The prophet, representing the city, pleads with God for mercy
5
📚Remember, O LORD,what has come upon us.
Consider,
and look at our disgrace.
2 📚Our inheritance 📖 has been turned
over to foreigners,
our houses to aliens.
3 📚We are orphans and fatherless;
our mothers are widows.
4 📚We have to lay out money for
our drinking water 📖.
Our wood is sold to us.
5 📚Our necks are being pursued.
We labour,
and have no rest.
6 📚We have given our
hand to the Egyptians,
and to the Assyrians,
to be satisfied with bread.
5:6 The leaders of Judah thought that Egypt or Assyria would come to their help in the fight against Babylon (Jer 2:18, 36; Ezek 29:16).⚜
7 📚Our fathers sinned,
and are no more,
and we have borne their evil deeds.
8 📚Servants rule over us.
There is no one to rescue
us out of their hands.
9 📚We get our bread at
the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in
the wilderness.
10 📚Our skin is black as an oven
because of the terrible famine.
11 📚They have ravished the women
in Zion,
and the maidens in the cities
of Judah.
12 📚Princes have been hanged up
by their hands.
The faces of elders have not been
honoured.
13 📚They took the young men to grind,
and the children fell under
the loads of wood.
14 📚The elders have gone
from the gate,
the young men from their music.
15 📚The joy of our heart has ceased.
Our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 📚The crown has fallen
from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
5:8-16 Let us learn this lesson well – sin was the one and only thing that brought cruel enemies to rule over them, that brought danger to life and limb, that brought them into a destitute state, that robbed them of all peace and happiness. The only cause of their pains, troubles, griefs and destruction was sin.⚜
17 📚Because of this our heart is faint.
Because of these things
our eyes are dim;
18 📚Because of Mount Zion,
which is desolate.
The foxes walk on it.
19 📚You, O LORD,
remain forever,
your throne from generation
to generation.
20 📚Why do you forget us permanently,
and forsake us
for such a long time?
21 📚Turn us back to you,
O LORD,
and we will turn back.
Renew our days as of old,
22 📚unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are very angry with us.
5:19-22 The prophet leaves all these matters where they belong – in the hands of the eternal God Who is the Creator and Ruler of the universe. Verse 19 is similar to Ps 102:12. In fact the language of that whole psalm is something like this book of Lamentations.⚜
Jeremiah knows that if God does not turn the people back to Himself then they will not turn to Him. It is God Who enables men to repent and seek Himself (Acts 5:31; 11:18; Rom 2:4; 2 Tim 2:25).⚜