The suggestion that God can forget someone or something sounds strange. After all, the world exists only through God's will; whatever God does not remember, whatever He does not know about, simply does not exist — for being belongs to Him alone, and only He exists...
The suggestion that God can forget someone or something sounds strange. After all, the world exists only through God's will; whatever God does not remember, whatever He does not know about, simply does not exist — for being belongs to Him alone, and only He exists truly and fully, while everything else exists insofar as He wills it to exist. But there are different ways of knowing. We too, after all, recall only what we already remember, what we already know. Recollection is not the emergence of new knowledge, but the bringing of existing knowledge to mind.
Yet to recall something, we need to concentrate our attention on what we are trying to recall. God too can know and remember different things in different ways. Of course, He is not a human being; His consciousness and self-awareness exist differently from ours, and we cannot fully understand how. Yet, it seems, God too can remember someone or something — in the sense of the attention that He, like a human being, can direct wherever He chooses.
God knows everything, but in different ways. He may know only that someone or something exists — and that knowledge of His is enough for that person or thing to exist. But it by no means follows that someone or something that exists will necessarily exist or act in accordance with His will and His plans, or that events will unfold accordingly. Human beings are free, and freedom has a reverse side: it can always be used to oppose God, to resist His will.
In that case God turns away; He does not take part in what does not accord with His plans. He leaves those who oppose Him their existence, but “forgets” them, allowing events to unfold as directed by their will, which opposes His own. And for God to “remember”, to enter the life of a person or an entire people, to intervene in a situation and make His will manifest in it, we must turn to Him and ask Him to do so. For human beings are free, and God will not force His way into their lives without their consent. How to use that freedom is something each person decides for themselves.
5 An humble prayer, presenting to the Lord their great misery, Lam 5:1-15.
Confessing their sins, Lam 5:16-18.
Imploring deliverance, Lam 5:19-22.
5:3 We - We are all of us without a king, (our common father) we are deprived of thy fatherly protection, and many young children among us are left without an earthly parent.
5:4 Sold - Whereas at other times there was abundance of wood and water throughout Judea.
5:6 We - The ten tribes were all carried captives into Assyria, and many of the kingdom of Judah fled into Egypt.Giving the hand may signify labouring for them: or, yielding up themselves to their power.
5:7 Their iniquities - The punishment of them.
5:9 The sword - The enemies lay encamped in all the plains, so that they could stir out no way but the sword of the Chaldeans was upon them.
5:13 Fell - Not being able to stand under the burdens laid upon them.
5:16 The crown - All our honour, splendor and dignity.
5:19 Thy throne - Altho' for our sins thou sufferest our throne to be cast down, yet thou art the same, thy power is not diminished, nor thy goodness abated.
5:21 Renew - Restore us to our former estate.