Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why do you forget us forever, And forsake us so long time?
- BSB Why have You forgotten us forever? Why have You forsaken us for so long?
- NKJV Why do You forget us forever, And forsake us for so long a time?
- NASB Why will You forget us forever? Why do You abandon us for so long?
- NLT Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The people cry out, asking why God seems to have forgotten and forsaken them so long. It is the anguished question of faith feeling abandoned.
Overview
Having confessed God's eternal reign, the poet wrestles with the felt absence of that God who seems to have left them for so long. This is the honest lament of faith—not denying God but pressing Him with painful questions. Such cries find their deepest echo at the cross, where Christ Himself bore the cry of forsakenness so that we need never be ultimately abandoned (Matthew 27:46).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 13:1How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
- Ps 44:24Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
- Jer 14:19–21Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!
- Ps 89:46How long, LORD? wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire?
- Ps 79:5How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?
- Ps 77:7–10Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
- Ps 94:3–4LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
- Ps 74:1O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
- Ps 85:5Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
- Isa 64:9–12Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 5:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.