Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Lamentations 5:21 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 21. 21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse asks the LORD to turn the people so they may return and to renew former days.
Read It With
- Lamentations 5:19-22
Read Lamentations 5:21 with 5:19-22. This verse asks the LORD to turn the people so they may return and to renew former days. The complete unit establishes this movement: The community holds God's eternal rule beside perceived long abandonment, asks God to enable return and renewal, and closes with a stark line that can be read as assertion, condition, or anguished question—without receiving an answer.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The five poems end in prayer and protest rather than narrative recovery, making the reader live with divine rule, accusation, hope, and rejection together. Within that movement, this verse asks the LORD to turn the people so they may return and to renew former days.
Follow the Context
- The LORD's eternal reign and generational throne are confessed.
- The community asks why forgetting and abandonment endure.
- God is asked to turn the people and renew former days.
- The last line voices utter rejection or raises its unbearable possibility under continuing anger.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Turn thou us unto thee”
In plain language: This verse asks the LORD to turn the people so they may return and to renew former days.
Restoration is prayed for as divine enablement, not presumed achievement.
Why it matters: The wording carries textual, theological, ethical, or pastoral risk requiring its complete unit and stated limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not provide a restoration date, guarantee quick recovery, or authorize territorial or political claims.
What Remains True
Restoration is prayed for as divine enablement, not presumed achievement.
How It Can Shape Life
- Pray and work for renewal without promising speed or exact repetition of the past.
Teach It Back
Explain how Lamentations 5:21 contributes to Lamentations 5:19-22. Include the surrounding alphabet stanza, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Lamentations 5:19-22 — Enduring Throne, Restoration Plea, Unresolved RejectionSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Renewal 'as of old' does not specify which past conditions return or how.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed Scripture, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and canonical verse coverage.
Exact location: Lamentations 5:19-22, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Lamentations
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, alphabet sequence, person and number, repeated vocabulary, and translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Lam.xml, OSIS Lam.5.19-Lam.5.22
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Lamentations with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level Hebrew, syntax, textual, acrostic, literary, historical, and translation notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Lamentations PDF, printed pp. 1575-1577, translation and notes on 5:19-22
Open source ↗