Lamentations 3:31 Meaning and Explanation

Here is the promise that anchors all the patient waiting: 'the LORD will not cast off for ever.' The rejection that the city felt so keenly, the sense of being abandoned by God, is real but not final. There is a 'for ever' that God will not allow. However long the night, it will not last forever, for that is not the way of God toward his own.

This is the firm ground beneath verses of submission. The man bows in the dust and offers his cheek not in hopeless resignation but because he knows the casting off is temporary. God's love is too deep and his covenant too sure for the breach to be permanent. The faithful cling to this in their darkest seasons: that no matter how long God seems to have withdrawn, he will not cast off for ever.