Then I said... — The sense of a hopeless work, destined to fail, weighed on the prophet’s soul, and he would fain have withdrawn from it; but it (the words in italics, though they do not spoil the sense, are hardly needed) burnt like fire within him, and would not be restrained.
I could not stay. — Better, I prevailed not. Here again the interpolated word is needless, and in part spoils the emphasis. The “I could” is the same word as the “prevailed” of Jeremiah 20:7. God had prevailed against him, compelled him to undertake a work against his will, but he could not prevail against God. Like so much of Jeremiah’s language this also came from the hymns of Israel (Psalms 39:3).