Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5 is a closing prayer, spoken after Jerusalem’s fall. The people lay out their suffering before God: lost land, hunger, slavery, shame and a ruined Zion. They admit their sin, yet end by asking God to restore them, even as they wonder whether He has rejected them.

Lamentations 5:1

The prayer opens with a plain request: let the LORD take notice. Nothing is hidden or polished. The people bring their disgrace to God and ask Him to look at it. Honest sorrow, brought to the covenant God, is where healing begins.

BSA: Remember (“to recall, to mark”): To remember here means to act on what is seen, not merely to recall it. disgrace (“reproach, shame, scorn”): They feel the scorn of the nations pressing on them.

Hebrew: זְכֹר (zekhor, H2142) — “remember.” In the Bible, when God remembers, He moves to help. The people are asking Him to act, not just to recall.

See also: Exodus 2:24.

Lamentations 5:2

The land God gave Israel as an inheritance now belongs to outsiders. Their homes are occupied by foreigners. For a people whose land was a promise from God, this loss cuts very deep.

BSA: inheritance (“heritage, property”): This was the family portion handed down under God’s promise, and now it is gone. turned over (“completely reversed, overturned”): Their whole situation has been turned upside down.

Lamentations 5:3

War has taken the men, so children are left without fathers and mothers live like widows. The picture is of families stripped of protection and provision. It is a cry from the most helpless people in the city.

BSA: orphans (“bereaved of a father, without paternal care”): The children have lost the one who should protect and provide for them.

Lamentations 5:4

Water and firewood once belonged to them freely. Now they must pay for even these basics. Their conquerors control the necessities of daily life, and every ordinary task has become a burden.

BSA: price (“mehir, a payment or reward”): Even the simplest needs now cost them money they hardly have.

Lamentations 5:5

Enemies are on their necks, as if they were being hunted. The people are worn out, and there is no pause. This is the weariness of living under constant pressure with no relief in sight.

BSA: pursued (“pursued by our attackers, with our necks under persecution”): The picture is of a yoke or a pursuer on the neck, with no chance to catch breath.

See also: Matthew 11:28.

Lamentations 5:6

In desperation Israel had held out a hand to Egypt and Assyria, trading dependence on God for dependence on powerful nations, just to get food. The verse looks back at a long habit of leaning on human strength for survival.

BSA: submitted (“given the hand, allied ourselves”): Giving the hand points to a pledge of loyalty, like sealing a treaty.

See also: Hosea 7:11.

Lamentations 5:7

The people say that earlier generations sinned and are gone, while they carry the consequences. This is a sorrowful observation, not a clean excuse. Sin spreads its effects across generations, and the next verses and verse 16 show they also own their guilt.

BSA: punishment (“iniquities, moral evil”): The word means both the wrongdoing and its weight, so they carry the burden of what was done.

See also: Exodus 20:5; Ezekiel 18:20.

Lamentations 5:8

Those who once held low positions, such as servants of the foreign rulers, now govern God’s people. It is a humiliating reversal. There is no one to break their hold and set Israel free.

BSA: deliver (“rescue, set free”): They long for a rescuer, which only God can finally be.

Lamentations 5:9

Even finding food is dangerous. To gather grain outside the city, people must face raiders in the open country. Staying hungry and going out to find bread are both ways of risking death.

BSA: wilderness (“desert, open field, the midbar”): The open country beyond the city is unprotected, so raiders can strike there.

Lamentations 5:10

Long hunger has made their skin burn and blacken like an oven. The body itself suffers fever and wasting. It is a plain picture of famine’s cost on real people.

BSA: oven (“furnace, place of fire”): Their skin is scorched as if baked by famine’s heat.

Lamentations 5:11

The women of Zion and of Judah’s towns have been violated. The writer says it without detail, for the grief is too heavy. War leaves wounds beyond hunger and loss, and the Bible does not look away from them.

BSA: ravished (“defiled, oppressed”): The women were humbled and violated by the conquerors.

Lamentations 5:12

Leaders were executed or hung up by the enemy’s hands, and the elderly are shown no honor. The community’s order and respect have been broken. Those who ought to be honored are shamed.

BSA: respect (“no honor, no dignity, not honoured”): Honor owed to age and rank has been taken away.

See also: Leviticus 19:32.

Lamentations 5:13

Strong young men are forced to grind grain, a job usually given to women or slaves. Boys collapse under heavy loads of wood. The nation’s youth, its future, is spent on forced labor.

BSA: millstones (“grinding, to crush grain into flour”): Grinding was heavy, menial work normally done by servants.

Lamentations 5:14

The city gate was where elders sat to judge and talk over community life. Now they are gone. The young have also put away their music. The ordinary rhythms of town life have stopped.

BSA: city gate (“place of gathering, entrance to the city”): The gate was the center of justice, business and wisdom, and it is now empty.

See also: Ruth 4:1-2.

Lamentations 5:15

Joy has died inside them, and what used to be a dance is now mourning. Their grief is not just on the outside. It reaches the heart, the center of feeling and will.

BSA: turned (“been overturned, completely changed”): Their dancing was entirely reversed into grief.

See also: Psalm 30:11.

Lamentations 5:16

The crown, the honor and glory of the nation, has fallen. Then comes the key confession: we have sinned. Unlike verse 7, the people now take their own share of blame, which is the start of real repentance.

BSA: sinned (“missed the mark, gone wrong, incurred guilt”): Sin means falling short of God’s target and standing guilty.

Hebrew: חָטָאנוּ (ḥāṭā’nu, H2398) — “we have sinned.” The root is used of an archer missing the target. The people admit they have missed what God set before them.

Lamentations 5:17-18

Their hearts are sick and their eyes dim with weeping over Mount Zion. The place of God’s temple is desolate, and jackals walk where worshipers once gathered. Their deepest grief is for God’s ruined dwelling place.

BSA: faint (“sick, unwell, or weary”): Their sorrow has made them sick at heart. foxes (“jackals, wild mammals”): Wild scavengers wander where the temple once stood, showing how empty it is.

See also: Psalm 79:1.

Lamentations 5:19

Everything turns here. After all the ruin, the prayer looks up to the LORD on His throne. Zion has fallen, but He reigns forever. This is the ground of hope: God’s rule does not depend on Jerusalem standing.

BSA: reign (“remain, abide, sit as King”): God sits as King and stays there, whatever happens on earth. endures (“remains, is established”): His throne stays firm across all generations.

See also: Psalm 102:12; Psalm 145:13.

Lamentations 5:20

Faith asks a hard question honestly. It does not say God has forgotten, but asks why it seems so. The people are bold to bring their fear that His absence has gone on too long. Scripture permits such honest prayer.

BSA: forgotten (“to mislay, be oblivious to”): They fear that God has lost sight of them. forsaken (“abandoned, loosened Your grip on”): It feels as if God has let go of His hold on His people.

See also: Psalm 13:1.

Lamentations 5:21

The real request is that God would bring them back to Himself. They know they cannot return on their own. If He turns them, they will truly turn. They ask for new days like the good days of old, with a restored relationship.

BSA: Restore (“turn, bring back”): The same word means both to turn and to bring back, so the repentance and the rescue are joined. renew (“rebuild, make new”): They ask not for a mere repair but for a fresh start.

Hebrew: הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ (hashivenu, H7725) — “bring us back, turn us.” The root shuv means turn or return, so the prayer asks God to make the turning happen, and then they will return.

See also: Psalm 80:3; Jeremiah 31:18.

Lamentations 5:22

The book ends on an open and unsettled question. Has God rejected them completely? The sentence is left hanging. Yet the prayer of verses 19-21 has already placed their hope in His eternal reign, and many readers see that hope as still alive in the final words.

BSA: rejected (“spurned, cast off”): They fear God might have thrown them away entirely. angry (“furious, wroth”): They feel the full force of His displeasure.

See also: Lamentations 3:31-32; Psalm 94:14.