Lamentations 5:1-11

A Prayer for Mercy

1 Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; Look, and see our ¹reproach!

2 Our inheritance has been turned over to ²strangers, Our ³houses to aliens.

3 We have become orphans ⁴without a father, Our mothers are like widows.

4 We have to pay for our drinking ⁵water, Our wood comes to us at a price.

5 Our pursuers are at our necks; We are worn out, there is ⁶no rest for us.

6 We have submitted * to ⁷Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

7 Our ⁸fathers sinned, and are no more; It is we who have borne their iniquities.

8 ⁹Slaves rule over us; There is ¹⁰no one to deliver us from their hand.

9 We get our bread at the ¹¹risk of our lives Because * of the sword in the wilderness.

10 Our skin has become as ¹²hot as an oven, Because * of the burning heat of famine.

11 They ravished the ¹³women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah.

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Lamentations 5:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LAMENTATIONS 5

In this chapter are reckoned up the various calamities and distresses of the Jews in Babylon, which the Lord is desired to remember and consider, La 5:1-16; their great concern for the desolation of the temple in particular is expressed, La 5:17,18; and the chapter is concluded with a prayer that God would show favour to them, and turn them to him, and renew their prosperity as of old, though he had rejected them, and been wroth with them, La 5:19-22.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 13

1. Psalms 44:13-16
2. Isaiah 1:7; Hosea 8:7, 8
3. Zephaniah 1:13
4. Exodus 22:24; Jeremiah 15:8; Jeremiah 18:21
5. Isaiah 3:1
6. Nehemiah 9:36, 37
7. Hosea 9:3; Hosea 12:1
8. Jeremiah 14:20; Jeremiah 16:12
9. Nehemiah 5:15
10. Psalms 7:2; Zechariah 11:6
11. Jeremiah 40:9-12
12. Job 30:30; Lamentations 4:8
13. Isaiah 13:16; Zechariah 14:2

Footnotes 7

[a]. Lit "We drink our water for silver"
[b]. Lit "We have been pursued upon"
[c]. Lit "given the hand to"
[d]. Lit "to be satisfied with"
[e]. Lit "with our soul"
[f]. Or "In the face of"
[g]. Or "the ravages of hunger"