Lamentations Chapter 5 — A Prayer for Restoration
The people of Jerusalem lift a final prayer to God, detailing their suffering and losses while pleading for restoration and renewal.
1Remember, LORD, what has come on us.
2Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
3We are orphans and fatherless.
4We must pay for water to drink.
5Our pursuers are on our necks.
6We have given our hands to the Egyptians,
7Our fathers sinned, and are no more.
8Servants rule over us.
9We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
10Our skin is black like an oven,
11They ravished the women in Zion,
12Princes were hanged up by their hands.
13The young men carry millstones.
14The elders have ceased from the gate,
15The joy of our heart has ceased.
16The crown has fallen from our head.
17For this our heart is faint.
18for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate.
19You, LORD, remain forever.
20Why do you forget us forever,
21Turn us to yourself, LORD, and we will be turned.
22But you have utterly rejected us.
WEB Translation
Notable Verses
Lamentations 5:19
“You, LORD, remain forever. Your throne is from generation to generation.”
This verse acknowledges God's eternal authority and stability even in the midst of national ruin.
Lamentations 5:21
“Turn us to yourself, LORD, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old.”
This is the climactic plea of the book, asking for a restored relationship with God and a return to their former state.
Chapter Summary
Lamentations 5 serves as a concluding prayer for the people of Judah following the destruction of Jerusalem. Unlike the preceding acrostic poems, this chapter is a communal lament. The speaker asks God to remember their plight, describing how their inheritance has been lost to strangers and their families broken. The text details severe economic hardship, where even water must be bought and bread is obtained at the risk of life. Social order has collapsed, with servants ruling over the people and elders absent from the gate. Despite this devastation, the prayer shifts focus in the final verses to God's eternal sovereignty. The people acknowledge that while they feel rejected, their only hope lies in God turning them back to Himself and renewing their former days. It concludes the book with a somber yet focused plea for divine intervention and national recovery.
Frequently Asked Questions
While the first four chapters are acrostic poems, Chapter 5 is a communal prayer that does not follow an alphabetic structure. It shifts from poetic descriptions of grief to a direct, collective plea for God to remember the suffering of the whole nation.
The people ask God to remember their situation and turn them back to Himself. They seek a restoration of their relationship with God and a renewal of their lives to how they were in the past, acknowledging that only He has the power to change their circumstances.
The text describes orphans, heavy labor, famine, and the loss of land to foreigners. It highlights that the joy of their hearts has ceased and the crown has fallen from their heads, symbolizing lost status and dignity under the rule of their captors.
Study Note
Unlike the first four chapters of Lamentations, Chapter 5 is not an alphabetic acrostic, though it contains exactly 22 verses, matching the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
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