Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5:1

VII. THE REMNANT APPEALS TO GOD FOR MERCY AND RESTORATION (Chap. 5)5:1-14 In these verses, the people bewail the terrible conditions that have come upon themthe high cost of necessities (v. 4); the forced labor (v. 5); the oppression (v. 8); the famine and danger (vv. 9, 10); the atrocities committed against maidens, princes, and elders (vv. 11, 12); hardships for young men, boys, and elders (vv. 13, 14). 5:15-18 Because of all these horrors Judah’s joy had ceased, her dance had become mourning, the crown had fallen from her head, and Mount Zion lay desolate. The reason for it all is confessed: “Woe to us, for we have sinned!“5:19-22 Finally the people ask the LORD to turn them back to Himself so they can be restored and renewed. It is interesting that in many Hebrew manuscripts, verse 21 is repeated after verse 22, apparently so that the book will end with a note of hope rather than gloom. Actually, as Keil notes, a right understanding of verse 22 makes such a repetition unnecessary: This conclusion entirely agrees with the character of the Lamentations, in which complaint and supplication should continue to the end,not, however, without an element of hope, although the latter may not rise to the heights of joyful victory, but, as Gerlach expresses himself, “merely glimmers from afar, like the morning star through the clouds, which does not indeed itself dispel the shadows of the night, though it announces that the rising of the sun is near, and that it shall obtain the victory.”