Jeremiah 8:18

18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.

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 The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it.
17 See, I am letting snakes loose among you, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the Lord.
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.
19 Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: "Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?" ("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?")
20 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.