What does Lamentations Chapter 5 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Deprivation and mistreatment accompany communal confession. Lost joy and destroyed Sion lead to questions addressed to the Lord. A conversion petition ends beside utter rejection and anger.

Chapter breakdown

Lamentations 5 asks the Lord to remember the people's reproach. Inheritance passes to aliens and houses to strangers; children are fatherless and mothers like widows. Water costs money and wood is bought. People are dragged by the neck, weary without rest, and give their hand to Egypt and the Assyrians for bread. Fathers sinned and are gone, while their descendants bear their iniquities. Servants rule with no redeemer, and bread is obtained at peril from the sword in the desert.

Skin is burnt as an oven through the violence of famine. Women in Sion and virgins in Juda's cities are oppressed. Princes are hanged by the hand and elders denied respect. Young men are abused indecently, and children fall under wood; this edition does not say that the young men grind at mills. Ancients cease from the gates and young men from the choir of singers. Joy ceases, dancing turns to mourning, and the fallen crown prompts confession of sin.

Sad hearts and dim eyes accompany destroyed Sion, where foxes walk. The Lord remains forever and his throne through generations, yet the prayer asks why he forgets and forsakes them so long. It asks conversion and renewed days. The final verse says he has utterly rejected them and is very angry; this ending must remain unresolved rather than be rewritten as accomplished restoration.

The story inside

Opening: Deprivation and mistreatment accompany communal confession. Development: Lost joy and destroyed Sion lead to questions addressed to the Lord. Conclusion: A conversion petition ends beside utter rejection and anger.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Deprivation and mistreatment accompany communal confession.
2
Lost joy and destroyed Sion lead to questions addressed to the Lord.
3
A conversion petition ends beside utter rejection and anger.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 90392–90408
5:1. Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach. 5:2. Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers. 5:3. We are become orphans without a father: our mothers are as widows. 5:4. We have drunk our water for money: we have bought our wood. 5:5. We were dragged by the necks, we were weary and no rest was given us. 5:6. We have given our hand to Egypt, and to the Assyrians, that we might be satisfied with bread. 5:7. Our fathers have sinned, and are not: and we have borne their iniquities.
Lines 90443–90453
5:19. But thou, O Lord, shalt remain for ever, thy throne from generation to generation. 5:20. Why wilt thou forget us for ever? why wilt thou forsake us for a long time? 5:21. Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning. 5:22. But thou hast utterly rejected us, thou art exceedingly angry with us.