Lamentations 5

The People’s Prayer

The last poem stops describing the city and speaks to the Lord. The people list what has been lost, confess their own sin, and ask Him to turn them back, and the book ends on a line that is not comfort.

Last revised October 6, 2026

Lamentations chaptersChapter 5 of 5

After Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. The chapter gives no date and names no event. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Start reading

Background

Chapter 5 is the shortest and plainest of the five poems. It has twenty-two verses, but they do not run through the Hebrew alphabet: verse 2 begins with the letter nun and verse 6 with mem.

Chapter 5 is the shortest and plainest of the five poems. It has twenty-two verses, but they do not run through the Hebrew alphabet: verse 2 begins with the letter nun and verse 6 with mem. “We” and “us” speak to the Lord from the first verse to the last. The Church’s chapter heading reads “Jeremiah recites in prayer the sorrowful condition of Zion”: the poet prays “in the name of the congregation,” and the people he speaks for are those still living in Judah after the fall (Jer. 39:1–10; Jer. 52:6–11).

The poem records no answer. The whole book “does not contain any responses from the Lord”; it “captures only the suffering and longing that the people felt before the Lord later showed mercy to them.” The request the people make in verse 21 is the one Ephraim makes in Jer. 31:18, and there the Lord’s reply follows (see the note on Lam. 5:21).

The thread through the chapter

The chapter is one prayer, and it moves from description to request. Verse 1 asks the Lord to look.

The chapter is one prayer, and it moves from description to request. Verse 1 asks the Lord to look. Verses 2–16 describe what He will see (land, fathers, water, bread, honor, and music lost, and slaves ruling), in two parts that each close with an admission of sin: the fathers’ in verse 7 and the people’s own in verse 16, “woe unto us, that we have sinned!” The second admission keeps the long list from being read as a claim that the people were innocent. Verses 17–18 gather the grief into one sight, Mount Zion desolate, and so lead into the request.

The request (verses 19–22) starts from what has not been taken: “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever.” From that thought the lament rises to prayer. The people ask why the Lord forgets them (verse 20), ask Him to turn them (verse 21), and stop on a sentence that the King James Version prints as a statement and that others read as a condition or a question (verse 22). No reply follows.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–7

Remember what has come upon us

In plain words

“Remember, Lord, what has happened to us. Look, and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has gone to strangers and our houses to foreigners. We are like orphans without a father, and our mothers are like widows. We must pay for the water we drink, and our own wood comes to us at a price. We are hounded and worn out, and we get no rest. We have held out a hand to Egypt and to Assyria to get enough bread. Our fathers sinned and are gone, and we carry the weight of what they did.”

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

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

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

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

Context #

Paying for their own water and wood

Verses 3 and 4 describe a people who have lost what protected them, and both are better read as pictures of that loss than as reports.

Verses 3 and 4 describe a people who have lost what protected them, and both are better read as pictures of that loss than as reports. “Our mothers are as widows” is a comparison, and the first half of verse 3 is read the same way: the people are as exposed as orphans, and their mothers are “not really widows, but like widows, because they have lost the protection which the mother of a family has in her husband.” The verse does not say that every father had died.

Water and wood are the two things no household can do without. The stress falls on “our water … our wood”: what the people once had freely from their own land they must now pay for, because the country, “with its waters and forests, is in the possession of the enemy.” On this reading the verse speaks of heavy duties laid on the use of the land and not of a market in water; the purchase “can scarcely be taken literally.” That is one commentator’s judgment. The verse itself says only that they pay.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Lamentations, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

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

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

Context #

Egypt and Assyria

To “give the hand” is a sign of submission, and the verse says the people did it to get enough to eat: to stay alive they had to put themselves under a foreign power.

To “give the hand” is a sign of submission, and the verse says the people did it to get enough to eat: to stay alive they had to put themselves under a foreign power. Babylon, not Assyria, was the power that had taken Jerusalem, and the name is read here as the old name of the empire to the east: “Asshur, as the name of the great Asiatic empire, stands for Babylon.” That is a commentator’s reading; the verse says only “the Assyrians.” Jeremiah had named the same pair long before, when the Lord asked Judah what she had to do “in the way of Egypt” or “in the way of Assyria” (Jer. 2:18).

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Lamentations, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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

Related Scriptures #

Whose sin? The fathers’ and the people’s own

Verse 7 blames the fathers, and verse 16 puts the blame on the speakers: “woe unto us, that we have sinned!”

Verse 7 blames the fathers, and verse 16 puts the blame on the speakers: “woe unto us, that we have sinned!” Both stand in the same poem. Other prophets knew the first sentence as a proverb. Jeremiah foretold days when the people would “say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” because “every one shall die for his own iniquity” (Jer. 31:29–30). Ezekiel is more direct: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” (Ezek. 18:20). The proverb there is a complaint (“What mean ye, that ye use this proverb,” Ezek. 18:2), and the Lord answers it.

Read beside those passages, verse 7 is not a claim that this generation was innocent; the confession in verse 16 rules that out. The kingdom did not fall through the guilt of one generation, and what the speakers say is that their misfortune “has not been incurred by ourselves alone, but we are compelled to atone for the sins of our fathers also.” Taken so, the verse agrees with Jeremiah and Ezekiel: “God does not punish the sins of the fathers in innocent children, but in children who continue the sins of the fathers.” That is a commentator’s way of holding the two verses together. The poem itself only sets the two confessions in the same prayer.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Lamentations, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Verses 8–14

Servants rule, and no one delivers

In plain words

“Slaves rule over us, and no one rescues us from them. We bring in our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness. Our skin is black like an oven because of the terrible famine. Women have been raped in Zion and girls in the towns of Judah. Princes have been hung up by the enemy’s hand, and the faces of elders are shown no honor. Young men are made to grind at the mill, and boys fall under loads of wood. The elders no longer sit in the gate and the young men have stopped their music.”

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

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

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

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

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

Context #

What happened to the princes and elders

Verses 11 to 14 tell what people of every station, sex, and age suffered, and verse 12 names the leaders.

Verses 11 to 14 tell what people of every station, sex, and age suffered, and verse 12 names the leaders. “By their hand” is the enemy’s hand: the princes were hung up by their captors. To hang up a man who had been put to death added disgrace to the execution; the law of Moses speaks of one who is put to death, “and thou hang him on a tree” (Deut. 21:22). Jeremiah records one killing of Judah’s leaders: “the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah” at Riblah, after he had slain Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes (Jer. 39:6; see also Jer. 52:10). The verse is probably not limited to that day, since the speakers describe what they are still living under. These are a commentator’s judgments; the verse names no event.

The verses that follow move from the harm done to people to what has stopped. The elders have “ceased from the gate,” and the young men “from their musick” (verse 14); “our dance is turned into mourning” (verse 15).

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

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

Verses 15–18

The crown has fallen

In plain words

“The joy of our heart has stopped, and our dancing has turned to mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned. Because of this our hearts are sick, and because of these things our eyes grow dim: because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate, and the foxes walk on it.”

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

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

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

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

Verses 19–22

Thou, O Lord, remainest

In plain words

“You, Lord, remain for ever, and your throne lasts from one generation to the next. Why do you forget us for ever and leave us for so long? Bring us back to you, Lord, and we will come back. Make our days new as they were long ago. But you have utterly rejected us; you are very angry with us.”

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

Related Scriptures #

The turn in verse 19

Verse 19 turns from what has been lost to what has not: “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.”

Verse 19 turns from what has been lost to what has not: “Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.” Zion’s glory is at an end, but the Lord’s throne is not, and that thought is “the ground of hope” on which the requests of verses 20–22 rest: because He still reigns, the people can ask that He not forsake them for ever. A psalm of the afflicted, whose heading in the Church’s edition says Zion “will be built up,” has nearly the same line: “But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations” (Ps. 102:12).

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

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

Language #

A prayer to be turned back

The people ask the Lord to bring them back to Himself, and they mean more than a journey home.

The people ask the Lord to bring them back to Himself, and they mean more than a journey home. The Hebrew uses one verb twice, hashivenu … v-nashuvah, both forms of shuv (H7725): turn us, and we shall turn. The two forms “signify the re-establishment of the gracious relation, which is, of course, impossible without repentance and conversion on the part of Israel.” The prayer is not for a return to the land, since the people praying are not the exiles, and it comes after the confession of verse 16. The second half of the verse says what kind of return is meant: “renew our days as of old.”

Ephraim makes the same request in Jer. 31:18: “turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.” In the Hebrew the verbs match (hashiveni and v-ashuvah, both from shuv). There the Lord’s reply is recorded: “I do earnestly remember him still… I will surely have mercy upon him” (Jer. 31:20).

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

Language #

How the last verse is read

The King James Version ends the book with a statement, that the Lord has utterly rejected His people, and the Hebrew has been read in two other ways.

The King James Version ends the book with a statement, that the Lord has utterly rejected His people, and the Hebrew has been read in two other ways. The verse begins ki im, which can mean “but” and can also mean “unless.” Read as a condition, the verse finishes the prayer of verse 21: renew our days, “unless Thou hast utterly rejected us.” Recent translations take it so: “unless you have utterly rejected us” (NRSVUE, NIV, ESV), going on “and are angry with us beyond measure” (NRSVUE, NIV) or “and you remain exceedingly angry with us” (ESV). On this reading the case is “merely stated as a possibility, the actual occurrence of which is out of the question.” The verse has also been read as a question, “hast Thou indeed utterly rejected us?” That is the form Jeremiah gave the same thought when he prayed for Judah: “Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion?” (Jer. 14:19).

Many Hebrew manuscripts repeat verse 21 after verse 22 for public reading in the synagogue, “that the poem may not end with the mention of the wrath of God.” That is a custom of reading and not part of the text, and the King James Version does not follow it.

However the line is read, no reply comes after it. The book “captures only the suffering and longing that the people felt before the Lord later showed mercy to them.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Lamentations, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Scripture Helps: Old Testament.

Seeing Christ in Lamentations 5

The LORD whom the people address in this prayer is Jehovah, and “Jehovah is the premortal Jesus Christ.” The people ask Him to remember, to turn them, and to renew their days, and the book does not record His answer. When Ephraim makes the same request in Jer. 31:18, the Lord replies in the first person: “I do earnestly remember him still… I will surely have mercy upon him” (Jer. 31:20). Chapter 5 itself does not say how He will do it.

Worth exploring next

The Lord’s reply to Ephraim’s prayer. Jer. 31:18–20 (“turn thou me”) and the rest of Jer. 30–Jer. 33.
The fathers’ sins and our own. Jer. 31:29–30; Ezek. 18.
The rest of the book. The same city is described in Lam. 1, Lam. 2 and Lam. 4, and one man’s affliction and hope in Lam. 3.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Scripture Helps: Old Testament.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Lamentations, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

I’ve studied Lamentations 5