Lamentations 5

LORD, remember what has happened to us. Look and see how we have been shamed.

1Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.

NoteLamentations mourns the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian army in 586 BC: the city walls broken, the temple burned, and much of the population killed, scattered, or deported. This last chapter is a prayer spoken by the survivors as a group, "we," not "I." It has exactly 22 lines, matching the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but unlike the earlier chapters it does not actually run through those letters in order.

2The land we were meant to pass down has been handed over to strangers. Our houses now belong to foreigners.

2Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

Note"Inheritance" here means a specific thing: the plot of family land that Israelite law treated as permanently belonging to a household and passing down through its sons. It was not supposed to be sellable away from the family for good. Losing it to outsiders meant losing the family's standing and its means of living, not just a piece of property.

3We have become orphans with no father. Our mothers are like widows.

3We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.

NoteIn this society a household without a living father or husband had no legal representative and no one obliged to defend its claims, so "orphans" and "widows" are terms for people left legally exposed as much as emotionally bereaved. "Our mothers are like widows" says the husbands are dead or deported.

4We have to pay money for the water we drink. Even our own firewood is sold to us.

4We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.

NoteWater from your own well and wood from your own land cost nothing. Having to buy both means the survivors no longer control the land they live on, the conquerors do, and charge for its use.

5Those who chase us are right at our necks. We work hard and get no rest.

5Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.

NoteThe Hebrew image is compressed and can be taken two ways: pursuers so close they are breathing on the back of the neck, or a yoke pressing down on the neck like an ox's. Either way it pictures people driven without pause.

6We made deals with Egypt and Assyria just to get enough bread to eat.

6We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

Note"Giving the hand" was a gesture of submission, a formal surrender or pledge of loyalty to a stronger power, made in exchange for food. Assyria's empire had already fallen by this point, so the name is being used the way "Rome" might be used later: the great power of the north and east, whoever currently holds it.

7Our fathers sinned, and they are gone. We are the ones carrying the punishment for what they did.

7Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

NoteThe complaint is about a principle recognized in ancient law and often protested against: that a generation could suffer the consequences of what an earlier generation did. "Are not" is old English for "are no longer alive."

8Slaves rule over us, and no one can free us from their control.

8Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

Note"Servants" translates a word meaning slaves or bondmen. The sting is in the social reversal: the men now giving orders in Judah are the lowest-ranking officials and household slaves of the Babylonian administration, not people of rank.

9We risk our lives to get bread, because of the sword waiting in the open country.

9We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

NoteGoing out to the fields or trade routes for food meant leaving the safety of settlements. With no army and no order left, roving raiders in the open country could kill scavengers freely. "Gat" is old English for "got."

10Our skin is as hot as an oven, burning with fever from the terrible hunger.

10Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

NoteThe King James "black like an oven" follows a Hebrew word meaning scorched or shrivelled; the picture is skin gone dark, hot and taut like a clay oven's wall, from the fever and wasting of prolonged starvation.

11They raped the women in Zion and the young unmarried women in the towns of Judah.

11They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

NoteZion is the hill Jerusalem was built on, used throughout this book as a name for the city itself. Mass rape of the women of a captured town was a routine feature of ancient warfare, and the poem is reporting it, not alluding to it.

12Princes were hung up by their hands. The older leaders were shown no respect.

12Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.

NoteHanging the bodies of captured nobles up in public was a standard act of conquest, the display was the point. The Hebrew can mean hung by their hands or hung by the enemy's hand. "Elders" are not simply old men but the senior heads of families who governed a town; refusing them the customary marks of respect was a deliberate act of humiliation.

13Young men were forced to grind grain at the mill. Boys staggered under heavy loads of wood.

13They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.

NoteGrinding grain at a hand mill was heavy, monotonous work normally done by women or slaves, so putting young men to it was itself a degradation. "Fell under the wood" means boys made to carry loads of firewood too heavy for them.

14The older men no longer sit at the city gate. The young men have stopped their music.

14The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.

NoteThe open space just inside a town's gate was where the elders sat to hear disputes, witness contracts and settle legal cases, the equivalent of the courthouse and the town council. Empty gates mean the community's own government has stopped functioning.

15The joy is gone from our hearts. Our dancing has turned into grief.

15The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

NoteDancing here means public celebration at festivals and harvests, not private entertainment; "mourning" means the formal rituals of grief, with wailing and torn clothes.

16The crown has fallen off our head. How terrible for us, because we have sinned!

16The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!

NoteA crown falling from the head was a stock image for the loss of honor and authority, here, the end of Judah's own kingship, with the last king taken to Babylon in chains.

17Because of this our hearts have gone weak. Because of these things our eyes have grown dim.

17For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

Note"Eyes grown dim" is a Hebrew idiom for eyes exhausted and clouded from weeping, and by extension for a person worn out to the point of collapse.

18It is because Mount Zion lies empty and ruined, with foxes prowling over it.

18Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.

NoteMount Zion carried the temple, the one place where Israel's sacrifices were offered. Wild animals moving freely over a site are a standard biblical picture of a place so ruined that nobody lives there any more. The Hebrew word covers both foxes and jackals.

19But you, LORD, stay forever. Your throne lasts from one generation to the next.

19Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.

Note"Throne" stands for rule itself, as "the crown" can stand for a monarchy in English. The line sets God's unbroken reign directly against the fallen crown of verse 16.

20So why do you forget us forever? Why do you leave us alone all this time?

20Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?

21Turn us back to yourself, LORD, and we will come back. Make our days new, the way they were long ago.

21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.

NoteThe Hebrew uses one verb twice: turn us back, and we will turn back. The same root covers physically returning to a place, returning to a person, and changing one's course of life, and all those senses are live here.

22Unless you have completely rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure.

22But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

NoteThe Hebrew particle that opens this verse can be read two ways, and translators have split over it for centuries: "unless you have utterly rejected us" (leaving the prayer of verse 21 hanging on a condition) or a flat statement, "but you have utterly rejected us." The book ends on that unresolved note. In synagogue reading the custom is to repeat verse 21 after verse 22 so the passage does not close on this line.