Simply Red's song 'Holding Back the Years' has a seemingly positive chorus- 'I'll keep holding on'- but in the context of the whole song, it is more melancholy, as the mood of the song suggests:
Holding back the years,
Thinking of the fear I've had for so long.
When somebody hears,
Listen to the fear that's gone.
...
Chance for me to escape from all I know.
Holding back the tears.
There's nothing here has grown.
I've wasted all my tears,
Wasted all those years.
Nothing had the chance to be good,
Nothing ever could, yeah.
I'll keep holding on.'
The song has a poignant message of fear, sadness and waste, but a stoical resilience despite these things. Reading the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, and it's easy to apply these same sentiments to God's relationship with Israel. He led them out of slavery in Egypt, to the borders of the promised land, and they did not have enough faith to claim it. So He led them around the wilderness for forty years, during which they repeatedly rebelled against Him. Moses' speeches in Deuteronomy show a nation poised to enter the promised land, finally, and he exhorts them to love and obey God so that they live and prosper.
But the message Deuteronomy gives is not of a rather helpless God, who stands in the background moping and regretting all those 'wasted' years. Rather, the God of the Pentateuch is a God of power, might and control. God hardened Pharoah's heart so that He could display magnificent signs and wonders to release Israel from Egypt. God wanted to test and humble Israel in the desert for forty years so that His mighty provision (manna from heaven, water from the rock) could be displayed, and they would become totally dependent on Him.
It was, indeed, a tragedy that the people so easily forgot God's goodness to them. It was a terrible thing that they slipped into idolatry and ended up being scattered and sent into exile. But none of this took God by surprise. He already had planned to send His Son Jesus, to live the perfect life that none of us, not even the Israelites who saw the plagues and the Red Sea parted and manna from heaven, could live. Jesus always obeyed God, and only His death on the cross can pay for our sins.
You see, none of God's punishments upon Israel (in the wilderness or the exile) signified Him giving up on them. He does 'keep holding on' to His people, remaining faithful to His promises. But the message of the Old Testament is that WE need to keep holding on to God, and stay faithful and obedient to Him- otherwise we'll find ourselves in a spiritual wasteland.
