All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.
Parallel translations
- WEB Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help: In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.
- KJV As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.
- NKJV Still our eyes failed us, Watching vainly for our help; In our watching we watched For a nation that could not save us.
- NASB Yet our eyes failed, Looking for help was useless; At our observation point we have watched For a nation that could not save.
- NLT We looked in vain for our allies to come and save us, but we were looking to nations that could not help us.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They wore out their eyes watching in vain for help from a nation that could not save them.
Overview
Judah looked for rescue, likely to Egypt, but no foreign ally could deliver them. Their hope in human power proved empty. The verse exposes the folly of trusting in nations rather than God and turns the heart toward the only sure Deliverer, the Lord and His Christ (Ps. 146:3; Isa. 31:1).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ezek 29:16Egypt will never again be an object of trust for the house of Israel, but will remind them of their iniquity in turning to the Egyptians. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.”
- Isa 20:5Those who made Cush their hope and Egypt their boast will be dismayed and ashamed.
- 2 Kgs 24:7Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.
- Isa 31:1–3Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD.
- Jer 2:18Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
- Jer 37:7–10“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says that you are to tell the king of Judah, who sent you to Me: Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to help you, will go back to its own land of Egypt.
- Lam 1:19I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.
- Isa 30:1–7“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.
- Lam 1:7In the days of her affliction and wandering Jerusalem remembers all the treasures that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into enemy hands she received no help. Her enemies looked upon her, laughing at her downfall.
- Jer 8:20“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, but we have not been saved.”
- Ezek 29:6–7Then all the people of Egypt will know that I am the LORD. For you were only a staff of reeds to the house of Israel.
- Jer 2:36How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 4:17 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.