SOURCE: “The Conclusion of the Book of Lamentations (5:22),” in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 93, No. 2, June, 1974, pp. 289-93.

[In the following essay, Gordis considers and rejects assorted approaches to the problematic closing verse in Lamentations and offers his own interpretation based on a different reading of the syntactic structure employed.]

The closing verse in Lamentations is crucial for the meaning and spirit of the entire poem.¹ In spite of the simplicity of its style and the familiarity of its vocabulary, it has long been a crux. After the plea in vs. 21, “Turn us to yourself and we will return, renew our days as of old,” vs. 22 … seems hardly appropriate, particularly as the conclusion of the prayer.

(1) The extent of the difficulties posed by the verse may perhaps be gauged by the desperate expedient adopted, e.g., in the (1917) JPSV, of virtually inserting a negative into the text, thus diametrically reversing its meaning: “Thou canst not have utterly rejected us, and be exceeding wroth against us.”

A variety of other interpretations have been proposed, all of which suffer from grave drawbacks:

(2) To treat the verse as an interrogative: “Or have you rejected us, are you exceedingly angry with us?”² There is, however, no evidence for rendering kî’ im as “or,” whether interrogatively or otherwise, and this interpretation has found few modern defenders.

(3) To delete ’im on the grounds that it is not expressed by the LXX or the Peš and is missing in six medieval Hebrew MSS. The verse is then rendered: “For you have indeed rejected us, etc.” It is probable that the ancient versions, endeavoring to make sense of a difficult phrase, rendered it ad sensum. As Hillers notes, the MT is to be preferred as the lectio difficilior. Moreover, the idea remains inappropriate at the end of a penitential prayer for forgiveness and restoration.

(4) A better approach is to treat the verse as a conditional sentence: “If you should reject us, you would be too angry against us,”³ or “If thou hast utterly rejected us, then great has been thy anger against us.”⁴ Actually, there is no true conditional sentence here, stich b being completely parallel to stich a, and adding nothing new to the thought.⁵ In addition, the difficulty mentioned above inheres in this view as well—it offers a very unsatisfactory conclusion to a penitential poem.

(5) To understand the ki’ im as “unless,” on the basis of such passages as Gen 32:27, … “I shall not let you go unless you bless me,” and to render this passage, “Turn us to yourself … unless you have despised us,” i.e., completely rejected us.⁶ But as Albrektson points out, in all such instances ki’ im is used only after a clause containing or implying a negative. The syntactic difficulty aside, the problem of meaning remains: a plea for divine favor is logically and psychologically incompatible with the idea of a possible total rejection by God. A despairing Job may contemplate the possibility of complete alienation from God; a psalmist, however harried and embittered by misfortune, has not surrendered the hope of succor and restoration.

(6) Having rejected all other interpretations, Hillers finds “one remaining possibility—to render the verse adversatively, “But instead you have utterly rejected us, you have been very angry with us.”⁷ He seeks to buttress this view by three lines of argument:

(a) This interpretation is supported by Jewish liturgical practice, which ordains that in the synagogue reading of the closing sections of Isaiah, Malachi, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations the last verse of the text is not to be the conclusion, by having the penultimate sentence repeated, so as not to end with “a somber verse.”⁸

But even if the synagogue usage be allowed as evidence, it offers no proof for this interpretation. In each of these instances, the reason for not concluding with the final verse is not “the somber verse,” but the negative character of the closing phrase. In Isa 66:24, the prophet describes the utter destruction and degradation of the wicked. Malachi 3:24 foretells the restoration of unity between parents and children. Eccl 12:12 declares that God will judge all men's actions. None of these ideas are felt to be negative either in biblical or post-biblical thought. They all deal with manifestations of God's power and justice. What the ancient reader found unpalatable and, therefore, sought to avoid ending with was an unpleasant phrase, “a stench to all flesh,” “I shall smite the land in total destruction,” “upon every deed, good or evil.” Similarly in this passage, the closing phrase, “you have been very angry with us,” is the reason for the synagogue practice. Hence nothing can be inferred with regard to the specific meaning assigned to the verse as a whole or to the conjunction and to stich a in particular.

(b) In further justification of this rendering, Hillers declares that “other laments similarly end on a low key, e.g., Jer 14:9; Ps 88, 89.” However, the description of the passage as being “in a low key,” would seem to be an understatement. If it is, as Hillers avers, a statement of present realities, it is strongly negative.

Nor can these other passages cited be adduced in favor of this view. Jer 14:9, far from ending on a low key, has a highly appropriate conclusion, paralleling vs. 21 in this chapter. It is a passionate plea for God's help: “Your name is called upon us, do not forsake us!”

In Psalm 89, the plea is expressed in vs. 51a, while vs. 52 is a subordinate clause, giving the grounds for the urgency of the appeal:

Remember, O Lord, how thy servant is scorned
                                        How I bear in my bosom the insults of the people
with which thine enemies taunt, O Lord,
                                        with which they mock the footsteps of thy anointed.(9)

Of the three passages adduced, Psalm 88 does, indeed, end upon a negative note. It seems clear, however, that the surviving text is incomplete and that we have only part of a description of the poet's estrangement and isolation from his fellows. The theme is very similar to that of Job 19:13-19. The conclusion to Psalm 88 can scarcely be described as a satisfactory close to the poem on any count.¹⁰

(c) Hillers explains that the verse “merely restates the present fact: Israel does stand under God's severe judgment.” However, the alleged matter-of-fact statement contradicts the cry of vs. 20: “Why have you forsaken us so long?” and is totally incompatible with the plea of vs. 22, “Turn us back to you, etc.”¹¹

In sum, this interpretation, like those cited above, offers what must be described as an inappropriate conclusion to the poem.

I would venture to propose another approach. As we have noted above, Psalm 89 ends with a plea extending over two verses, the petition being expressed by a main clause containing the petition (vs. 51), while the supporting grounds or circumstances are presented in a following subordinate clause (vs. 52). The passage in Lamentations exhibits the same syntactic structure, the plea being expressed by the main clause (vs. 21), and the circumstances surrounding the petition being contained in a subordinate clause (vs. 22).

The problem here has been the precise meaning of the conjunction. I believe that in this passage ki’ im is to be rendered “even if, although.” This dual conjunction is used widely and rather loosely in biblical Hebrew in a variety of meanings listed in the lexicons. However, in several instances, the conjunction is best rendered “even if, although.”¹² That this meaning has not been clearly recognized is due to the difficult passages in which it occurs:

Jer 51:14: … “though I have filled you with men like the locust (i.e., increased your population), yet they (i.e., your assailants) lift up their shout against you.”¹³

Isa 10:22: … “even if your people, O Israel, will be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return.”¹⁴

Amos 5:22: … “even if you offer up to me your holocausts and gift offerings, I will not accept them.”¹⁵

This meaning is highly appropriate in Lam 3:32 as well: …“though he has afflicted, he will have pity according to his great mercies.”

The meaning “although, even though” which we have postulated for the double conjunction may be the result of a transposition, kî’ im = ’im kî. We may cite as an analogy the use of kî gam which has the meaning “although” in Eccl 4:14: 8:12, 16. This usage, characteristic of Qoheleth, is equivalent to gam kî, “even if, although” (Isa 1:15; Hos 8:10; 9:16; Ps 23:4), and likewise introduces a subordinate clause.¹⁶

A syntactic change in the use of the conjunction “although” appears to have developed in the post-exilic period. In the pre-exilic usage, the subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction precedes the main clause (kî’ im, Amos 5:22; Isa 10:22; Jer 51:14; gam kî, Hos 8:10; 9:16; so also Ps 23:4; Prov 22:6). Though post-exilic writers continue this sequence (Lam 3:8, 32), they nevertheless feel free to vary it by having the main clause precede the subordinate clause (kî’ im in this passage; kî gam in Eccl 4:14; 8:12, 16). Obviously, from the standpoint of logic, either sequence of clauses is entirely proper.¹⁷

It remains to add that the verbs in this passage are to be understood as pluperfects.¹⁸ We now have a vigorous, clear, and appropriate conclusion to the penitential prayer in the last three verses of Lamentations:

Why do you neglect us eternally,
          forsake us for so long?
Turn us to yourself, O Lord, and we shall return;
          renew our days as of old,
even though you had despised us greatly
          and were very angry with us.

Notes

1. As recognized by D. R. Hillers, Lamentations (AB 7A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1973) 100.

2. So RSV: “Why dost thou forget us for ever, why dost thou so long forsake us?”

3. So Ehrlich, Randglossen zür hebräischen Bibel (Leipzing: Hinrichs, 1914), 7. 854; T. Meek, IB (Nashville: Abingdon, 1956), 6. 38.

4. So NEB.

5. The verbs in both stichs are virtually synonymous, and the infinitive absolute construction in stich a parallels ‘ad m^eōd’ in stich b.

6. So W. Rudolph, “Der Text der Klagelieder,” ZAW 51 (1933) 120.

7. AB, following the Vulgate, Luther, AV and P. Volz (TLZ 22 [1940] 82-83).

8. AB, 101.

9. So RSV.

10. It is, of course, possible to assume that this poem is also incomplete, but this approach is a procedure to be adopted only when no other is available, and Hillers properly does not include this view among the possible options. In addition, virtually all scholars are agreed that the existence of 22 verses in the chapter, identical with the number of letters in the alphabet, is not accidental; it represents a variant of the acrostic pattern characteristic of chs. 1-4.

11. As Rudolph correctly points out.

12. Cf. BDB, s.v., 474-75; KB, 431.

13. See BDB, 475a, who cite Ewald, Keil, Cheyne; so also W. Rudolph, Jeremia (HAT; Tübingen: Mohr, 1947), 266. Other commentators render the clause, “I will surely fill them with assailants” (Hitzig, RSV), but this requires construing millē’tik as a perfect of certitude, which appears awakward in this context. Hence NEB follows the view we have adopted, rendering freely, “Once I filled you with men, countless as locusts, yet a song of triumph shall be chanted over you.”

14. The rendering kî as “for” disguises, but does not obviate, the difficulty involved in treating vs. 22 as the reason for vs. 21. Actually, the second verse offers no reason for the first; it expresses the same idea as the first, but with greater emphasis.

15. Here, too, kî does not introduce the reasons for vs. 21.

16. For a discussion of these passages in Ecclesiastes, see R. Gordis, Koheleth—The Man and His World (3rd ed.; New York: Schocken, 1968), 244, 297-98. There is virtually complete agreement on the meaning of kî gam in 4:14; on 8:12, see BDB, 169, s.v. § 6. We believe this meaning for the double conjunction most appropriate in all three passages.

17. It may be added that in medieval Hebrew, w^e’im is frequently used in the sense, “although, even if.” Thus in B^erah Dōdî, the G^e’ûlāh piyyût recited on the Second Day (as well as the other days) of Passover, the usage occurs no less than nine times in the meaning “though,” e.g., b^erah dôdî’ el mâkôn l^ešibtāk w^e’im ‘ābarnû ’et b^erîtāk, ’ānā z^ekōr, “Fly, my beloved, to your established dwelling and though we have transgressed your convenant, remember, pray, etc.” (Sabbath & Festival Prayer Book [New York: Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue, 1946], 182-83).

18. Cf. S. R. Driver, Hebrew Tenses (Oxford: Clarendon, 1892), 22: “The perfect is used where we should employ by preference the pluperfect, i.e., in cases where it is desired to bring two actions in the past into a special relation with each other, and to indicate that the action described by the pluperfect was completed before the other took place. The function of the pluperfect is thus to throw two events into their proper perspective as regards each other; but the tense is to some extent a superfluous one—it is an elegance for which Hebrew possesses no distinct form, and which even in Greek, as is well known, both classical and Hellenistic is constantly replaced by the simple aorist.”