Lamentations 4:18
What does Lamentations 4:18 mean?
A plain-English look at Lamentations 4:18 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Lamentations 4:18 means
The enemy’s net tightens so that no one can move safely in the streets. The people feel their end drawing near, their allotted days fulfilled. This is the language of suffocation and inevitability. It shows how total the siege and subsequent occupation have become: public space is no longer theirs; fear rules every step. The sense of destiny—“our end is come”—acknowledges that behind Babylon’s hunt stands God’s verdict. Despair is not only emotional but theological: they perceive that the time appointed for judgment has arrived, and there is no human way to reverse it.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
KJV
King James Version · 1611They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949They go after our steps so that we may not go in our streets: our end is near, our days are numbered; for our end has come.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862They have hunted our steps from going in our broad-places, Near hath been our end, fulfilled our days, For come hath our end.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Sade. Our steps have slipped in the way of our streets, our end draweth near: our days are fulfilled, for our end is come.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890They hunted our steps, that we could not go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
Context
Verse 18 follows the confession of vain help in verse 17, describing how the enemy’s surveillance and control extinguished any thought of escape. It leads into verse 19, which compares the pursuers to swift eagles and shows that even flight to mountains or wilderness offers no safety. The structure drives home inevitability: after failed alliances, failed streets, and failed flight, verse 20 will show a failed monarchy with the capture of the anointed king. Each step narrows the options until nothing remains but facing the consequences pronounced by God.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- 1 Samuel 24:14
After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea.
- Ezekiel 12:22
Son of man, what is this proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?
- Jeremiah 39:4
And it came to pass that, when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate betwixt the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah.
- Psalms 140:11
An evil speaker shall not be established in the earth: Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.
- Jeremiah 16:16
Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith Jehovah, and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
- Amos 8:2
And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said Jehovah unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
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