What Does Lamentations 5:22 Mean?
But you have pushed us away completely; you have raged against us beyond measure.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.THE KEY
The Hebrew can leave this as a question, “unless you have utterly rejected us?”, so what sounds like a final verdict remains a plea addressed to God.
THE MEANING
When rejection feels total now, the accusation is spoken directly to God, without disguise. Hebrew doubles “reject” for force, yet its opening can also leave the sentence hanging as “unless you have utterly rejected us...?” The verse holds the fear as a question within direct address, rather than resolving it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that accusation means the conversation with God has ended: the accusation itself is addressed to God.
THE ROOT
מָאֹס מְאַסְתָּנוּ
māʾōs məʾastānū
GROWS FROM
מ־א־ס
Reject, refuse, or regard with contempt.
“pushed us away completely” in this verse is māʾōs məʾastānū. The Hebrew places two forms of the same root together: literally, “rejecting, you have rejected us.” The repetition presses the fear to its limit, while the verse’s question-shaped ending keeps that fear in the form of a plea.
ALSO GROWS
māʾōs: To reject; rejection, as an infinitive absolute.
מָאֹס
This form repeats the action before the verb, giving the phrase its emphatic force.
məʾastānū: You rejected us.
מְאַסְתָּנוּ
The same root becomes a direct accusation addressed to God; the two forms expose the repetition hidden by “utterly.”
קָצַפְתָּ
qāṣap̄tā
GROWS FROM
ק־צ־ף
Be angry or indignant; anger, wrath.
“raged against” in this verse is qāṣap̄tā. The verse names both rejection and anger, giving the speaker’s sense of being cast away its full force. The anger is described as being “against us,” so this is a cry about felt opposition, not a softened account of distress.
ALSO GROWS
qāṣap̄: To be angry or indignant.
קָצַף
This verb names the anger directly in the verse.
qeṣep̄: Anger or wrath.
קֶצֶף
The related noun makes clear that the verb belongs to a word family for anger, not merely a passing mood.
THE PATTERN
Lament speaks the felt absence straight to God without requiring the speaker to resolve it first.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?O LORD, how long shall I cry out, and you will not hear and respond? I cry out to you of violence, and you will not deliver.And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why have you left me behind?THE THREAD
But you have cast off and spurned; you have overflowed against your anointed one.“Abhorred” here is וַתִּמְאָס (vattimʾās, “you rejected”), from the same root מ־א־ס (m-ʾ-s) as “utterly rejected” in Lamentations. Psalm 89 places that rejection beside anger too, making the shared language of lament audible across both verses.
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