Mazmur 42:10

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ¹ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ² 

Ratapan 5:20

5:20 Why do you keep on forgetting ³  us?

Why do you forsake us so long?

[42:10]  ¹ tc Heb “with a shattering in my bones my enemies taunt me.” A few medieval Hebrew mss and Symmachus’ Greek version read “like” instead of “with.”

[42:10]  ² sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[5:20]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb “forget” often means “to not pay attention to, ignore,” just as the Hebrew “remember” often means “to consider, attend to.”

[5:20]  sn The verbs “to forget” and “to remember” are often used figuratively in scripture when God is the subject, particularly in contexts of judgment (God forgets his people) and restoration of blessing (God remembers his people). In this case, the verb “to forget” functions as a hypocatastasis (implied comparison), drawing a comparison between God’s judgment and rejection of Jerusalem to a person forgetting that Jerusalem even exists. God’s judgment of Jerusalem was so intense and enduring that it seemed as though he had forgotten her. The synonymous parallelism makes this clear.