Why will You forget us forever? Why do You abandon us for so long?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why do you forget us forever, And forsake us so long time?
- KJV Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, 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?
- 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 13:1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
- Ps 44:24Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
- Jer 14:19–21Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!
- Ps 89:46How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?
- Ps 79:5How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?
- Ps 77:7–10“Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more?
- Ps 94:3–4Yahweh, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?
- Ps 74:1A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
- Ps 85:5Will you be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger to all generations?
- Isa 64:9–12Don’t be furious, Yahweh, and don’t remember iniquity forever. Look and see, we beg you, we are all your people.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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.