Jeremiah 8:18

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me;^[a] ¹my heart is sick within me.

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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.''

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

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 dwell in it.

17 For behold, I am sending among you serpents, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you," declares the LORD.

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

19 Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from the length and breadth of the land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?" "Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images and with their foreign idols?"

20 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

Cross References 1

1. Isaiah 1:5; Lamentations 1:13, 22; Lamentations 5:17

Footnotes 1

[a]. Compare Septuagint; the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.