Bible Strands
Lamentations 4:18
They stalked our every step, so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end drew near, our time ran out, for our end had come!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The lamenting community of Jerusalem speaks to God and the surrounding nations during the final days of the Babylonian siege. They describe a moment of total confinement and impending doom after watching their eyes fail while waiting for foreign aid that never arrives.
The words — The Hebrew verb צָד֣וּ (tza.Du) literally means "they hunted" or "they stalked," describing the relentless pursuit that traps the people. The phrase קִצֵּ֛י/נוּ (ki.Tzei./nu) translates to "our end," paired with מָלְא֥וּ יָמֵ֖י/נוּ (mal.'U ya.Mei./nu), meaning "our days were completed."
The thread — This theme of hunted pursuit and finalized judgment appears in Amos 8:2, Ezekiel 7:2, and Psalms 140:11, where divine or hostile forces close in as a fixed deadline arrives. The language of completed days and drawn-near ends marks a theological point of no return across these texts.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that human resistance collapses when divine judgment reaches its appointed limit. It requires the reader to accept that waiting for impossible salvation ends in enforced stillness and irreversible consequence.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.
Cross-references
- Amos 8:2 “Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”
- Psalms 140:11 May no slanderer be established in the land; may calamity hunt down the man of violence.
- Ezekiel 7:2 “O son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
- Jeremiah 16:16 But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.
- Lamentations 3:52 Without cause my enemies hunted me like a bird.
- 1 Samuel 24:14 Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea?
- 2 Kings 25:4 Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,
- Job 10:16 Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me.
- Jeremiah 1:12 “You have observed correctly,” said the LORD, “for I am watching over My word to accomplish it.”
- Jeremiah 39:4 When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.