Cursed [be] the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
Ver. 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born.] What a sudden change of his note is here! Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, saith James, these things ought not so to be. Jam 3:10 But here human weakness prevailed; and this part of the chapter hath much of man in it. The best have their outbursts; and as there be white teeth in the blackest blackamore, and, again, a black bill in the whitest swan, so the worst have something in them to be commended, and the best to be condemned. See on Jeremiah 20:7. Some of the Fathers seek to excuse Jeremiah altogether; but that can hardly be, neither needeth it. Origen saith that the day of his birth was past, and therefore nothing now; so that cursing it, he cursed nothing. This is like those among us who say they may now without sin swear by the mass, because it is gone out of the country, &c. Isidor., that Jeremiah's cursing is but conditional, if any, let that day be cursed, &c.