Lamentations Chapter 5

The book of Lamentations has seen the writer pouring out his grief over what happened to his people. The judgement of God had been forthcoming and now it has finally arrived and the people had no excuse for it – their lives changed dramatically.

But as we read through the book, we do not see long prayers for God to intervene directly. Instead of the usual plea for God to save the people from this terrible state, what we read in Lamentations is consistently the call out to God to look upon the nation of Judah in her plight.

Why do You forget us forever,
And forsake us for so long a time?
~ Lamentations 5:20 ~

What follows was a bit surprising:

Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored;
Renew our days as of old,
~ Lamentations 5:21 ~

This final plea we see here was not for God to defeat the Babylonians and restore the nation back again. Neither was it a prayer for the temple to be restored again.

Instead, it was a prayer that the people’s relationship with God can be restored. This speaks about the people repenting and returning – which is like repenting of their sins and going back to God.

And if we read vs 21 again, it says that it is God who has the power to return the people to God. Without God, we can never be restored and be as in the days of old.

This is very much something for us to consider and reflect on our own condition. Have we allowed sin to separate us from God and His grace? If so, our relationship with God is broken…. just like the people then.

We have no hope apart from God. So we also need to consider what our relationship is like and pray, “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored.”

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