John Gill Commentary Jeremiah 8:18

"Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! my heart is faint within me." — Jeremiah 8:18 (ASV)

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, says the prophet, my heart grieves.''