Lamentations: Third Kinah – Third Stanza Line 6

“And Zion said: ‘God has forsaken me.” This is based in Isaiah 49:14: I will translate this selection as a conversation: Children of Israel, “Zion says, ‘God has forsaken me, My Master has forgotten me.”
God: “Can a woman forget her baby, or disown the child of her womb? Though she might forget, I never could forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands, your walls ever before Me. Swiftly your children are coming; Those who ravaged and ruined you shall leave you.
Children of Israel, as inferred from the following verses: If You haven’t forgotten me why don’t You save me?
God: “Thus said God, the Lord, ‘I will raise up My hand to nations and lift up My sign to peoples and they shall bring your sons in their bosoms and carry your daughters on their backs. Kings shall tend your children; their queens shall serve you as nurses. They shall bow to you, face to the ground, and lick the dust of your feet.’”
Children of Israel: “Can spoil be taken from a warrior or captives retrieved from a victor?”
God: “Yet thus said God: Captives shall be taken from a warrior and spoil shall be retrieved from a tyrant.”
This selection is one of the seven Haftarot of Consolation. The fact that a conversation takes place teaches us that part of the process of consolation is to be able to raise our questions to God. This is of utmost importance in our times when people have more questions than ever. They must be free to ask whether they have questions of theology, or if they are suffering and want to understand why.