Lamentations 3:18
So I say, "My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD."
So I say
This phrase introduces a personal declaration, indicating a moment of introspection and verbal expression of deep emotion. In the Hebrew text, the verb used here is "אמר" (amar), which is often used to denote speaking or saying. This reflects the personal and intimate nature of the lament, as the speaker is not just thinking these thoughts but is compelled to voice them. It underscores the raw honesty and vulnerability in the relationship between the speaker and God.

My strength
The Hebrew word for "strength" here is "עֹז" (oz), which can also mean might or power. In the context of Lamentations, this strength is not merely physical but encompasses emotional and spiritual resilience. The speaker feels utterly depleted, suggesting a profound sense of weakness and inability to continue under the weight of suffering. This reflects the broader theme of human frailty in the face of divine judgment and the need for reliance on God.

has perished
The term "perished" is translated from the Hebrew "אָבַד" (avad), which means to be lost, destroyed, or to vanish. This conveys a sense of finality and hopelessness, as if the speaker's strength has not just diminished but has been completely obliterated. It highlights the depth of despair experienced by the speaker, who feels as though all personal resources have been exhausted.

along with my hope
The word "hope" in Hebrew is "תִּקְוָה" (tikvah), which signifies expectation or something to look forward to. The loss of hope is a central theme in Lamentations, as the people of Jerusalem grapple with the destruction of their city and the perceived absence of God's favor. The coupling of lost strength with lost hope paints a picture of utter desolation, where the future seems bleak and uncertain.

from the LORD
The phrase "from the LORD" is crucial, as it identifies the source of the speaker's hope. The Hebrew name used here is "יְהוָה" (YHWH), the covenant name of God, emphasizing a personal relationship. The lament is not just about personal loss but about a perceived severance from the divine source of strength and hope. This reflects the theological crisis faced by the Israelites, who believed that their covenant relationship with God was the foundation of their identity and security.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Jeremiah
Traditionally attributed as the author of Lamentations, Jeremiah is known as the "weeping prophet." He laments the destruction of Jerusalem and the suffering of his people.

2. Jerusalem
The city that has been destroyed by the Babylonians, leading to the deep sorrow and lament expressed in the book.

3. Babylonian Exile
The event during which the Israelites were taken captive by the Babylonians, marking a period of great despair and loss for the Jewish people.
Teaching Points
Acknowledging Despair
Recognize that feelings of hopelessness are a part of the human experience, even for the faithful. Jeremiah's lament is a candid expression of his emotional state.

The Role of Lament
Lamentations teaches us the importance of bringing our sorrows and complaints before God. It is a form of prayer that acknowledges our dependence on Him.

Hope Beyond Circumstances
While Jeremiah feels his hope has perished, the broader context of Scripture encourages believers to find hope in God's promises, even when circumstances seem dire.

Strength in Weakness
In moments of weakness, believers are reminded that true strength comes from the Lord. This is a call to rely on God's power rather than our own.

Restoration and Renewal
The despair in Lamentations is not the end of the account. God's faithfulness and mercy are new every morning, offering a path to restoration and renewal.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does Jeremiah's expression of despair in Lamentations 3:18 resonate with your own experiences of hopelessness?

2. In what ways can the practice of lament be a healthy part of your spiritual life?

3. How do other scriptures, such as Isaiah 40:31, provide a counterbalance to the despair expressed in Lamentations 3:18?

4. What practical steps can you take to shift your focus from your circumstances to the hope and strength found in God?

5. How can the themes of restoration and renewal in Lamentations encourage you in your current life situation?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Psalm 42
This psalm echoes a similar theme of despair and longing for God, as the psalmist questions why his soul is downcast and yet places hope in God.

Isaiah 40:31
This verse contrasts the despair in Lamentations by promising renewed strength to those who hope in the Lord, highlighting the transformative power of faith.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Paul speaks of not losing heart despite outward troubles, focusing on the eternal glory that outweighs temporary afflictions, offering a New Testament perspective on enduring hope.
The Sum of a Terrible ExperienceD. Young Lamentations 3:18
Ecce HomoJ. Donne, D. D.Lamentations 3:1-21
Punishment Seen in the BodyJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:1-21
The Man that Hath Seen AfflictionW. F. Adeney, M. A.Lamentations 3:1-21
The Personality of SorrowJ. Parker, D. D.Lamentations 3:1-21
The Sinner's HedgesHomilistLamentations 3:1-21
A Stay to the Troubled HeartJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
Deriding the GodlyJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
Filled with SorrowJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
Fruitful MemoriesJ. Parker, D. D.Lamentations 3:14-21
Hopeless SorrowJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
Memory -- the Handmaid of HopeLamentations 3:14-21
Memory in AfflictionJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
The Reason of HopeJ. Parker, D. D.Lamentations 3:14-21
Weighing God's PunishmentsJ. Udall.Lamentations 3:14-21
People
Jeremiah
Places
Zion
Topics
Cut, Expectation, Glory, Hope, Hoped, Perished, Strength
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Lamentations 3:18

     5835   disappointment
     9611   hope, nature of
     9614   hope, results of absence

Lamentations 3:1-20

     5799   bitterness

Lamentations 3:1-26

     5831   depression

Lamentations 3:7-24

     6701   peace, search for

Lamentations 3:13-20

     8722   doubt, nature of

Lamentations 3:16-18

     5916   pessimism

Lamentations 3:16-26

     9250   woe

Lamentations 3:17-20

     8763   forgetting

Library
February the Twenty-Fourth Moving Towards Daybreak
"He hath brought me into darkness, but not into light." --LAMENTATIONS iii. 1-9. But a man may be in darkness, and yet in motion toward the light. I was in the darkness of the subway, and it was close and oppressive, but I was moving toward the light and fragrance of the open country. I entered into a tunnel in the Black Country in England, but the motion was continued, and we emerged amid fields of loveliness. And therefore the great thing to remember is that God's darknesses are not His goals;
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

February the Twenty-Fifth the Fresh Eye
"His compassions fail not: they are new every morning." --LAMENTATIONS iii. 22-33. We have not to live on yesterday's manna; we can gather it fresh to-day. Compassion becomes stale when it becomes thoughtless. It is new thought that keeps our pity strong. If our perception of need can remain vivid, as vivid as though we had never seen it before, our sympathies will never fail. The fresh eye insures the sensitive heart. And our God's compassions are so new because He never becomes accustomed to
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Solitude, Silence, Submission
"He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope."--Lamentations 3:28, 29. THUS the prophet describes the conduct of a person in deep anguish of heart. When he does not know what to do, his soul, as if by instinct, humbles itself. He gets into some secret place, he utters no speech, he gives himself over to moaning and to tears, and then he bows himself lower and yet lower before the Divine Majesty, as if he felt
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 42: 1896

"And we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6.--"And we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Here they join the punishment with the deserving cause, their uncleanness and their iniquities, and so take it upon them, and subscribe to the righteousness of God's dealing. We would say this much in general--First, Nobody needeth to quarrel God for his dealing. He will always be justified when he is judged. If the Lord deal more sharply with you than with others, you may judge there is a difference
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

To the Reader. Christian Reader
To The Reader. Christian Reader, This holy preacher of the gospel had so many convictions upon his spirit of the necessity of the duties of humiliation and mourning, and of people's securing the eternal interest of their souls for the life to come, by flying into Jesus Christ for remission of sins in his blood, that he made these the very scope of his sermons in many public humiliations, as if it had been the one thing which he conceived the Lord was calling for in his days; a clear evidence whereof
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Lord is My Portion. Lam 3:24

John Newton—Olney Hymns

The Disciple, -- what is the Meaning and Purpose of the Cross...
The Disciple,--What is the meaning and purpose of the cross, and why do pain and suffering exist in the world? The Master,--1. The cross is the key to heaven. At the moment when by My baptism I took the cross upon My shoulders for the sake of sinners, heaven was opened, and by means of My thirty-three years bearing of the cross and by death upon it, heaven, which by reason of sin was closed to believers, was for ever opened to them. Now as soon as believers take up their cross and follow Me they
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

How Christ is to be Made Use of as Our Life, in Case of Heartlessness and Fainting through Discouragements.
There is another evil and distemper which believers are subject to, and that is a case of fainting through manifold discouragements, which make them so heartless that they can do nothing; yea, and to sit up, as if they were dead. The question then is, how such a soul shall make use of Christ as in the end it may be freed from that fit of fainting, and win over those discouragements: for satisfaction to which we shall, 1. Name some of those discouragements which occasion this. 2. Show what Christ
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Practice of Piety in Glorifying God in the Time of Sickness, and when Thou Art Called to Die in the Lord.
As soon as thou perceivest thyself to be visited with any sickness, meditate with thyself: 1. That "misery cometh not forth of the dust; neither doth affliction spring out of the earth." Sickness comes not by hap or chance (as the Philistines supposed that their mice and emrods came, 1 Sam. vi. 9), but from man's wickedness, which, as sparkles, breaketh out. "Man suffereth," saith Jeremiah, "for his sins." "Fools," saith David, "by reason of their transgressions, and because of their iniquities,
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

How they are to be Admonished who Lament Sins of Deed, and those who Lament Only Sins of Thought.
(Admonition 30.) Differently to be admonished are those who deplore sins of deed, and those who deplore sins of thought. For those who deplore sins of deed are to be admonished that perfected lamentations should wash out consummated evils, lest they be bound by a greater debt of perpetrated deed than they pay in tears of satisfaction for it. For it is written, He hath given us drink in tears by measure (Ps. lxxix. 6): which means that each person's soul should in its penitence drink the tears
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

From his Entrance on the Ministry in 1815, to his Commission to Reside in Germany in 1820
1815.--After the long season of depression through which John Yeardley passed, as described in the last chapter, the new year of 1815 dawned with brightness upon his mind. He now at length saw his spiritual bonds loosed; and the extracts which follow describe his first offerings in the ministry in a simple and affecting manner. 1 mo. 5.--The subject of the prophet's going down to the potter's house opened so clearly on my mind in meeting this morning that I thought I could almost have publicly
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

Meditations for one that is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:--First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee. 1. Meditate that God uses this chastisement of thy body but as a medicine to cure thy soul, by drawing thee, who art sick in sin, to come by repentance unto Christ, thy physician, to have thy soul healed
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Letter xxvi. (Circa A. D. 1127) to the Same
To the Same He excuses the brevity of his letter on the ground that Lent is a time of silence; and also that on account of his profession and his ignorance he does not dare to assume the function of teaching. 1. You will, perhaps, be angry, or, to speak more gently, will wonder that in place of a longer letter which you had hoped for from me you receive this brief note. But remember what says the wise man, that there is a time for all things under the heaven; both a time to speak and a time to keep
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Of the Character of the Unregenerate.
Ephes. ii. 1, 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion.
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

Question Lxxxii of Devotion
I. Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Meaning of the Term "Devotion" S. Augustine, Confessions, XIII. viii. 2 II. Is Devotion an Act of the Virtue of Religion? III. Is Contemplation, that is Meditation, the Cause of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Causes of Devotion " " On the Devotion of Women IV. Is Joy an Effect of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On Melancholy S. Augustine, Confessions, II. x. I Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? It is by our acts that we merit. But
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

The Mercy of God
The next attribute is God's goodness or mercy. Mercy is the result and effect of God's goodness. Psa 33:5. So then this is the next attribute, God's goodness or mercy. The most learned of the heathens thought they gave their god Jupiter two golden characters when they styled him good and great. Both these meet in God, goodness and greatness, majesty and mercy. God is essentially good in himself and relatively good to us. They are both put together in Psa 119:98. Thou art good, and doest good.' This
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

"Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me," &C.
Matt. xi. 20.--"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," &c. Self love is generally esteemed infamous and contemptible among men. It is of a bad report every where, and indeed as it is taken commonly, there is good reason for it, that it should be hissed out of all societies, if reproaching and speaking evil of it would do it. But to speak the truth, the name is not so fit to express the thing, for that which men call self love, may rather be called self hatred. Nothing is more pernicious to a man's
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"Thou Shall Keep Him in Perfect Peace, Whose Mind is Stayed on Thee, Because He Trusteth in Thee. "
Isaiah xxvi. 3.--"Thou shall keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Christ hath left us his peace, as the great and comprehensive legacy, "My peace I leave you," John xiv. 27. And this was not peace in the world that he enjoyed; you know what his life was, a continual warfare; but a peace above the world, that passeth understanding. "In the world you shall have trouble, but in me you shall have peace," saith Christ,--a peace that shall make trouble
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate,
CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND LARGELY IMPROVED, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL BELIEVERS. 1 John 2:1--"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." By JOHN BUNYAN, Author of "The Pilgrim's Progress." London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1689. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This is one of the most interesting of Bunyan's treatises, to edit which required the Bible at my right hand, and a law dictionary on my left. It was very frequently republished;
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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