Lamentations 5:20 is a raw question the writer puts to God: why has he seemed to forget his people for so long? It is not a statement of doctrine but a complaint, spoken in the middle of a national catastrophe after Jerusalem had been destroyed and its people carried into exile. The book of Lamentations is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, and the words are voiced on behalf of the surviving community that remained in the ruined city.
Why do you forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?
Lamentations 5:20 (WEB)
What Lamentations 5:20 Means
The verse opens with “Why,” which signals that this is an accusation wrapped in a question rather than a request for information. The speaker is not asking God to explain himself as a student asks a teacher. He is pressing God to look at the suffering in front of him. The word “forget” describes a sense of absence, as though the covenant relationship has gone silent and the people are no longer in God’s thoughts.
The phrases “forever” and “for so long a time” stretch the complaint across time. The writer is not describing a single bad day. He feels that the trouble has no end in sight and that divine attention has been withdrawn for an unbearably long stretch. That feeling is the heart of the verse.
What the verse does not do is promise anything. It does not say God is about to act, and it does not offer comfort in its own words. It simply names the grief and the question. The answer to that question comes in the verses that follow, where the people ask God to turn them back to himself, but that turn is a prayer, not a guarantee.
The Context of Lamentations 5:20
Lamentations is a set of five poems mourning the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC. Chapter 5 is a communal prayer, and it reads as the people’s voice rather than the poet’s private cry. Just before verse 20, the writer describes the ruined mountain of Zion, now overrun by foxes, and the faintness of heart and dimness of eyes that come from long suffering. The verses leading up to it set a scene of desolation that makes the question feel earned.
Immediately after verse 20, the mood shifts into petition: “Turn us to yourself, the LORD, and we will be turned. Renew our days as of old.” Yet verse 22 returns to lament, saying God has utterly rejected them. Reading verse 20 in this setting shows that the book does not resolve its grief quickly. It holds the question open, which is why the verse remains useful to anyone who feels abandoned.
Key Phrases in Lamentations 5:20
Psalm 13:1-2
1 How long, the LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
(WEB)
This psalm opens with the same kind of question, asking how long God will forget and hide his face. Reading it beside Lamentations 5:20 shows that the cry of “how long” is a recurring pattern in Scripture, a sanctioned way to bring anguish before God.
Lamentations 3:31-32
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever. 32 For though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
(WEB)
Found earlier in the same book, these verses affirm that the Lord does not cast off forever. Read alongside verse 20, they show that the poet’s grief and his hope were held together, offering a fuller picture of how the book answers its own question.
A Short Prayer From Lamentations 5:20
Lord, I bring you the question that is sitting heavy on my heart. It feels as though you have gone quiet, and the waiting has grown long and tired. I do not want to pretend that I am fine when I am not. Teach me to speak honestly to you, even when my words come out as complaints. Remind me that you remain forever, and that you have not forgotten the people who call on your name. Hold me in this season, and turn my heart back toward you. Amen.
