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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?

Here the Prophet sets up God’s aid against all the plottings formed against him. However, then, might perfidious friends on one hand try privately to entrap him, and open enemies might on the other hand publicly oppose him, he yet doubted not but that God would be a sufficient protection to him. And we ought to act exactly in the same manner, whenever Satan rouses the wicked against us to oppose us either by secret artifices or by open cruelty; God alone must be, as they say, our brazen wall. But we must first know that he stands on our side; for the power of God can avail nothing to animate us, except we be firmly persuaded of this truth, that he is on our side. And how this confidence can be obtained, we shall presently see.

He says, that his persecutors would fall, so that they would not prevail, but be ashamed We see how many persecuted the holy man, and also with what arms they were furnished; for they possessed great power, and were also endued with guiles and intrigues. But the Prophet was satisfied with the help of God alone, and boldly concluded, that they would fall; for it could not be but that God would prove victorious. Whenever, then, we fight with the world and the devil and his slaves, this ought in the first place to come to our minds, that God stands on our side to defend our cause and to protect our safety. This being settled, we may then boldly defy both the artifices and the violence of all enemies; for it cannot be but that God will scatter, lay prostrate, overwhelm, and reduce to nothing all those who fight against him.

He further says that their reproach would be perpetual, and would never come to oblivion We have seen already that the Prophet was loaded with many reproaches; but whenever God suffers his servants to be exposed to the curses of the wicked, he in due time aids them; and therefore we ought fully to expect that he will shortly dissipate, as mists, such calumnies. As then God, according to what is said in Psalm 37:6, brings forth the innocency of the godly like the dawn, which in a moment appears while the earth seems buried in darkness, so the Prophet now says that on the other hand the reproach with which God will cover all the wicked will be perpetual. ¹⁴¹⁴     Except in the first line, the Sept. and the Vulg. differ from the text as well as from one another; both are exceedingly confused. Few expounders have kept the proper tenses of the verbs. The Prophet states not only what would happen to his enemies, but also what had already in part happened to them, —
   11. But Jehovah is with me as a terrible warrior; Therefore my persecutors shall stumble, And shall not prevail: They have become exceedingly ashamed, Because they have not succeeded; A perpetual shame! It shall not be forgotten.
   The last two lines are according to what Horsley suggests. “A terrible warrior” is rendered by the Sept., “a strong combatant, μαχητὴς ἰσχύων;” by the Vulg., “a brave warrior, bellato fortis, by the Syr., “the strongest giant;” and by the Arab., “the strongest help.” — Ed It now follows, —