Remember Our Suffering, O Lord
Study note
The people speak together as one voice, asking God to remember and look at their disgrace. Everything has been taken from them. Their homes belong to strangers. They must pay money for their own water and wood. They have become like orphans. Foreign rulers treat them harshly, and they have no rest. They have been forced to beg Egypt and Assyria just for enough bread to survive. They confess that their ancestors sinned, and now the children are paying the price. Even getting food is dangerous because of enemy soldiers in the countryside.
1 Lord, please remember what has happened to us. Take a good look and see the disgrace we are living in. Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
2 Our homeland has been given away to strangers. Foreigners are living in our houses now. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3 We have become orphans with no fathers to protect us. Our mothers are left alone like widows with nobody to help them. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
4 We have to pay money just to get a drink of our own water. We even have to buy our own firewood. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
5 Our enemies are breathing down our necks, pushing us relentlessly. We are worn out and exhausted, with no chance to rest. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.
6 We stretched out our hands to Egypt and Assyria, begging for help so we could get enough bread to survive. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our ancestors were the ones who sinned, and now they are gone. But we are the ones stuck paying the consequences for what they did. Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
8 People who used to be slaves now rule over us. There is no one at all who can save us from their power. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9 We risk our lives every time we go looking for food. Enemy soldiers with swords are out in the open fields. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin burns like a hot oven because of the raging fevers brought on by starvation. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
The Shame of Defeat
Study note
The poet describes the worst of what the people have suffered under Babylonian rule. Women have been violated. Leaders have been humiliated. Young men are forced into hard labor like grinding grain, and even children stagger under heavy loads of firewood. The elders no longer sit at the city gates to give wisdom and settle disputes. The young people no longer make music. Joy has been replaced by mourning, and the crown of honor has fallen from their heads. Mount Zion, where the temple once stood, is so empty and ruined that wild foxes roam across it.
11 Women have been abused in Zion, and young women have been attacked in the towns of Judah. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
12 Our leaders have been strung up by their hands. Nobody shows the slightest respect for our elderly people. Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.
13 Young men are forced to grind grain like slaves. Boys stumble and fall under loads of firewood that are way too heavy for them. They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.
14 The elders have stopped gathering at the city gate. The young men have stopped playing their music. The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.
15 All the joy in our hearts has vanished. Our happy dancing has turned into deep mourning. The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
16 The crown has been knocked off our heads. What a terrible thing has happened to us -- and it is all because we sinned! The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
17 Because of all these things, our hearts feel sick inside us. Because of what we have seen, our vision has gone dim with grief. For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
18 Mount Zion lies abandoned and in ruins. Foxes wander freely across it with no one to chase them off. Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it.
A Final Plea to God
Study note
The book ends with a declaration that God's throne lasts forever, followed by one of the most honest and heartbreaking questions ever directed at God: Why have you forgotten us for so long? The people beg God to bring them back to himself and restore their former days. The very last verse is painfully honest, wondering if God has completely rejected them and if his anger will never end. Jewish tradition holds that when this book is read aloud in worship, verse 21 is repeated after verse 22 so the reading does not end on a note of despair.
19 But you, Lord, sit on your throne forever. Your rule stretches from one generation to the next without end. Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation.
20 Why have you forgotten about us for so long? Why have you left us on our own for all this time? Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
21 Bring us back to you, Lord, and we will gladly return. Restore our lives to the way things were before. Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
22 Unless you have fully and forever turned away from us, and your anger toward us will never end. But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.