Lamentations 5:22

But thou hast utterly rejected us,.... That looks as if they had no hope, and were in despair of having their petitions granted; since God had entirely rejected them from being his people, and would

But thou hast utterly rejected us - rather, 'Unless haply thou hast utterly rejected us, and art beyond measure wroth against us' - i:e., Unless thou art implacable, which is impossible, hear our prayer (Calvin).

Our translators have here so rendered the particle yk that the words seem to express some diffidence in the prophet of God’ s mercy in restoring the people to their former state, some expressions of which nature we find falling from the most eminent servants of God in an hour of great temptation; but where such a sense is not necessary, it is hard to put it upon a text. Some therefore expound Ma yb in this place by But if. Others translate them, Although thou hast, &c. Mr. Calvin preferreth the translation of them by Nisi, Unless thou hast utterly rejected us, and thinks that by this expression the prophet confirmeth himself against temptations of diffidence, because it was impossible God should utterly cast off his people, . Others read it interrogatively, Hast thou utterly rejected us? which doth not suppose that the prophet believed he had, though his present providence showed him very angry with them.

Lamentations 5:22 But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.Ver. 22. But thou hast utterly rejected us.] This is a sad catastrophe, or close of this doleful ditty, Sometimes God’ s suppliants are put hard to it in the course of their prayers; the last grain of their faith and patience seemeth to be put into the scale. When the Son of man cometh with deliverance to his praying people, shall he find faith in the earth? Hard and scarce; and yet he comes oft when they have even done looking for him. He is seen in the mount; he helpeth those that are forsaken of their hopes: hallelujah. Sure it is that God cannot utterly reject his people whom he hath chosen. Tremellius rendereth it - and so the margin of our Bibles hath it, and I think better - For wilt thou utterly reject us, or be extremely wroth with us - scil., supra modulum nostrum - according to thine infinite power, and above all that we are able to bear? I cannot think it, neither doth it consist with thy covenant. Here (as also at the end of Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Malachi) many of the Hebrew Bibles repeat the foregoing verse, Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, &c., yet without points, lest anything should seem added thereby to the holy Scriptures. The reason hereof read in the end of the prophecy of Isaiah. This is also here observed by the most renowned Mr Thomas Gataker, whom, for honour’ s sake, I name, and to whose most accurate and elaborate annotations upon Isaiah and Jeremiah I have been not a little beholden all along. These he finished not long before his death, to the great glory of God and good of his Church. And of him, and this worthy work of his, I may fitly say, as a learned man doth of Magellan of Portugal (that great navigator), that the strait or sea now called by his name - Fretum Magellanicum - una navigatione simul et immortalem gloriam et mortem ei attulerit - was both his death and his never dying monument. “ Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” - Est aposiopesis ad pathos. Boxhorn Histor. Universal.

(22) But thou hast . . .—The Authorised version represents the mourner as falling back from the hopeful prayer into the depths of despair. For “but” we should, however, read unless. The hypothesis of utter rejection is just stated as the only thing that could prevent renewal and restoration, and it is stated as per impossible; God has not rejected, and therefore He will renew. It may be noted that in Synagogue use, and in many MSS., Lamentations 5:21 is repeated after Lamentations 5:22, so that the book may not end with words of so terrible a significance. The same practice obtained in the case of the last verse of Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and Malachi.

Verse 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, unto 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. This last verse is well rendered in the first printed edition of our Bible, 1535: - Renue our daies as in olde tyme, for thou hast now banished us longe ynough, and bene sore displeased at us. My old MS. Bible is not less nervous: Newe thou our dais as fro the begynnyng: bot castand aweie thou put us out: thou wrathedist ugein us hugely. Dr. Blayney translates, "For surely thou hast cast us off altogether:" and adds, "כי ki ought certainly to be rendered as causal; God's having rejected his people, and expressed great indignation against them, being the cause and ground of the preceding application, in which they pray to be restored to his favour, and the enjoyment of their ancient privileges." Pareau thinks no good sense can be made of this place unless we translate interrogatively, as in Jeremiah 14:19: - "Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath thy soul loathed Sion?" On this ground he translates here, An enim prorsus nos rejecisses? Nobis iratus esses usque adeo? "Hast thou indeed utterly cast us off? Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?" Wilt thou extend thy wrath against us so as to show us no more mercy? This agrees well with the state and feelings of the complainants. MASORETIC NOTES Number of verses in this Book, 154. Middle verse, Lamentations 3:34. In one of my oldest MSS., the twenty-first verse is repeated at the conclusion of the twenty-second verse. In another, yet older, there is only the first word of it, השיבנו hashibenu, Convert us! Having given in the preceding preface and notes what I judge necessary to explain the principal difficulties in this very fine and affecting poem, very fitly termed THE LAMENTATIONS, as it justly stands at the head of every composition of the kind, I shall add but a few words, and these shall be by way of recapitulation chiefly. The Hebrews were accustomed to make lamentations or mourning songs upon the death of great men, princes, and heroes, who had distinguished themselves in arms; and upon any occasion of public miseries and calamities.

22. But, etc.] better as mg., Unless thou … and art, etc. The whole sentence is an hypothesis not to be accepted as fact. God’s anger cannot last for ever, and thus there is yet hope. Although the Book does in fact close with the language of hope, that is so little apparent on the first reading that in the synagogues Lamentations 5:21 was repeated at the end, that its words might thus be the last to fall upon the ear. A similar expedient is used in the case of Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Malachi. See note on Jeremiah 52:34.

Literally, “Unless thou hast utterly rejected us,” unless “thou art very wroth against us.” This is stated as a virtual impossibility.