Jeremiah 20:7-18 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

The Prophet's Troubles, Hopes, and Dark Despair. In passionate protest against his lot (possibly occasioned by the incident just related) Jeremiah complains that Yahweh has beguiled him into the work of a prophet, only that he may incur bitter shame, and suffer violence. Yet the inner compulsion of the prophetic word will not allow him to restrain it (i.e. forbear, Jeremiah 20:9), though it subjects him to the charge of treasonable utterance (Jeremiah 26:11). Jeremiah 20:11-13 (if originally here) mark a change of mood, and express Jeremiah's confidence that Yahweh will avenge him. The depth of his despair is reached in Jeremiah 20:14-18 (cf. Job 3:3-12), in which he curses the very day of his birth; he awards a curse instead of the usual reward for good news to the messenger who announced it, invoking on him the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:25; Isaiah 13:19), and the alarms of war (Jeremiah 4:19). He wishes he had never been born, because of his hard fate (Jeremiah 20:18). This impressive passage is of great importance for the study of the prophetic consciousness; it shows clearly that the psychological compulsion which underlies a Thus saith the Lord is the guarantee of the prophet's sincerity, when claiming to speak by Divine inspiration.

Jeremiah 20:8. Violence and spoil: i.e. as being suffered by the speaker.

Jeremiah 20:17. For from read in, with LXX, Syr.

Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 20:7

Jeremiah 20:7-18

7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived:b thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.

8 For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.

9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

10 For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.

11 But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.

12 But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.

13 Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.

14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.

15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.

16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide;

17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?