Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

20. Jeremiah's Complaint

¹ When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, ² he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the LORD’s temple. ³ The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD’s name for you is not Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. ⁴ For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword. ⁵ I will deliver all the wealth of this city into the hands of their enemies—all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon. ⁶ And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’”

Jeremiah’s Complaint

    ⁷ You deceived Or persuaded me, LORD, and I was deceived Or persuaded;
   you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
   everyone mocks me.
⁸ Whenever I speak, I cry out
   proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
   insult and reproach all day long.
⁹ But if I say, “I will not mention his word
   or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
   a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
   indeed, I cannot.
¹⁰ I hear many whispering,
   “Terror on every side!
   Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!”
All my friends
   are waiting for me to slip, saying,
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
   then we will prevail over him
   and take our revenge on him.”

    ¹¹ But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
   so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;
   their dishonor will never be forgotten.
¹² LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous
   and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them,
   for to you I have committed my cause.

    ¹³ Sing to the LORD!
   Give praise to the LORD!
He rescues the life of the needy
   from the hands of the wicked.

    ¹⁴ Cursed be the day I was born!
   May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
   who made him very glad, saying,
   “A child is born to you—a son!”
¹⁶ May that man be like the towns
   the LORD overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
   a battle cry at noon.
¹⁷ For he did not kill me in the womb,
   with my mother as my grave,
   her womb enlarged forever.
¹⁸ Why did I ever come out of the womb
   to see trouble and sorrow
   and to end my days in shame?

We said yesterday that the Prophet’s confused state of mind is described in this passage; for he would have no doubt himself confessed, that he was carried away by an intemperate feeling, so as not to be himself; for it is to cast reproach on God when any one curses his own birth-day. And he goes farther than this, for he adds, Cursed be the man who declared to my father, that a male child was born Here he not only fights against God, but is also ungrateful towards men; for what but thanks did he deserve who first told his father that he had a son born to him? It was then an ingratitude in no way excusable And hence we also learn that the Prophet had no control over his feelings, but was wholly led away by a blind impulse, which made him to utter very inconsiderate words; for in this sentence there is no piety nor humanity; but as I have said, the Prophet was ungrateful to men as well as to God; and his hyperbolical language also more fully expresses how intemperate his feelings were, who declared to my father that a male child was born He seems here, as though he avowedly despised God’s favor, for we know that males are preferred to females. But the Prophet mentions here the word male, as though he wished to complain of what he ought to have been thankful for.