Jeremiah 8:18

18 My 1sorrow is beyond healing, My 2heart is faint within me!

Jeremiah 8:18 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 8:18

When I would comfort myself against terror
Either naturally, by eating and drinking, the necessary and lawful means of refreshment; or spiritually, by reading the word of God, and looking over the promises in it: my heart is faint in me;
at the consideration of the calamities which were coming upon his people, and which were made known to him by a spirit of prophecy, of which he had no room to doubt. So the Targum takes them to be the words of the prophet, paraphrasing them,

``for them, saith the prophet, my heart grieves.''

Jeremiah 8:18 In-Context

16 From Dan is heard the snorting of his horses; At the sound of the neighing of his stallions The whole land quakes; For they come and devour the land and its fullness, The city and its inhabitants.
17 "For behold, I am sending serpents against you, Adders, for which there is no charm, And they will bite you," declares the LORD .
18 My sorrow is beyond healing, My heart is faint within me!
19 Behold, listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not within her?" "Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign idols?"
20 "Harvest is past, summer is ended, And we are not saved."

Cross References 2

  • 1. Isaiah 22:4; Lamentations 1:16, 17
  • 2. Jeremiah 23:9; Lamentations 5:17

Footnotes 1

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California.  All rights reserved.