The final verse of the book appears to question God’s relation to his people. If this is not despair, it certainly is not hope. The verse is difficult to interpret, and translations tend to be divided between those like Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, which make questions of each half-line, and those like New English Bible, New International Version, and AB, which translate as statements of some kind.
The basis for the difficulty is the interpretation of the first two Hebrew words ki ʿim, which Revised Standard Version translates as Or. Literally these words, if taken separately, mean “for if,” which is expected to be followed by a condition leading to a consequence. An example is New English Bible, “For if thou hast utterly rejected us, then great indeed has been thy anger against us.” For a similar handling of these introductory words, see Exodus 8.21. This rendering suggests that the poet cannot really accept that God has rejected his people.
Another wording which likewise implies unwillingness to believe that God has abandoned his people is expressed by New Jerusalem Bible, “Unless you have utterly rejected us, in an anger which knows no limit.” Those who defend this wording claim support in Genesis 32.26, in which Jacob says to his adversary “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
AB, which argues against translating as a question (as in Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation), as well as a condition followed by a consequence (as in New English Bible), and against “unless” (New Jerusalem Bible), favors translating as a statement which contrasts or opposes the thought of verse 21: “But instead you have completely rejected us; you have been very angry with us.” This is also a traditional interpretation which is followed by the Vulgate, Luther, and King James Version.
Gordis translates the opening words of the verse as “even though” and refers to Isaiah 10.22 and Amos 5.22 as further examples of the same construction. So he translates verses 21 and 22 as “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.” It may be noted that in the other examples of this construction the “even though” clause comes before the main clause and so differs from this example, where it follows the main clause.
That verse 22 ends on a pessimistic note is confirmed, at least in the Jewish liturgical reading of this book, by the habit of repeating verse 21 after verse 22. New Jerusalem Bible follows this tradition in its text. There is a similar tradition concerning the conclusion of Isaiah, Malachi, and Ecclesiastes.
Many translators will come to their own conclusion regarding the best way to handle this verse. However, the Handbook has attempted to evaluate the choices and accordingly recommends that translators give serious consideration to the interpretation proposed by AB.
We must now consider how best to make this contrastive statement clear in translation. For example, “But instead” (AB) suggests here that God has not done what was requested of him in verse 21; rather he has done something different. Therefore the contrast may have to be made clearer than with “But instead.” For example, we may say “Instead of doing what we have asked, you have completely rejected us…,” or “You have not done what we asked, you have rejected us completely,” or “You have not brought us back to you, instead you have rejected us completely.”
Another solution which may be particularly suitable for some languages is to switch the order of verses 21 and 22, so that the sense is “22 is true, but in spite of 22, 21 is also true.” In this case we are following the order of the Jewish liturgical reading, not for theological reasons but rather for translational reasons. Accordingly we may join these final two verses and number them as 21-22: “Have you rejected us forever, and is there no limit to your anger? In spite of your rejecting us, LORD, we pray that you will take us back again and we will return to you. We pray that you will make us as great as we were in former times.”
In the final half-line exceedingly matches utterly in the first half-line. It may be necessary to supply “and” to create a coordinate thought, “and you have been so very angry with us,” or, as an exclamation, “and how great your anger toward us has been!” In some languages the final half-line will be rendered idiomatically; for example, “and your heart has been hot against us.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on Lamentations. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .