy throne is from generation to generation; the throne of glory, the throne of grace, and the throne of government, are all unchangeable, immovable; and this is matter of comfort to us when the crown has fallen from our head.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Lamentations 5:20, 2 voices
Lamentations 5:20
“Then, there is a wondered indignation. As said: "Why dost thou forget us forever, why dost thou so long forsake us?" Just as the prophet Isaiah 49:15 exclaims: "Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of …”
Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Lamentationspatristic
Lamentations 5:20
“Wherefore dost thou, forget us for ever,.... Since thou art firm, constant, and unchangeable, and thy love and covenant the same.”
2. (vv. 21-22)
a.Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord: Verse 21 prays the same turning the book has asked for since chapter 3, turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned, renew our days as of old, repentance requested as a gift rather than produced by will. The book's own last line refuses a tidy ending, but thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art very wroth against us, and the commentators note the ancient reading custom of repeating verse 21 aloud after verse 22 so the public reading does not close there, a practice named as reception history and not a change to the text itself.
Lamentations 5:21, 3 voices
Lamentations 5:21
“Thirdly, a prayer is prolonged. As stated: "Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old!" And as the prophet Jeremiah elsewhere proclaims: "bring me back that I may be restored, for thou art the Lord my …”
Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Lamentationspatristic
Lamentations 5:21
“Renew our days as of old - Restore us to our former state. Let us regain our country, our temple, and all the Divine offices of our religion; but, more especially, thy favor.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:21
“Jeremiah is not speaking of spiritual conversion, but of that outward turning whereby God receives men into His fatherly favor, manifested in bestowing prosperity [CALVIN]. Still, as Israel is a type of the Church, temporal goods typify spiritual blessings; and so the sinner may use this prayer for God to convert him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Lamentations 5:22, 3 voices
Lamentations 5:22
“But thou hast utterly rejected us - It appears as if thou hadst sealed our final reprobation, because thou showest against us exceeding great wrath. But convert us, O Lord, onto thee, and we shall be converted. We are now greatly humbled, feel our sin, and see our folly: once more restore us, and we shall never again forsake thee! He heard the prayer; and at the end of seventy years they were restored to their own land.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Lamentations 5:22
“Rather, "Unless haply Thou hast utterly rejected us, and art beyond measure wroth against us," that is, Unless Thou art implacable, which is impossible, hear our prayer [CALVIN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Lamentations 5:22
“For converting grace to prepare and qualify them for mercy: Turn us to thee, O Lord! They had complained that God had forsaken and forgotten them, and then their prayer is not, Turn thou to us, but, Turn us to thee, which implies an acknowledgment that the cause of the distance was in themselves.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
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 Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, Lamentations; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Lamentations.
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