Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 20:7
O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
7. deceived ] mg. enticed; induced him to undertake duties, the gravity of which together with the resulting sufferings was hidden from him. Cp. use of the same Hebrew word in Pro 1:10; Pro 16:29.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
7 9. These vv. shew us that the prophets did not speak of their own will. It was an influence which they could not resist that urged them forward, in spite of the certain ills that should follow to themselves. “Here there rings out clearly the prophet’s unfaltering certainty of the real inspiration which is the source of all his message.” Pe. Cp. Jer 23:29; so Amo 3:8 and 1Co 9:16.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ch. Jer 20:7-18. The prophet bitterly complains to God of his lot
The passage opens to us the depths of the prophet’s soul, and we see him in intimate converse with God, and possessed now by the emotions of despair, and now by confident hope. We have here the thoughts, as Gi. and Co. observe, which may well have occupied his mind when in confinement, and Jer 20:7-13 at any rate are thus closely connected both in time and subject-matter with Jer 20:1-6. As derision was still the prophet’s fate ( Jer 20:7), they can hardly be later than the early part of Jehoiakim’s reign, when the hope that danger would be averted was still prevalent. On the other hand Jer 20:14-18 most naturally belong to the latter days of Zedekiah, when the prophet stood alone, hated as the enemy of his people and a traitor to his country.
It may be summarized thus.
(i) Jer 20:7-10. O Lord, Thou hast beguiled me. My human weakness cannot cope with the Divine strength. Perforce I utter Thy message, and therefore am become an object of perpetual scorn. Yet that message, whatever I may resolve to the contrary, insists on utterance. Denunciation, craft, revenge even my intimates employ these weapons against me. (ii) Jer 20:11-13. After all, I have Jehovah on my side. My foes shall be put to perpetual shame. May He, who searches my heart and theirs, grant me to see their discomfiture. Praise be to Him for deliverance. (iii) Jer 20:14-18. Accursed be the day of my birth and he who announced it. May his doom be terrible as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Why did he not cut me off from life ere I was born? Wherefore was I, wretched man that I am, given a share in human existence?
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In the rest of the chapter we have an outbreak of deep emotion, of which the first part ends in a cry of hope Jer 20:13, followed nevertheless by curses upon the day of his birth. Was this the result of feelings wounded by the indignities of a public scourging and a night spent in the stocks? Or was it not the mental agony of knowing that his ministry had (as it seemed) failed? He stands indeed before the multitudes with unbending strength, warning prince and people with unwavering constancy of the national ruin that would follow necessarily upon their sins. Before God he stood crushed by the thought that he had labored in vain, and spent his strength for nothing.
It is important to notice that with this outpouring of sorrow Jeremiahs ministry virtually closed. Though he appeared again at Jerusalem toward the end of Jehoiakims reign, yet it was no longer to say that by repentance the national ruin might be averted. During the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the die was cast, and all the prophet henceforward could do, was to alleviate a punishment that was inevitable.
Jer 20:7
Thou hast deceived me … – What Jeremiah refers to is the joy with which he had accepted the prophetic office Jer 15:16, occasioned perhaps by taking the promises in Jer 1:18 too literally as a pledge that he would succeed.
Thou art stronger than I – Rather, Thou hast taken hold of me. God had taken Jeremiah in so firm a grasp that he could not escape from the necessity of prophesying. He would have resisted, but the hand of God prevailed.
I am in derision daily – literally, I am become a laughing-stock all the day, i. e., peripetually.
Jer 20:8
Translate, For as often as I speak, I must complain; I call out, Violence and spoil.
From the time Jeremiah began to prophesy, he had had reason for nothing but lamentation. Daily with louder voice and more desperate energy he must call out violence and spoil; as a perpetual protest against the manner in which the laws of justice were violated by powerful men among the people.
Jer 20:9
Seeing that his mission was useless, Jeremiah determined to withdraw from it.
I could not stay – Rather, I prevailed not, did not succeed. See Jer 20:7.
Jer 20:10
The defaming – Rather, the talking. The word refers to people whispering in twos and threes apart; in this case plotting against Jeremiah. Compare Mar 14:58.
Report … – Rather, Do you report, and we will report him: i. e., they encourage one another to give information against Jeremiah.
My familiars – literally, the men of my peace Psa 41:9. In the East the usual salutation is Peace be to thee: and the answer, And to thee peace. Thus, the phrase rather means acquaintances, than familiar friends.
Enticed – literally, persuaded, misled, the same word as deceived Jer 20:7. Compare Mar 12:13-17.
Jer 20:11
A mighty terrible one – Rather, a terrible warrior. The mighty One Isa 9:6 who is on his side is a terror to them. This change of feeling was the effect of faith, enabling him to be content with calmly doing his duty, and leaving the result to God.
For … – Rather, because they have not acted wisely (Jer 10:21 note), with an everlasting disgrace that shall never be forgotten.
Jer 20:12
This verse is repeated almost verbatim from Jer 11:20.
Jer 20:13
Sing – Jeremiahs outward circumstances remained the same, but he found peace in leaving his cause in faith to God.
Jer 20:14
This sudden outbreak of impatience after the happy faith of Jer 20:13 has led to much discussion. Possibly there was more of sorrow in the words than of impatience; sorrow that the earnest labor of a life had been in vain. Yet the form of the expression is fierce and indignant; and the impatience of Jeremiah is that part of his character which is most open to blame. He does not reach that elevation which is set before us by Him who is the perfect pattern of all righteousness. Our Lord was a prophet whose mission to the men of His generation equally failed, and His sorrow was even more deep; but it never broke forth in imprecations. See Luk 19:41-42.
Jer 20:16
The cry – is the sound of the lamentation Jer 20:8; the shouting is the alarm of war.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 20:7
O Lord, Thou hast deceived me.
The arduous character of Gods service forgotten
Too often the servants of God are impatient under present crosses, and give way to the infirmity of their old nature. Like Jeremiah, they complain as if God had done them some wrong, and had not let them know in entering His service what trials were before them. But it is not God who has dealt unfairly with them, but themselves who have lost sight of the appointed conditions of His service. The Lord never allures any to follow Him without plainly telling them the cross that awaits them.
(Fausset.)
He deals with them as brave Garibaldi did with his recruits. When Garibaldi was going out to battle, he told his troops what he wanted them to do. When he had described what he wanted them to do, they said: Well, General, what are you going to give us for all this? Well, he replied, I dont know what else you will get; but you will get hunger and cold, and wounds and death. How do you like that? (Rev 2:10.)
The ideal and the real; or, does God deceive?
A religious man in the nineteenth century is not accustomed to speak of God as a deceiver. And yet, once we allow for the difference of phraseology and get behind the words, we find that the experience which Jeremiah expressed here is one through which we ourselves have passed, and the problem which he tries to solve is still on our hands. He had now been preaching for several years. He had set out with all the ardour of young enthusiasm. His was no reckless rush into the ministry. Objections and difficulties there were, and he took account of them. But the impulse to preach was too strong to be resisted, and the young prophet had no doubt that that impulse was the voice of God. His obedience involved an expectation. He expected, of course, that his work would tell; the God who called him would be with him, and the work of the Lord would prosper in his hands. After several years hard, faithful work, what does he find? A people not only obdurate and disobedient, but revengeful and cruel. He had seen the reformation under King Josiah, and he had seen also the terrible relapse. It grieved his heart to see the fearful idolatrous practices restored in the Valley of Hinnom. He went down there one day to protest against it in the name of God. While he delivered his message he held in his hand a potters earthen bottle, which, at one point in his discourse, he dashed to pieces on the ground, and assured his hearers that so the Lord would break them and their city in pieces. The result of this was not, as he might have hoped, the turning away of the people from sin. On the contrary, Pashur, the chief officer in the house of the Lord, struck Jeremiah and put him in stocks to be jeered at. Though liberated the next day, this treatment caused the prophet seriously to reflect upon the whole question of his mission. He looked upon that mission in the light of results, and he confessed to a great disappointment. That is what he expresses in the words, Lord, Thou hast deceived me. Results seemed to tell him to give up, and he tried to give up. He said: I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But what did he find? A burning fire in his heart, and he could not forbear. Here, then, was the prophets dilemma. The language of actualities to him was stop, but there was an imperative in his soul, and he could not stop. Now the practical question to him was–Which of these two conflicting voices was the voice of God? Was it the voice of history, or was it the prophetic impulse of his heart? If the latter, then there was the hard fact for him to face, that the word of the Lord made him a laughing stock, a derision, and a reproach. Jeremiah decided for the latter, spite of the tremendous odds against him, and preached on in the faith that God would some day vindicate his cause. The problem which Jeremiah had to solve for himself is still with us. There does appear to be a contradiction between the world as it is and the world as we feel it ought to be, which is very puzzling. To many minds that contradiction is altogether inexplicable. The so-called moral ideal is an illusion of the mind, and if we call it the voice of God, then God deceives men. There always have been ideals of justice and goodwill, but the real world is all the time in dead opposition to them. Now, which of these expresses the will of God? Is it the world of fact, or the world of aspiration? Is it in our sight of what is, or in our hope of what may be? Shall we learn His character from what He has actually done, or from an ideal which He has always promised but never realised? Does God deceive men? Reformers die with their holms unfulfilled; lives have been given to the cause of righteousness, and yet might remains right, and the tyrant prevails. Do our ideals simply mock us? If these are the voice of God, why do they not prevail? Is God defeated? What shall we say? Let us not try to escape the difficulty by denying it. We may purchase a cheap optimism by blinking the ugly facts of the world. Let us admit to the full that the history of moral reform has its sore disappointments. The world has not only opposed the reformer, but it has always put him in stocks. It changes the kind of stocks as time goes on, but they are stocks all the same. Official religion and real religion are often engaged in deadly conflict, a conflict which frequently results to the reformer, as to Jeremiah, in a sore sense of disappointment. And every man who seeks to do good soon comes upon many discouraging facts. There are times when he says: I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought. Nor is it by ignoring such and similar facts, and dwelling only on the bright side, that we have to support faith. On the other hand, we must beware of the temperament which ever occupies itself with lifes disappointments, and fails to see its progress and success. Now, I admit that if there were that complete breach between the real and ideal which appears to be, the problem would be utterly insoluble. But it is not so. In the first place, it is not correct to speak of the world of fact and the world of aspiration as separate and distinct, for the aspiration is one of the facts. It is a part of that unto which it aspires. The aspiration after goodness is itself good, and all prayer for spiritual excellence is part of its own answer. There is no clear line between the ideal and the real, for the ideal is a part of man as he is, and he is a part of the world as it is. When we ask whether we shall learn Gods character from that which He has accomplished in the world, or from the ideal which stirs the soul, we forget that that soul with its ideal is a part of what He has done. Man, with his sense of duty, with all his yearnings for purer and diviner being, is a part of the world as it is; the ideal is partly actual; prophecy is history at its highest range. If only one man desired that society should be righteous and pure, society could not be judged without that man. The power of an ideal may culminate in a great person, find in him an exceptionally brilliant expression, and reach the point at which it commands the world; but he is always a sharer in the conditions he condemns, and the men he condemns have helped to make him what he is. He may be as different from the average society as the blossom is from the stem on which it grows, but that society conditions him as the stem conditions the blossom. This is the fact which the prophet is liable to forget. It was as true of Jeremiah as of Thomas Carlyle, that he made the blackness blacker than it was. Jeremiah was not as lonely as he himself thought he was. If that nation had been utterly faithless, such faith as his could not have been born in it. So, though the prophet must condemn the actual, because he is swayed by the ideal, and is a divinely discontented man, working for progress, yet his very existence proves that that progress has already been the order of God, and has produced him. That there is a contradiction between what is and what ought to be is true, but it is not the whole truth. Strictly speaking, nothing is, but everything is becoming. We are in the process of a Divine evolution in which the ideal is forever actualising itself. The contradiction is not ultimate, nor the breach complete. What cannot we hope, for instance, of a race that counts one Jesus among its members? He is, then, an example of what we may become, and our representative before God. In like manner, surely, when God judges the human race, He does not judge it with its best specimens left out; He takes its highest points into consideration. He does with the race what you and I do with the individual–takes its best as its real self, as that to which it shall one day fully attain. And when we think that Jesus, and all that He was, is a part of the actual history of the world, then we say that the richest ideals that ever sway our souls are justified by the history of our race–God is not deceiving us. Let us try to remember this when we come to bitter disappointments in lifes work. When the prophet finds, as find he will, that multitudes do not listen, but mock and deride, let him nevertheless be sure that the good and the true must prevail. Some disappointments are inevitable. It is of the very nature of an ideal to make life unsatisfactory; a spirit so possessed can never rest in what is, but will forever press forward to that which is before. To be content with all things as they are is to obliterate the distinction between good and bad, between right and wrong. No high-souled man will settle matters so. But some of our bitterest disappointments come from the fact that the form in which the ideal shapes itself in our mind is necessarily defective, and that our scheme of work is consequently partial and one-sided. This was a constant source of trouble to the prophets of Israel. We get many of our disappointments in a similar way. Here are two men, for instance, whose souls are stirred by the ideal of a renovated world in which righteousness and love shall reign. Each think of bringing it about chiefly in one particular way, the former, perhaps by some scheme of social reform, the latter by a certain type of gospel preaching. Both will be very disappointed; the world will not come round to them as they wish. And yet while these two men are groaning under their disappointments, the fact is that the world is all the time advancing, though not in their way. The man who thinks that his particular gospel is the only thing that can possibly save the world finds the world very indifferent to that gospel, and thinks that it is going to perdition, while all the time it is going onward and upward to higher and better things. But the truth is, that the worlds progress is far too great to be squeezed into any one creed, or scheme, or ordinance, and you cannot measure it by any of these. Attempt that, and while you bemoan your discouragements and think ill of the world, humanity will sweep onward, receiving its marching orders from the throne of the universe. For practical purposes we must confine our energies chiefly to one or two ways of doing good, but if we only remember that when we have selected our way it is but a small fragment of what has to be done, that other ways and methods are quite as necessary, we shall save ourselves from much personal trouble, and from much ill-judgment of others. But even when we have done our best, there will still be some adverse results. These must not dishearten us. If there be in our heart as it were a burning fire, and we become weary of silence and cannot contain, then let the fiery speech flow, however cold the world. We must obey the highest necessities of our nature. Our best impulses and purest desires are the word of God to us, which we have to preach. With this conviction we can go on with our work, disappointments notwithstanding. Nothing is more evident in reviewing history than the continuity of Divine purpose. It is the unfolding of a plan. It is full enough of evil and of sorrow, and yet out of evil cometh good, and joy is born of sorrow. It is full enough of error, and yet, somehow, even error has been used to preserve truth. Out of mistakes and superstitions have come some of the greatest truths. The greatest tragedy of history was the crucifixion of Jesus, yet Calvary has become the mount of our highest ascensions, and the altar of our best thanksgivings. So often, indeed, has the best come out of the worst, so often has the morning broken when the night was darkest, so often has peace come through war, that no discouragements of today shall weaken our faith, or bedim our hope, or mar the splendour of our expectation. We believe in God. There are dark places in history, tunnels through which we are not able to follow the train of the Divine purpose, but we saw it first on the one side, and then on the other, and conclude it must have gone through–the tunnel, too, was on the line of progress. The history of the world is an upward history. And those who know God are ever looking up; men with a Divine outlook are ever on the march. And, friends, whatever you do, cling to the ideal. Let no discouragement release your hold. Be active and practical; yes, but do not be bound within the limits of any one scheme. Climb the mount of vision, and have converse with God, and you will carry down with you a faith that can stand any disappointment, and hold itself erect amid the rush of the maddest torrent. (T. R. Williams.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me] Thou hast promised me protection; and, lo! I am now delivered into the hands of my enemies. These words were probably spoken when Pashur smote him, and put him in prison.
I think our translation of this passage is very exceptionable. My old Bible reads, Thou laddist me aside Lord; and I was lad aside. The original word is pittithani, thou hast persuaded me, i.e., to go and prophesy to this people. I went, faithfully declared thy message, and now I am likely to perish by their cruelty. As the root pathah signifies to persuade and allure, as well as to deceive, the above must be its meaning in this place. Taken as in our Version it is highly irreverent. It is used in the same sense here as in Ge 9:27: God shall enlarge (persuade, margin) Japheth; and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The following part of the chapter to the end of it containeth a complaint or prayer of the prophet unto God, made (as some think) during his imprisonment by Pashur, but the certain time is not known. Our translators here might have translated the word more favourably than
thou hast deceived me. It might have been, thou hast persuaded me, or, thou hast allured or enticed me, as it is translated, Jdg 14:15; 1Ki 22:21,22; Exo 22:16; Pro 1:10; 16:29; Psa 78:36. The word signifies no more than by words to remove a man from his own opinion. That is, doubtless, the sense here: Lord, I was not fond of this employment as a prophet, by thy words I was removed from my own opinion of myself; which might be spoken by the prophet without any reflection upon God; it only signifieth his undertaking the office of a prophet at Gods command, not out of any ambition of his own.
Thou art stronger than I and hast prevailed; but thou prevailest against me. Jeremiah at first excused himself to God, as we read, Jer 1:6; he said Ah, Lord God! behold, I am a child, and cannot speak; but the Lord prevailed upon him, replying, Jer 1:7, Say not, I am a child; for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Jer 1:9, The Lord put forth his hand, and touched his mouth, and said, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. This is all that is here meant by deceiving, viz. Gods overruling of him contrary to his own inclinations.
I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me; he complaineth that now he was in this office every one mocked him and derided him, and that for the faithful discharge of that office to which God had called him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Jeremiah’s complaint, notunlike that of Job, breathing somewhat of human infirmity inconsequence of his imprisonment. Thou didst promise never to give meup to the will of mine enemies, and yet Thou hast done so. ButJeremiah misunderstood God’s promise, which was not that he shouldhave nothing to suffer, but that God would deliver him out ofsufferings (Jer 1:19).
deceivedOtherstranslate as Margin, “Thou hast enticed” or”persuaded me,” namely, to undertake the propheticoffice, “and I was persuaded,” that is, suffered myself tobe persuaded to undertake what I find too hard for me. So the Hebrewword is used in a good sense (Ge9:27, Margin; Pro 25:15;Hos 2:14).
stronger than IThouwhose strength I could not resist hast laid this burden on me, andhast prevailed (hast made me prophesy, in spite of my reluctance)(Jer 1:5-7); yet, when Iexercise my office, I am treated with derision (La3:14).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived,…. What follows from hence to the end of the chapter is thought to have been said by the prophet, when in the stocks, or in prison, and shows mixture of grace and corruption in him; a struggle between flesh and spirit, and the force of a temptation under which he laboured, arising from difficulties and discouragements in his work; and he not only complains to God, but of him; that he had deceived him, when he first called him to be a prophet, by telling him that he should be set over nations and kingdoms, to pull them down, Jer 1:10; which he understood of foreign nations, but now found his own people were meant, so Jerom; or in not immediately executing the threatenings he sent him with; as was the case of Jonah; or by giving him reason to expect honour and ease, whereas he met with nothing but disrespect and trouble; and that he should have divine protection and success against his opposers, Jer 1:18; whereas he was now delivered into their hands, and used in the most reproachful manner; but be it so, this was all a mistake of the prophet, and no deception of God. Calvin takes it to be ironically spoken, expressing the sense of his enemies, who charging him with a deception, tacitly charged God with being the author of it. Others, to soften the expression, render the words, “if thou hast deceived me, I am deceived”; or, “thou hast deceived me if I am deceived” y. But it seems best of all to translate them, as they will hear it, “O Lord, thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded” z; so the word is used of God in Ge 9:27; “God shall enlarge” or “persuade Japheth”; see also Ho 2:14, where it is rendered allure; and then the sense is, thou hast persuaded me to take upon me the prophetical office against my will, and against remonstrances made by me; and I was persuaded by thy words and promises, and by thy spirit and grace, to enter upon it; to which sense the following words incline:
thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed; so strong were the arguments, motives, and inducements the Lord made use of; so pressing his injunctions and commands; so forcible the constraints of his spirit; that the prophet was obliged to yield unto them, and was made willing in the day of his power to comply, though first it was sore against his will; but he could not withstand the divine call, and therefore might have hoped, since it was so manifest that he was sent of God, and did not run of himself, that he should have met with a better reception, and more success; but so it was not:
I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me; he was the laughing stock of everyone of the people of Israel, from the highest to the lowest; princes, priests, and people, all derided him and his prophecies, and that continually, every day, and all the day long, and especially when he was in the stocks; though it was not only his person they mocked, but the word of the Lord by him, as appears from Jer 20:8.
y “Domine si ego sim seductus, tu es qui me seduxit”, Genevenses; “pellexisti me, quando pellectus sum”, Junius Tremellius sic Syr. “tu decepisti me, si deceptus sim; quidam” in Gataker. z “Persuasisti mihi, O Jehovah, et persuasus sum”, Luther, Piscator, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet’s Complaints as to the Sufferings Met with in his Calling. – This portion contains, first, a complaint addressed to the Lord regarding the persecutions which the preaching of God’s word draws down on Jeremiah, but the complaint passes into a jubilant cry of hope (Jer 20:7-13); secondly, a cursing of the day of his birth (Jer 20:13-18). The first complaint runs thus:
Jer 20:7-13 “Thou hast persuaded me, Jahveh, and I let myself be persuaded; Thou hast laid hold on me and hast prevailed. I am become a laughter the whole day long, every one mocketh at me. Jer 20:8 . For as often as I speak, I must call out and cry violence and spoil, for the word of Jahveh is made a reproach and a derision to me all the day. Jer 20:9 . And I said, I will not more remember nor speak more in His name; then was it in my heart as burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding out, and cannot. Jer 20:10. For I heard the talk of many: Fear round about! Report, and let us report him! Every man of my friendship lies in wait for my downfall: Peradventure he will let himself be enticed, that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him. Jer 20:11. But Jahveh stands by me as a mighty warrior; therefore shall my persecutors stumble and not prevail, shall be greatly put to shame, because they have not dealt wisely, with everlasting disgrace which will not be forgotten. Jer 20:12. And, Jahveh of hosts that trieth the righteous, that seeth reins and heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them, for to Thee have I committed my cause. Jer 20:13. Sing to Jahveh, praise Jahveh, for He saves the soul of the poor from the hand of the evil-doers.”
This lament as to the hatred and persecution brought upon him by the preaching of the word of the Lord, is chiefly called forth by the proceedings, recounted in Jer 20:1, Jer 20:2, of the temple-warden Pashur against him. This is clear from the ; for, as Ng. truly remarks, the use of this expression against the prophet may certainly be most easily explained by the use he had so pregnantly made of it against one so distinguished as Pashur. Besides, the bitterness of the complaint, rising at last to the extent of cursing the day of his birth (Jer 20:14.), is only intelligible as a consequence of such ill-usage as Pashur had already inflicted on him. For although his enemies had schemed against his life, they had never yet ventured positively to lay hands on his person. Pashur first caused him to be beaten, and then had him kept a whole night long in the torture of the stocks. From torture like this his enemies might proceed even to taking his life, if the Lord did not miraculously shield him from their vengeance. – The complaint, Jer 20:7-13, is an outpouring of the heart to God, a prayer that begins with complaint, passes into confidence in the Lord’s protection, and ends in a triumph of hope. In Jer 20:7 and Jer 20:8 Jeremiah complains of the evil consequences of his labours. God has persuaded him to undertake the office of prophet, so that he has yielded to the call of God. The words of Jer 20:7 are not an upbraiding, nor are they given in an upbraiding tone (Hitz.); for does not mean befool, but persuade, induce by words to do a thing. used transitively, but not as 1Ki 16:22, overpower (Ros., Graf, etc.); for then it would not be in keeping with the following , which after “overpower” would seem very feeble. It means: lay hold of; as usually in the Hiph., so here in Kal. It thus corresponds to , Isa 8:11, denoting the state of being laid hold of by the power of the Spirit of God in order to prophesy. , not: Thou hast been able, but: Thou hast prevailed, conquered. A sharp contrast to this is presented by the issue of his prophetic labours: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, i.e., incessantly. , its (the people’s) entirety = all the people. – In Jer 20:8 “call” is explained by “cry out violence and spoil:” complain of the violence and spoliation that are practised. The word of Jahveh is become a reproach and obloquy, i.e., the proclamation of it has brought him only contempt and obloquy. The two cases of are co-ordinate; the two clauses give two reasons for everybody mocking at him. One is objective: so often as he speaks he can do nothing but complain of violence, so that he is ridiculed by the mass of the people; and one is subjective: his preaching brings him only disgrace. Most comm. refer “violence and spoiling” to the ill-usage the prophet experiences; but this does not exhaust the reference of the words.
Jer 20:9 After such bitter experiences, the thought arose in his soul: I will remember Him (Jahveh) no more, i.e., make no more mention of the Lord, nor speak in His name, labour as a prophet; but it was within him as burning fire. The subject is not expressed, but is, as Ros. and Hitz. rightly say, the word of Jahveh which is held back. “Shut up in my bones” is apposition to “burning fire,” for occurs elsewhere also as masc., e.g., Jer 48:45; Job 20:26; Psa 104:4. The word of God dwells in the heart; but from there outwards it acts upon his whole organism, like a fire shut up in the hollow of his bones, burning the marrow of them (Job 21:24), so that he can no longer bear to keep silence. The perfects “and I said,” “and (then) it was,” “and I became weary,” are to be taken as preterites, expressing events that have several times been repeated, and so the final result is spoken in the imperf. I cannot.
Jer 20:10-13 Jer 20:10 gives the reason for the resolution, adopted but not carried out, of speaking no more in the name of the Lord. This was found in the reports that reached his ears of schemes against his life. The first clause is a verbal quotation from Psa 31:14, a lament of David in the time of Saul’s persecutions. , base, backbiting slander. The phrase: Fear round about, indicates, in the form of a brief popular saying, the dangerous case in which the prophet was,
(Note: Hupfeld on Psa 31:14 holds to be a proverbial expression for a harassed condition, full of terrors, since the phrase is frequently used by Jeremiah (besides the present Jer 20:3, Jer 20:4, and Jer 20:15, it is at Jer 6:25; Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29; Lam 2:22). The use made of it in v. 3 would in that case be easily understood. For we cannot infer, as Ng. would do, that Jeremiah must have formed the phrase himself, from the fact that, except in Psa 31:14, it is nowhere found but in Jeremiah.)
which his adversaries prepare for him by their repeating: Report him, we will report him.
Report: here, report to the authorities as a dangerous man. Even those who are on friendly terms with him lie in wait for his fall. This phrase too is formed of phrases from the Psalms. On “am of my peace,” cf. Psa 41:10; on , Psa 35:15; Psa 38:18; and on , watch, lie in wait for, Psa 56:7; Psa 71:10. “Peradventure” – so they said – “he may let himself be enticed,” sc. to say something on which a capital charge may be founded (Graf). With “that we may prevail against him,” cf. Jer 1:19; Jer 15:20. – At Jer 20:11 the lament rises into confidence in the Lord, springing from the promise given to him by God at his call. (for ) recalls Jer 1:19; Jer 15:20.The designation of God as is formed after Jer 15:21. Because the Lord has promised to deliver him out of the hand of the , violent, he now calls him a hero using violence, and on this founds his assurance that his persecutors will accomplish nothing, but will come to a downfall, to shame, and be covered with never-dying, never-to-be-forgotten disgrace. Because they have dealt not wisely, i.e., foolishly, see on Jer 10:21; not: because they did not prosper, which would give a weak, superfluous idea, since their not prospering lies already in , spe frustrari . This disgrace will befall the persecutors, because the Lord of hosts will, as Searcher of hearts, take the part of the righteous, and will take vengeance on their foes. This is the force of Jer 20:12, which, with a few changes, is repeated from Jer 11:20. – In this trustfulness his soul rises to a firm hope of deliverance, so that in Jer 20:13 he can call on himself and all the godly to praise God, the Saviour of the poor. Cf. Psa 31:8; Psa 35:9-10, Psa 35:28, etc.
Jer 20:14-18 The day of his birth cursed. – Jer 20:14. “Cursed be the day wherein I was born! The day my mother bare me, let it not be blessed! Jer 20:15. Cursed be the man that brought the good tidings to my father, saying: A man-child is born to thee, who made him very glad. Jer 20:16. Let that man be as the cities which Jahveh overthrew without repenting; let him hear crying in the morning and a war-cry at noon-tide, Jer 20:17. Because he slew me not from the womb, and so my mother should have been my grave, and her womb should have been always great. Jer 20:18. Wherefore am I come forth out of the womb to see hardship and sorrow, and that my days should wear away in shame?”
Inasmuch as the foregoing lamentation had ended in assured hope of deliverance, and in the praise rendered to God therefor, it seems surprising that now there should follow curses on the day of his birth, without any hint to show that at the end this temptation, too, had been overcome. For this reason Ew. wishes to rearrange the two parts of the complaint, setting Jer 20:14-18 before Jer 20:7-12. This transposition he holds to be so unquestionably certain, that he speaks of the order ad numbering of the verses in the text as an example, clear as it is remarkable, of displacement. But against this hypothesis we have to consider the improbability that, if individual copyists had omitted the second portion (Jer 20:14-18) or written it on the margin, others should have introduced it into an unsuitable place. Copyists did not go to work with the biblical text in such an arbitrary and clumsy fashion. Nor is the position occupied by the piece in question so incomprehensible as Ew. imagines. The cursing of the day of his birth, or of his life, after the preceding exaltation to hopeful assurance is not psychologically inconceivable. It may well be understood, if we but think of the two parts of the lamentation as not following one another in the prophet’s soul in such immediate succession as they do in the text; if we regard them as spiritual struggles, separated by an interval of time, through which the prophet must successively pass. In vanquishing the temptation that arose from the plots of his enemies against his life, Jeremiah had a strong support in the promise which the Lord gave him at his call, that those who strove against him should not prevail against him; and the deliverance out of the hand of Pashur which he had just experience, must have given him an actual proof that the Lord was fulfilling His promise. The feeling of this might fill the trembling heart with strength to conquer his temptation, and to elevate himself again, in the joyful confidence of faith, to the praising of the Lord, who delivers the soul of the poor from the hand of the ungodly. But the power of the temptation was not finally vanquished by the renewal of his confidence that the Lord will defend him against all his foes. The unsuccess of his mission might stir up sore struggles in his soul, and not only rob him of all heart to continue his labours, but excite bitter discontent with a life full or hardship and sorrow – a discontent which found vent in his cursing the day of his birth.
The curse uttered in Jer 20:14-18 against the day of his birth, while it reminds us of the verses, Jer 3:3., in which Job curses the day of his conception and of his birth, is markedly distinguished in form and substance from that dreadful utterance of Job’s. Job’s words are much more violent and passionate, and are turned directly against God, who has given life to him, to a man whose way is hid, whom God hath hedged round. Jeremiah, on the other hand, curses first the day of his birth (Jer 20:14), then the man that brought his father the joyful news of the birth of a son (Jer 20:15-17), because his life is passing away in hardship, trials, sorrow, and shame, without expressly blaming God as the author of that life.
Jer 20:14 The day on which I was born, let it be cursed and not blessed, sc. because life has never been a blessing to me. Job wishes that the day of his birth and the night of his conception may perish, be annihilated.
Jer 20:15 In the curse on the man that brought the father the news of the birth, the stress lies on the clause, “who made him very glad,” which goes to strengthen , , a clause which is subordinated to the principal clause without any grammatical connection (cf. Ew. 341, b). The joy that man gave the father by his news is become to the son a source of bitter grief.
Jer 20:16 He wishes the fate of Sodom (Gen 19:25), namely ruin, to befall that man. , and may He (Jahveh) not let it repent Him, is adverbially used: without feeling compunction for the destruction, i.e., without pity. In Jer 20:16 destruction is depicted under the figure of the terrors of a town beleaguered by enemies and suddenly taken. , the wailing cry of the afflicted townspeople; , the war-cry of the enemies breaking in; cf. Jer 15:8.
Jer 20:17-18 tells why the curse should fall on that man: because ( , causal) he slew me not from the womb, i.e., according to what follows: while yet in the womb, and so ( with consec.) my mother would have become my grave. Logically considered, the subject to can only be the man on whom the curse of Jer 20:15 is pronounced. But how could the man kill the child in the mother’s womb? This consideration has given occasion to various untenable renderings. Some have taken “from the womb,” according to Job 3:11, in the sense: immediately after birth, simul ac ex utero exiissem (Ros.). This is grammatically fair enough, but it does not fall in with the context; for then the following Vav consec. must be taken as having the negative force “or rather,” the negation being repeated in the next clause again (Ros., Graf). Both these cases are grammatically inadmissible. Others would supply “Jahveh” as subject to , or take the verb as with indefinite subject, or as passive. But to supply “Jahveh” is quite arbitrary; and against the passive construction it must be said that thus the causal nexus, indicated by , between the man on whom the curse is to fall and the slaying of the child is done away with, and all connection for the with what precedes would be lost. The difficulty arising from simply accepting the literal meaning is solved by the consideration, that the curse is not levelled against any one particular person. The man that was present at the birth, so as to be able to bring the father the news of it, might have killed the child in the mother’s womb. Jeremiah is as little thinking how this could happen as, in the next words, he is of the possibility of everlasting pregnancy. His words must be taken rhetorically, not physiologically. That pregnancy is everlasting that has no birth at the end of it. – In Jer 20:18 a reason for the curse is given, in that birth had brought him only a life of hardship and sorrow. To see hardship, i.e., experience, endure it. His days pass away, vanish in shame, i.e., shame at the discomfiture of hopes; for his life-calling produces no fruit, his prophetic work is in vain, since he cannot save his people from destruction.
The curse on the day of birth closes with a sigh at the wretchedness of life, without any hint that he again rises to new joyful faith, and without God’s reprimanding him for his discontent as in Jer 11:19. This difficulty the comm. have not touched upon; they have considered only the questions: how at all such a curse in the mouth of a prophet is to be defended; and whether it is in its right place in this connection, immediately after the words so full of hope as Jer 20:11. (cf. Ng. ). The latter question we have already discussed art the beginning of the exposition of these verses. As to the first, opinions differ. Some take the curse to be a purely rhetorical form, having no object whatsoever. For, it is said, the long past day of his birth is as little an object on which the curse could really fall, as is the man who told his father of the birth of a son – a man who in all probability never had a real existence (Ng. ). To this view, ventured so early as Origen, Cor. a Lap. has justly answered: obstat, quod dies illa exstiterit fueritque creatura Dei; non licet autem maledicere alicui creaturae Dei, sive illa praesens sit sive praeterita . Others, as Calv., espied in this cursing quasi sacrilegum furorem , and try to excuse it on the ground that the principium hujus zeli was justifiable, because Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth not because of personal sufferings, sicknesses, poverty, and the like, but quoniam videret se perdere operam, quum tamen fideliter studeret eam impendere in salutem populi, deinde quum videret doctrinam Dei obnoxiam esse probris et vituperationibus, quum videret impios ita procaciter insurgere, quum videret totam pietatem ita haberi ludibrio . But the sentence passed, that the prophet gravissime peccaverit ut esset contumeliosus in Deu , is too severe one, as is also that of the Berleburg Bible, that “Jeremiah therein stands for an example of warning to all faithful witnesses for the truth, showing that they should not be impatient of the reproach, contempt, derision, and mockery that befall them on that account, if God’s long-suffering bears with the mockers so long, and ever delays His judgments.” For had Jeremiah sinned so grievously, God would certainly have reproached him with his wrong-doing, as in Jer 15:19. Since that is not here the case, we are not entitled to make out his words to be a beacon of warning to all witnesses for the truth. Certainly this imprecation was not written fore our imitation; for it is doubtless an infirmitas, as Seb. Schm. called it – an outbreak of the striving of the flesh against the spirit. But it should be to us a source of instruction and comfort. From it we should, on the one hand, learn the full weight of the temptation, so that we may arm ourselves with prayer in faith as a weapon against the power of the tempter; on the other hand, we should see the greatness of God’s grace, which raises again those that are stumbling to their fall, and does not let God’s true servants succumb under the temptation, as we gather from the fact, that the Lord does not cast off His servant, but gives him the needed strength for carrying on the heavy labours of his office. – The difficulty that there is no answer from the Lord to this complaint, neither by way of reprimand nor of consolation, as in Jer 12:5., Jer 15:10, Jer 15:19., is solved when we consider that at his former complainings the Lord had said to him all that was needed to comfort him and raise him up again. A repetition of those promises would have soothed his bitterness of spirit for a time, perhaps, but not permanently. For the latter purpose the Lord was silent, and left him time to conquer from within the temptation that was crushing him down, by recalling calmly the help from God he had so often hitherto experienced in his labours, especially as the time was now not far distant in which, by the bursting of the threatened judgment on Jerusalem and Judah, he should not only be justified before his adversaries, but also perceive that his labour had not been in vain. And that Jeremiah did indeed victoriously struggle against this temptation, we may gather from remembering that hereafter, when, especially during the siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, he had still sorer afflictions to endure, he no longer trembles or bewails the sufferings connected with his calling.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Prophet’s Impatient Appeal. | B. C. 600. |
7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: 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.
Pashur’s doom was to be a terror to himself; Jeremiah, even now, in this hour of temptation, is far from being so; and yet it cannot be denied but that he is here, through the infirmity of the flesh, strangely agitated within himself. Good men are but men at the best. God is not extreme to mark what they say and do amiss, and therefore we must not be so, but make the best of it. In these verses it appears that, upon occasion of the great indignation and injury that Pashur did to Jeremiah, there was a struggle in his breast between his graces and his corruptions. His discourse with himself and with his God, upon this occasion, was somewhat perplexed; let us try to methodize it.
I. Here is a sad representation of the wrong that was done him and the affronts that were put upon him; and this representation, no doubt, was according to truth, and deserves no blame, but was very justly and very fitly made to him that sent him, and no doubt would bear him out. He complains,
1. That he was ridiculed and laughed at; they made a jest of every thing he said and did; and this cannot but be a great grievance to an ingenuous mind (Jer 20:7; Jer 20:8): I am in derision; I am mocked. They played upon him, and made themselves and one another merry with him, as if he had been a fool, good for nothing but to make sport. Thus he was continually: I was in derision daily. Thus he was universally: Every one mocks me; the greatest so far forget their own gravity, and the meanest so far forget mine. Thus our Lord Jesus, on the cross, was reviled both by priests and people; and the revilings of each had their peculiar aggravation. And what was it that thus exposed him to contempt and scorn? It was nothing but his faithful and zealous discharge of the duty of his office, v. 8. They could find nothing for which to deride him but his preaching; it was the word of the Lord that was made a reproach. That for which they should have honoured and respected him–that he was entrusted to deliver the word of the Lord to them was the very thing for which they reproached and reviled him. He never preached a sermon, but, though he kept as closely as possible to his instructions, they found something or other in it for which to banter and abuse him. Note, It is sad to think that, though divine revelation be one of the greatest blessings and honours that ever was bestowed upon the world, yet it has been turned very much to the reproach of the most zealous preachers and believers of it. Two things they derided him for:– (1.) The manner of his preaching: Since he spoke, he cried out. He had always been a lively affectionate preacher, and since he began to speak in God’s name he always spoke as a man in earnest; he cried aloud and did not spare, spared neither himself nor those to whom he preached; and this was enough for those to laugh at who hated to be serious. It is common for those that are unaffected with and disaffected to, the things of God themselves, to ridicule those that are much affected with them. Lively preachers are the scorn of careless unbelieving hearers. (2.) The matter of his preaching: He cried violence and spoil. He reproved them for the violence and spoil which they were guilty of towards one another; and he prophesied of the violence and spoil which should be brought upon them as the punishment of that sin; for the former they ridiculed him as over-precise, for the latter as over-credulous; in both he was provoking to them, and therefore they resolved to run him down. This was bad enough, yet he complains further.
2. That he was plotted against and his ruin contrived; he was not only ridiculed as a weak man, but reproached and misrepresented as a bad man and dangerous to the government. This he laments as his grievance, v. 10. Being laughed at, though it touches a man in point of honour, is yet a thing that may be easily laughed at again; for, as it has been well observed, it is no shame to be laughed at, but to deserve to be so. But there were those that acted a more spiteful part, and with more subtlety. (1.) They spoke ill of him behind his back, when he had no opportunity of clearing himself, and were industrious to spread false reports concerning him: I heard, at second hand, the defaming of many, fear on every side (of many Magor-missabibs, so some read it), of many such men as Pashur was, and who may therefore expect his doom. Or this was the matter of their defamation; they represented Jeremiah as a man that instilled fears and jealousies on every side into the minds of the people, and so made them uneasy under the government, and disposed them to a rebellion. Or he perceived them to be so malicious against him that he could not but be afraid on every side; wherever he was he had reason to fear informers; so that they made him almost a Magor-missabib. These words are found in the original, verbatim, the same, Ps. xxxi. 13, I have heard the slander or defaming of many, fear on every side. Jeremiah, in his complaint, chooses to make use of the same words that David had made use of before him, that it might be a comfort to him to think that other good men had suffered similar abuses before him, and to teach us to make use of David’s psalms with application to ourselves, as there is occasion. Whatever we have to say, we may thence take with us words. See how Jeremiah’s enemies contrived the matter: Report, say they, and we will report it. They resolve to cast an odium upon him, and this is the method they take: “Let some very bad thing be said of him, which may render him obnoxious to the government, and, though it be ever so false, we will second it, and spread it, and add to it.” (For the reproaches of good men lose nothing by the carriage.) “Do you that frame a story plausibly, or you that can pretend to some acquaintance with him, report it once, and we will all report it from you, in all companies, that we come into. Do you say it, and we will swear it; do you set it a going, and we will follow it.” And thus both are equally guilty, those that raise and those that propagate the false report. The receiver is as bad as the thief. (2.) They flattered him to his face, that they might get something from him on which to ground an accusation, as the spies that came to Christ feigning themselves to be just men, Luk 20:20; Luk 11:53; Luk 11:54. His familiars, that he conversed freely with and put a confidence in, watched for his halting, observed what he said, which they could by any strained innuendo put a bad construction upon, and carried it to his enemies. His case was very sad when those betrayed him whom he took to be his friends. They said among themselves, “If we accost him kindly, and insinuate ourselves into his acquaintance, per-adventure he will be enticed to own that he is in confederacy with the enemy and a pensioner to the king of Babylon, or we shall wheedle him to speak some treasonable words; and then we shall prevail against him, and take our revenge upon him for telling us of our faults and threatening us with the judgments of God.” Note, Neither the innocence of the dove, no, nor the prudence of the serpent to help it, can secure men from unjust censure and false accusation.
II. Here is an account of the temptation he was in under this affliction; his feet were almost gone, as the psalmist’s, Ps. lxxiii. 2. And this is that which is most to be dreaded in affliction, being driven by it to sin, Neh. vi. 13. 1. He was tempted to quarrel with God for making him a prophet. This he begins with (v. 7): O Lord! thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. This as we read it, sounds very harshly. God’s servants have been always ready to own that he is a faithful Master and never cheated them; and therefore this is the language of Jeremiah’s folly and corruption. If, when God called him to be a prophet and told him he would set him over the kingdoms (ch. i. 10) and make him a defenced city, he flattered himself with an expectation of having universal respect paid to him as a messenger from heaven, and living safe and easy, and afterwards it proved otherwise, he must not say that God had deceived him, but that he had deceived himself; for he knew how the prophets before him had been persecuted, and had no reason to expect better treatment. Nay, God had expressly told him that all the princes, priests, and people of the land would fight against him (Jer 1:18; Jer 1:19), which he had forgotten, else he would not have laid the blame on God thus. Christ thus told his disciples what opposition they should meet with, that they might not be offended,Joh 16:1; Joh 16:2. But the words may very well be read thus: Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded; it is the same word that was used, Gen. ix. 27, margin, God shall persuade Japhet. And Prov. xxv. 15, By much forbearance is a prince persuaded. And Hos. ii. 14, I will allure her. And this agrees best with what follows: “Thou wast stronger than I, didst over-persuade me with argument; nay, didst overpower me, by the influence of thy Spirit upon me, and thou hast prevailed.” Jeremiah was very backward to undertake the prophetic office; he pleaded that he was under age and unfit for the service; but God over-ruled his pleas, and told him that he must go,Jer 1:6; Jer 1:7. “Now, Lord,” says he, “since thou hast put this office upon me, why dost thou not stand by me in it? Had I thrust myself upon it, I might justly have been in derision; but why am I so when thou didst thrust me into it?” It was Jeremiah’s infirmity to complain thus of God as putting a hardship upon him in calling him to be a prophet, which he would not have done had he considered the lasting honour thereby done him, sufficient to counterbalance the present contempt he was under. Note, As long as we see ourselves in the way of God and duty it is weakness and folly, when we meet with difficulties and discouragements in it, to wish we had never set out in it. 2. He was tempted to quit his work and give it over, partly because he himself met with so much hardship in it and partly because those to whom he was sent, instead of being edified and made better, were exasperated and made worse (v. 9): “Then I said, Since by prophesying in the name of the Lord I gain nothing to him or myself but dishonour and disgrace, I will not make mention of him as my author for any thing I say, nor speak any more in his name; since my enemies do all they can to silence me, I will even silence myself, and speak no more, for I may as well speak to the stones as to them.” Note, It is a strong temptation to poor ministers to resolve that they will preach no more when they see their preaching slighted and wholly ineffectual. But let people dread putting their ministers into this temptation. Let not their labour be in vain with us, lest we provoke them to say that they will take no more pains with us, and provoke God to say, They shall take no more. Yet let not ministers hearken to this temptation, but go on in their duty, notwithstanding their discouragements, for this is the more thankworthy; and, though Israel be not gathered, yet they shall be glorious.
III. Here is an account of his faithful adherence to his work and cheerful dependence on his God notwithstanding.
1. He found the grace of God mighty in him to keep him to this business, notwithstanding the temptation he was in to throw it up: “I said, in my haste, I will speak no more in his name; what I have in my heart to deliver I will stifle and suppress. But I soon found it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, which glowed inwardly, and must have vent; it was impossible to smother it; I was like a man in a burning fever, uneasy and in a continual agitation; while I kept silence from good my heart was hot within me, it was pain and grief to me, and I must speak, that I might be refreshed;” Psa 29:2; Psa 29:3; Job 32:20. While I kept silence, my bones waxed old, Ps. xxxii. 3. See the power of the spirit of prophecy in those that were actuated by it; and thus will a holy zeal for God even eat men up, and make them forget themselves. I believed, therefore have I spoken. Jeremiah was soon weary with forbearing to preach, and could not contain himself; nothing puts faithful ministers to pain so much as being silenced, nor to terror so much as silencing themselves. Their convictions will soon triumph over temptations of that kind; for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel, whatever it cost me, 1 Cor. ix. 16. And it is really a mercy to have the word of God thus mighty in us to overpower our corruptions.
2. He was assured of God’s presence with him, which would be sufficient to baffle all the attempts of his enemies against him (v. 11): “They say, We shall prevail against him; the day will undoubtedly be our own. But I am sure that they shall not prevail, they shall not prosper. I can safely set them all at defiance, for the Lord is with me, is on my side, to take my part against them (Rom. viii. 31), to protect me from all their malicious designs upon me. He is with me to support me and bear me up under the burden which now presses me down. He is with me to make the word I preach answer the end he designs, though not the end I desire. He is with me as a mighty terrible one, to strike a terror upon them, and so to overcome them.” Note, Even that in God which is terrible is really comfortable to his servants that trust in him, for it shall be turned against those that seek to terrify his people. God’s being a mighty God bespeaks him a terrible God to all those that take up arms against him or any one that, like Jeremiah, was commissioned by him. How terrible will the wrath of God be to those that think to daunt all about them and will themselves be daunted by nothing! The most formidable enemies that act against us appear despicable when we see the Lord for us as a mighty terrible one, Neh. iv. 14. Jeremiah speaks now with a good assurance: “If the Lord be with me, my persecutors shall stumble, so that, when they pursue me, they shall not overtake me (Ps. xxvii. 2), and then they shall be greatly ashamed of their impotent malice and fruitless attempts. Nay, their everlasting confusion and infamy shall never be forgotten; they shall not forget it themselves, but it shall be to them a constant and lasting vexation, whenever they think of it; others shall not forget it, but it shall leave upon them an indelible reproach.”
3. He appeals to God against them as a righteous Judge, and prays judgment upon his cause, v. 12. He looks upon God as the God that tries the righteous, takes cognizance of them, and of every cause that they are interested in. He does not judge in favour of them with partiality, but tries them, and finding that they have right on their side, and that their persecutors wrong them and are injurious to them, he gives sentence for them. He that tries the righteous tries the unrighteous too, and he is very well qualified to do both; for he sees the reins and the heart, he certainly knows men’s thoughts and affections, their aims and intentions, and therefore can pass an unerring judgment on their words and actions. Now this is the God, (1.) To whom the prophet here refers himself, and in whose court he lodges his appeal: Unto thee have I opened my cause. Not but that God perfectly knew his cause, and all the merits of it, without his opening; but the cause we commit to God we must spread before him. He knows it, but he will know it from us, and allows us to be particular in the opening of it, not to affect him, but to affect ourselves. Note, It will be an ease to our spirits, when we are oppressed and burdened, to open our cause to God and pour out our complaints before him. (2.) By whom he expects to be righted; “Let me see thy vengeance on them, such vengeance as thou thinkest fit to take for their conviction and my vindication, the vengeance thou usest to take on persecutors.” Note, Whatever injuries are done us, we must not study to avenge ourselves, but must leave it to that God to do it to whom vengeance belongs, and who hath said, I will repay.
4. He greatly rejoices and praises God, in a full confidence that God would appear for his deliverance, v. 13. So full is he of the comfort of God’s presence with him, the divine protection he is under, and the divine promise he has to depend upon, that in a transport of joy he stirs up himself and others to give God the glory of it: Sing unto the Lord, praise you the Lord. Here appears a great change with him since he began this discourse; the clouds are blown over, his complaints all silenced and turned into thanksgivings. He has now an entire confidence in that God whom (v. 7) he was distrusting; he stirs up himself to praise that name which (v. 9) he was resolving no more to make mention of. It was the lively exercise of faith that made this happy change, that turned his sighs into songs and his tremblings into triumphs. It is proper to express our hope in God by our praising him, and our praising God by our singing to him. That which is the matter of the praise is, He hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the evil-doers; he means especially himself, his own poor soul. “He hath delivered me formerly when I was in distress, and now of late out of the hand of Pashur, and he will continue to deliver me, 2 Cor. i. 10. He will deliver my soul from the sin that I am in danger of falling into when I am thus persecuted. He hath delivered me from the hand of evil-doers, so that they have not gained their point, nor had their will.” Note, Those that are faithful in well-doing need not fear those that are spiteful in evil-doing, for they have a God to trust to who has well-doers under the hand of his protection and evil-doers under the hand of his restraint.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 7-10: A COMPLAINT TO JEHOVAH
Here is an unusual prophetic self-disclosure of profound emotional tension and conflict. The tender, compassionate, loving and caring heart of Jeremiah is overwhelmed by the sarcasm, ridicule and threatenings of his own countrymen to his faithful witness and warning as the messenger of Jehovah. This self-disclosure of Jeremiah’s inner conflict is for our good. It is not a valid instrument for use in censuring the prophet himself. His enemies had no idea that such a conflict existed. Before them he stood as a “wall of bronze,” (Jer 1:18; Jer 15:20) -though, within, was a boiling tempest of perplexity, fear and despair. But, he himself tells us of his open and honest complaint to Jehovah.
1. The word “deceived,” in verse 7, does not have an evil connotation; it is Jeremiah’s way of saying that God has induced him to accept the prophetic office without a full disclosure of the misery he must endure as the result of his faithful witness, (vs. 7-8; Jer 1:6-8; Jer 1:18-19; comp. Eze 3:14; Mic 3:8).
a. He can only speak of “violence and spoil,” (Jer 6:7; comp. Psa 55:9-11; Eze 7:11; Eze 7:21-25).
b. Because his predictions of judgment have not found immediate fulfillment, he is made the object of daily derision and reproach, (La 3:14; comp. Psa 22:6-7).
c. Instead of turning his beloved nation from their sins, it actually appears that his faithful warnings have only spurred them to more outrageous rebellion against the word of Jehovah; surely he has been a failure.
2. Terror seizes him as he hears the whispers of once-familiar friends plotting his downfall – awaiting some unguarded word that they may use in charging him with treason, (vs. 10; Jer 18:18; Jer 18:22; comp. Isa 29:21; 1Ki 19:1-2; 1Ki 22:26-27; Psa 41:9).
3. But, it would be useless for him to try resigning his prophetic office – no longer speaking in the name of Jehovah; his heart would simply not permit it! (vs. 9; comp. 1Ki 19:3-4; Jon 1:2-3).
a. The word of the Lord was like a fire shut up within his bones; he could not hold it in; he MUST SPEAK! (Jer 4:19; Jer 23:9; comp. Psa 39:1-3; Act 4:18-20).
b. His sense of duty, and his compassion for a people who were blindly rushing to destruction, compelled him to speak!
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Some think that these words were not spoken through the prophetic Spirit, but that Jeremiah had uttered them inconsiderately through the influence of a hasty impulse; as even the most eminent are sometimes carried away by a hasty temper. They then suppose the Prophet, being overcome by a temptation of this kind, made this complaint, to God, “What! Lord, I have followed thee as a leader; but thou hast promised to me what I do not find: I seem, then, to myself to be deceived.” Others give even a harsher explanation, — that the Prophet had been deceived, according to what is said elsewhere,
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I the Lord have deceived that Prophet.” (Eze 14:9.)
But there is no doubt but that his language is ironical, when he says that he was deceived He assumes the character of his enemies, who boasted that he presumptuously prophesied of the calamity and ruin of the city, as no such thing would take place. The Prophet here declares that God was the author of his doctrine, and that nothing could be alleged against him which would not be against God himself; as though he had said that the Jews contended in vain, under the notion that they contended with a mortal man; for they openly carried on war with God, and like the giants furiously assailed heaven itself. He then says that he was deceived, not that he thought so; for he was fully satisfied as to himself; nor had he only the Spirit of God as a witness to his calling, but also possessed in his heart a firm conviction of the truth he delivered. But as I have already said, he relates the words of those who, by opposing his teaching, denied that he was God’s servant, and gave him no credit as though he was only an impostor.
But this mode of speaking is much more striking than if he had said in plain terms, “Lord, I am not deceived, for I have only obeyed thy command, and have received from thee whatever I have made public; nor have I presumptuously obtruded myself, nor adulterated the truth of which thou hast made me the herald: I have, then, faithfully discharged my office.” If the Prophet had thus spoken, there would have been much less force in his words than by exposing in the manner he does here the blasphemies of those who dared to accuse God, and make him guilty by arraigning his servant as a false prophet.
We now, then, understand why he spoke ironically, and freely expostulated with God, because he had been deceived by him; it was that the Jews might know that they vomited forth reproaches, not against a mortal man, but against God himself, who would become the avenger of so great an insult.
Were any one to ask whether it became the Prophet to make God thus his associate, the answer would be this, — that his cause was so connected with God’s cause, that the union was inseparable; for Jeremiah speaks not here as a private individual, much less as one of the common people; but as he knew that his calling was approved by God, he hesitated not to connect God with himself, so that the reproach might belong to both. God, indeed, could not be separated from his own truth; for nothing would be left to him, were he regarded as apart from his word. Hence a mere fiction is every idea which men form of God in their minds, when they neglect that mirror in which he has made himself known, Nay more, we ought to know that whatever power, majesty, and glory there is in God, so shines forth in his word, that he does not appear as God, except his word remains safe and uncorrupted. As, then, the Prophet had been furnished with a sure commission, it is no wonder that he so boldly derides his enemies and says, that God was a deceiver, if he had been deceived. To the same purpose is what Paul says,
“
If an angel come down from heaven and teach you another Gospel, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:8)
Certainly Paul was inferior to the angels, and we know that he was not so presumptuous as to draw down angels from heaven, and to make them subservient to himself; no, by no means; but he did not regard what they might be; but as he had the truth of the Gospel, of which he was the herald, sealed in his heart, he hesitated not to raise that word above all angels. So now Jeremiah says, that God was a deceiver, if he was deceived: how so? because God would deny himself, if he destroyed the truth of his word.
We now, then, perceive that the Prophet did not exceed what was right, when he dared to elevate himself, so as to become in a manner the associate of God, that is, as to the truth of which God was the author and he the minister.
But from this passage a useful doctrine may be gathered. All who go forth to teach ought to be so sure of their calling, as not to hesitate to appeal to God’s tribunal whenever any dispute happens. It is indeed true, that even the best servants of God may in some things be mistaken, or be doubtful in their judgment; but as to their calling and doctrine there ought to be that certainty which Jeremiah exhibits to us here by his own example.
He afterwards adds, Thou hast constrained me By saying that he had been deceived, he meant this, — “O God, if I am an impostor, thou hast made me so; if I have deceived, thou hast led me; for I have derived from thee all that I have; it hence follows, that thou art in fault, and less excusable than I am, if there be anything wrong in me.” Afterwards, as I have said, he enlarges on this, — that God constrained him; for he had not coveted the prophetic office, but being constrained, undertook it; for he could not have rejected or cast off the burden laid on him. He then expresses two things, — that he had brought no fancies of his own, nor invented anything of what he had said, but had been the instrument of God’s Spirit, and delivered what he had received as from hand to hand: this is one thing. And then he adds, — that had he his free choice, he would not have undertaken the prophetic office; for he had been drawn as it were by constraint to obey God in this respect. We now then perceive the meaning of Jeremiah.
Were any to ask, whether it could be deemed commendable in the Prophet thus constrainedly to undertake his office; to this the plain answer is, — that a general rule is not here laid down, as though it were necessary for all to be thus unwillingly drawn. But though Jeremiah might not have been faultless in this respect., yet he might have justly testified this before men. And we have seen at the beginning, that when God appointed him a teacher to his Church, he refused as far as he could the honor,
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Ah! Lord,” he said, “I know not how to speak.” (Jer 1:6)
Though then he was constrained by God’s authority, and as it were, led by force, and though he may have shewed in this respect that he was not free from fault or weakness; yet he might have rightly pleaded this against his enemies.
He then says, that he was a scorn continually, and was derided by all The Prophet no doubt tried here to find out whether any portion of the people was still reclaimable; for to hear that God was charged with falsehood, that the Prophet’s office was rendered void by the wilfulness and audacity of men, was much calculated to rouse their minds. When, therefore, they heard this, they must surely have been terrified, if they had a particle of true religion or of right knowledge. Hence the Prophet wished to make the trial, whether there were any remaining who were capable of being reclaimed. But his object also was to shew, that their wickedness was inexpiable, if they continued wickedly and proudly to oppose his doctrine. (11)
And we ought carefully to notice this; for this passage has not only been written, that we may be instructed in the fear of God; but the Holy Spirit continually proclaims against all despisers, and openly accuses them, that they offer to God the atrocious insult of charging him with falsehood and deception. Let us then know that a dreadful judgment is here denounced on all those profane men who despise God’s word and treat it with derision; for the Holy Spirit by the mouth of Jeremiah openly proclaims, as I have said, before God’s tribunal, that God is made by them a liar. It afterwards follows, —
(11) I find none agreeing with Calvin in his view of this verse; nor many with our version in rendering the first verb “deceived.” So is the Septuagint, but the Vulgate, Syriac, and Targum have “enticed.” In other parts it is rendered in our version “enticed,” “allured,” and “persuaded.” Blayney has “allured,” but Gataker and Lowth prefer “persuaded;” and this wholly comports with the view the Prophet gives of his calling in the first chapter, to which he evidently refers, and also with what follows in this verse. He was unwilling to undertake the office, but he was induced to do so by what God said to him. There was nothing like deception in the case; for God had previously told him of the difficulties he would have to encounter. And then he adds, that he was “constrained,” which I consider to be the meaning of the next verb. He had been persuaded by reasons and promises, and constrained by authority. I would render the verse thus, —
7. Thou didst persuade me, O Jehovah, and I was persuaded; Thou didst constrain me, and didst prevail: I am become a derision every day; The whole of it are jeering me.
The “it” refers to the city where he was, and of which he speaks at the end of the last chapter; for this chapter is but a continuation of the narrative. What he relates there of the fate of the city drew the attention and excited the rage of Pashur. After having spoken of what Pashur did, Jeremiah gives utterance here to his complaints.
Blayney renders the last line thus, and is approved by Horsley, —
Ridicule hath spent its whole force upon me.
All the versions and the Targum regard כלה, not as a verb, but as signifying “all,” or every one; and the proposed rendering is too refined. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
IV. THE HUMAN VESSEL Jer. 20:7-18
In his public confrontation with Pashur Jeremiah had remained as firm as a rock. Now in his private moments with God he breaks down completely. He looks upon his ministry not as a high privilege but as an intolerable burden. He is discouraged with his task; he is disgruntled with his God. This is the fourth personal crisis in the ministry of Jeremiah. His confession moves through three stages: (1) complaint (Jer. 20:7-10); (2) conviction (Jer. 20:11-13); and (3) curse (Jer. 20:14-18).
A. Complaint Jer. 20:7-10
TRANSLATION
(7) You have enticed me, O LORD, and I was enticed; You have completely overpowered me. I have become an object of ridicule all the day, everyone mocks me. (8) For as often as I speak, I cry out, Violence! and destruction I must proclaim! Surely the word of the LORD has become to me shame and derision all the day! (9) But when I say, I will not remember Him nor will I speak again in His name, then there is in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones. I weary myself trying to contain it but I cannot. (10) For I have heard the whispering of many: Terror round about! Denounce him! Let us denounce him! All of my intimate friends are watching my step. Perhaps he will be enticed and we shall prevail over him and take our revenge on him.
COMMENTS
In this bitter moment Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving him. The same Hebrew verb is used of seducing a maiden (Exo. 22:16) or enticing a husband (Jdg. 14:15; Jdg. 16:5). In 1Ki. 22:21 a spirit from God enticed Ahab to go up to Ramoth-gilead in order that he might meet his death. Of course this accusation against God is absolutely false, God had not deceived His prophet in the least about his mission. He had pointedly warned His prospective prophet that his mission was fraught with danger and disappointment (cf. Jer. 1:18). The accusation continues: you completely overpowered me, literally, you took hold of me and you prevailed. Jeremiah seems to be complaining that he was compelled against his own will to preach the word of God. Now because of the nature of his ministry Jeremiah has become the object of ridicule and mockery (Jer. 20:7). Jeremiah could face physical torture without flinching but he seems to cringe before the barbs of ridicule. He blames his plight upon the nature of his message. He must be a prophet of doom. He must constantly cry Violence! Destruction! This message had brought him nothing but reproach and derision (Jer. 20:8).
A tremendous battle rages in the heart and mind of this sensitive man of God. On the one hand he wanted to resign his ministry and retreat to the peaceful and quiet life at Anathoth. He could not bear to face the prospect of continued ridicule and opposition. He wanted to forget all about his recent unpleasant experiences and never preach another sermon again. On the other hand his heart was burdened with a sense of prophetic obligation and divine mission. The fire of Gods wrath against sin burns fiercely within him. He tries to hold it back but cannot. He becomes utterly exhausted from trying to fight his compulsion to preach. In spite of himself he must follow the divine call, he must resume his ministry (Jer. 20:9).
Jeremiah knows the dangers attendant upon his resumption of the prophetic ministry. He knows his enemies are plotting against him. He even seems to hear them urging one another to lay false charges against him. Even his friends (literally, all the men of my peace)those who greeted him with familiar greetings of friendshipare watching his every move. They hope that he will take one false step so that they may take advantage of it. Perhaps, they think, the prophet can be enticed or seduced into making some mistakes or saying something on which a charge of treason can be based. These enemies will stop at nothing. They are out for revenge against the meddlesome prophet who had dared contradict their pro-Egypt policy and pronounce the doom of their nation (Jer. 20:10).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(7) O Lord, thou hast deceived me.There is an obvious break between Jer. 20:6-7. The narrative ends, and a psalm of passionate complaint begins. Its position probably indicates that the compiler of the prophecies in their present form looked on the complaints as belonging to this period of the prophets work, representing the thoughts of that night of shame which was, as it were, the extremest point of apparent failure. This then was the end of his prophetic calling, this the fulfilment of the promise which told him that he was set over the nations, and that his enemies should not prevail against him (Jer. 1:8-10). Some touches of this feeling we have heard already in Jer. 15:18. Now it is more dominant and continuous.
Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed.Better, thou hast laid hold on me. Jehovah now appears to the prophet as a hard taskmaster who had forced him, against his will (Jer. 17:16), to enter on a work from which he shrank, and who gave him scorn and derision as his only wage. He felt, in St. Pauls language, that a necessity was laid upon him (1Co. 9:16); or in Isaiahs, that the strong hand of the Lord was on him (Isa. 8:11).
Daily.Literally, all the day.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JEREMIAH’S COMPLAINT, Jer 20:7-18.
7. Deceived Rather, persuaded: though the word often contains the sense of misleading. Here the meaning is: didst entice me into the prophetic office with vain hopes.
Thou art stronger Literally, hast taken hold of: placed me in this position of fruitless suffering and danger.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jeremiah Is So Distraught That He Berates YHWH And Points Out How Tough He Is Finding Things, And Yet He Admits That He Has To Speak Out Whether He Likes It Or Not Because YHWH’s Word Is Like A Burning Fire Within Him, And He Finishes On A Note Of Praise Because He Is Aware That YHWH Is His Support ( Jer 20:7-13 ).
While up to this point Jeremiah had been sneered at and jeered at he had never had to suffer physical violence, having been seen as sacrosanct as a prophet of YHWH. This experience thus came to him as something of a shock (he did not realise that it was the harbinger of more to come), and makes him consider what is happening to him. In consequence he now grumbles at YHWH Whom he sees as having forced him into his present position, and points out that it is the very message of ‘violence and destruction’ that YHWH has given him that is bringing him into disrepute. Nevertheless he admits that he cannot help speaking out, even when he is thinking of not doing so, because YHWH’s word burns in him like a fire forcing him to do so.
But then in his wavering his thoughts turn on YHWH and he is encouraged as he recognises that he need not fear because YHWH is with him as One Who is mighty and terrible, One Who causes his foes to stumble so that they will be utterly put to shame, and he calls on Him avenge Himself on those who have mistreated His prophet so that he himself may see it, and ends up by praising YHWH for his deliverance from the hand of evildoers.
Jer 20:7-8
‘O YHWH, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded,
You are stronger than I, and have prevailed,
I have become a laughing-stock all the day,
Everyone mocks me.’
For as often as I have spoken, I have cried out complainingly,
I have protested, “Violence and destruction!”
Because the word of YHWH is made a reproach to me,
And a derision, all the day.”
In his distress at what he has just gone through Jeremiah chides YHWH with the fact that it is YHWH Who has put pressure on him to do the things that he has done. He points out that he had not wanted to do it, but that YHWH was stronger than he was and had prevailed. As a consequence he had become a laughingstock, and was being mocked, because whenever he had spoken it had been of ‘violence and destruction’, (whilst as far as his hearers could see, nothing like that was in sight, see Jer 17:15). Thus it was the word of YHWH that he was proclaiming which had been the reason why he was being reproached and derided all the day. Note that the final two lines should be read as continuing the thought in line 3, with lines 4 & 5 as a kind of parenthesis.
We too can find that at times people will mock us for our insistence on the fact that God will one day judge us and that that judgment may be imminent. And when we do so, and feel that possibly we might be wise to desist, we should remember that, even though he was jeered at, Jeremiah’s words came true, and when they did how the people must have wished that they had listened.
The word translated ‘persuaded’ can also mean ‘seduced, deceived or entrapped into doing something’, thus it may be that he is claiming to some extent to have been misled, or even entrapped, into making himself a laughingstock. Compare its use in Exo 22:16; Eze 14:9; Jdg 16:5 ; 1Ki 22:20.
Jer 20:9
‘And if I say, “I will not make mention of him,
Nor speak any more in his name,
Then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire,
Shut up in my bones,
And I am weary with forbearing,
And I am unable to do so.’
And yet Jeremiah admitted that he had not been able to help speaking up, because whenever he determined that he would not do so, and that he would no longer speak in YHWH’s Name, possibly because he had felt that it was hopeless, he had discovered that a fire was burning within him, shut up in his bones (a Hebraism for his inner self), so that not only did he grow tired of resisting it but in fact found himself completely unable not to speak (compare Paul in 1Co 9:16).
Our problem, of course, is mainly that we do not have such a fire within us, and we thus take advantage of the fact and simply refrain from speaking. But that is a sign that we have not come to know God or His word in the way that Jeremiah had. If we had we also would be unable to hold ourselves back from speaking.
Jer 20:10
‘For I have heard the defaming of many,
Terror on every side?
“Denounce, and we will denounce him,”
Says every man of my peace,
Those who watch for my fall, say,
“Perhaps he will be persuaded (deceived, seduced),
And we will prevail against him,
And we will take our revenge on him.’
The first two lines are a quotation from Psa 31:13 describing the behaviour of those who plotted against him and planned his death. He had been constantly aware of those who had defamed him and surrounded him with terror so that ‘terror was on every side’ for him as well (magor-missabib – ‘fear is round about’; compare Jer 20:3). Even the men of his peace (courteous acquaintances, that is, those more moderate people who had always in the past greeted him with the words ‘peace be with you’) had in the end yielded to popular opinion and had agreed that if others denounced him they would do so as well. They had not felt able to stand out against the swell that was against him.
Meanwhile those who had been constantly on the watch for his fall (compare Psa 35:15 ‘in my fall they rejoiced’; Jer 38:17, ‘I am ready to fall’) said hopefully, ‘perhaps he will be ‘persuaded’ (entrapped and seduced) into saying something wrong’. (The belief was that a false prophet was so because he was deceived and seduced by YHWH into uttering false prophecies – 1Ki 22:21-23). Their hope was that they could goad Jeremiah into saying something foolish by which he could be condemned with the result that they would be able to prevail against him and take their revenge on him. (When he later publicly supported Babylon they probably clapped their hands in evil delight).
Jer 20:11
‘But YHWH is with me as a mighty one,
A terrible one,
Therefore my persecutors will stumble,
And they will not prevail,
They will be utterly put to shame,
Because they have not dealt wisely,
Even with an everlasting dishonour,
Which will never be forgotten.
As so often in prayer when the soul is facing seemingly insoluble problems, light suddenly breaks through and Jeremiah immediately feels encouraged as he contemplates YHWH. Why is he talking so foolishly when he knows that YHWH is with him (compare Jer 1:19) and that YHWH is the Mighty and Terrible One? In the light of what He is his persecutors (the terrible ones of Jer 15:21) no longer seem terrible. Rather it is they who will stumble and not prevail, for they will be utterly put to shame because they have not dealt wisely (by listening to the word of YHWH), a shame which will result in everlasting dishonour which will never be forgotten, it will be remembered by all future generations (compare Dan 12:2 which takes the idea even further).
Jer 20:12
‘But, O YHWH of hosts, who tries the righteous,
Who sees the heart and the mind,
Let me see your vengeance on them,
For to you have I revealed my cause.’
His rise from despondency continues as he cries to YHWH of Hosts, the One Who tries the righteous and sees men’s hearts and minds, to let him finally see His vengeance on them because he has revealed his case to Him.
Jer 20:13
“Sing to YHWH,
Praise you YHWH,
For he has delivered the soul of the needy,
From the hand of evil-doers.’
And he finishes his prayer on a note of general praise, typical of the Psalms (compare for example Psa 6:9-10; Psa 7:17; Psa 18:49-50; Psa 22:22 ff; Psa 57:9-11; Psa 59:6-17; Psa 66:20), as he calls on men to sing to YHWH and to praise Him, because he has delivered the soul of the needy (in this case himself) from the hands of evildoers.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Prophet’s Joy and Sorrow
v. 7. O Lord, v. 8. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil, v. 9. Then I said, v. 10. For I heard the defaming of many, v. 11. But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one, v. 12. But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, v. 13. Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord, v. 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born; let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed, v. 16. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man-child is born unto thee, making him very glad, v. 16. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and repented not, v. 17. because he, v. 18. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Jer 20:7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me, &c. Over-persuaded me, and I was over-persuaded. Our translation here is harsh and faulty. The occasion of the words was this: The prophet had met with a large share of ill-usage from an ungrateful people, in return for the faithful discharge of his prophetic office. Under these his calamitous circumstances, he looks up to God, and appeals to him, the searcher of hearts, as his witness, that it was not through any ambition of his own that he had entered upon that invidious office; see chap. Jer 1:6-7, &c. nor had he taken upon him of his own accord to reprove his countrymen: but all that he had done in that affair was pursuant to a divine cause, and in pure obedience to divine command. He would gladly have declined it, but God would not suffer him; wherefore hereupon he says, speaking to the Almighty, Thou hast over-persuaded me, and I was over-persuaded; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed. The passage carries in it a lively idea of the prophet’s great modesty and profound humility, in not affecting high things or shining offices; but submitting, however, to the burden of them in obedience to the will of God. See Waterland’s Script. Vind. part. 3: p. 84.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
3. APPENDIX
Jer 20:7-18
The Prophets Joy And Sorrow
This passage contains an outbreak of the deepest sorrow, called forth by the persecutions, whose object Jeremiah was, both in general and specially in the bad treatment just received (Jer 20:2-3; comp. Jer 11:18; Jer 15:15; Jer 18:18 sqq.). The close connection of the passage with the preceding context is evident, as it seems to me from the words Magor-missabib in Jer 20:10. For the application of this expression to the prophet is certainly most easily explained by the application which he himself had made of it in so pregnant a manner and to so prominent a personage as Pashur. If we further consider that to pass a night in the stocks must have been a fearful torture, and that it was the first time that the prophet had had to suffer bodily ill-treatment, we must admit that the historical epoch was perfectly adapted for the production of such a lamentation. It should, moreover, be observed that there is no superscription or designation of this effusion as Word of the Lord. From this it follows that the prophet himself ascribes to this passage only a subjective and private character. The passage may be divided into two parts: 1. Jer 20:7-13. Here the prophet rises from his lament on account of the persecution which had come upon him against his will to the expression of the most joyful hope. 2. Jer 20:14-18. Here the feeling of sorrow, nay of despair, gets the upper hand, and the prophet sinks into a state of the most utter grief and despondency.
A. THROUGH SORROW TO JOY
Jer 20:7-13
7Thou didst persuade me,1 Jehovah, and I was persuaded:
Thou didst lay hold of me2 and didst prevail over me.
I am become a derision daily; every one mocketh me.
8For as often as I speak or cry,3
I must cry concerning violence and ill-treatment;
For the word of Jehovah is made to me a scorn and derision the whole day.
9And if I say,4 I will no more make mention of him,
Nor speak henceforth in his name,
It becomes in my heart like a burning fire, shut up5 in my bones,
And I weary myself with refraining, and cannot.
10For I hear the talking of many:
Terror round about! Announce! We will announce it!
All who are obligated to be at peace with me watch for my halting:
Perhaps he will allow himself to be taken!
Then we will overpower him and take our revenge on him.
11But Jehovah is with me as a mighty hero;
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They shall be grievously put to shame, because they have effected nothing,
With eternal disgrace, which is not forgotten.
12But Jehovah Zebaoth tries justly;6 he sees reins and heart.
I shall see thy vengeance on them,
For on thee have I devolved my suit.
13Sing to Jehovah, praise Jehovah,
For he has saved the soul of the poor from the hand of evil doers.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet first calls to mind that he had not thrust himself into the prophetic office, but undertaken it with reluctance (Jer 20:7 a). That his objections were well founded is shown by the result, for he has reaped nothing in return for his proclamation of the divine word but scorn and derision (Jer 20:7 b8). But when he attempted to divest himself of the prophetic vocation, he found this impossible; there was an impulse from within, which burned like a fire and threatened to consume him unless he were relieved (Jer 20:9). And yet his ministry did not cease to be ruinous to him. He hears how the words of his prophecy, as Terror round about (Jer 20:3), are turned against him in derision, and used in denunciation of the prophet. Yea, even such as should be well disposed towards him watched curiously to spy out some false step, by which they might obtain the satisfaction of their feeling of revenge (Jer 20:10). He then consoles himself with the hope that everlasting shame will be the portion of his enemies (Jer 20:11), and that he will be avenged by God, the true knower of hearts (Jer 20:12). Finally in the anticipation of being heard, he breaks out into a summons to praise God as the Saviour of the poor (Jer 20:13).
Jer 20:7-8. Thou didst persuade him the whole day. On the subject-matter, comp. Jer 1:5 sqq.
Jer 20:9. And if I say and cannot. The prophet describes his experience, when, having undertaken the prophetic calling, he attempts to escape from it. He had the feeling as if a fire were burning within him, which having no outlet would consume him, to which, therefore, he was obliged to give an outlet by expressing what was inwardly communicated to him. Comp. Jer 6:11; Amo 3:8.I weary myself. Comp. Jer 9:4; Jer 15:6.
Jer 20:10-13. For I hear evil-doers.For in Jer 20:10, cannot possibly refer immediately to Jer 20:9. It rather presupposes a similar thought to that to which the parallel in Jer 20:8 refers, and which is contained in Jer 20:7 b. We must, therefore, supply after Jer 20:9 a thought of this kind: since the cause remains, the effect also remains (namely, that indicated in 7b). How far this is the case, is shown in the following sentence.Talk, is fama, rumor, public talk, report (comp. Gen 37:2; Num 13:32; Num 14:36-37; Pro 10:18; Pro 25:10). That it is a secretly circulated, softly whispered rumor, neither follows from the etymology (which is pretty uncertain; comp. FuerstsConcordance with his Lexicon), nor from the connection of the passage where it occurs.Terror, etc. Magor-missabib. The expression occurs in Jer 6:25; afterwards also in Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29 coll. Lam 2:22, besides Psa 31:14. Since the discourse to which Jer 6:25 belongs, is older than Jeremiah 19, 20, the prophet did not use the expression in Jer 20:3 for the first time, but only as a repetition of one previously used. In this passage the expression may be understood as only an ironical quotation. For 1. The form of the expression is not such that it can be designated as a popular form of threatening. , magor, is not only a comparatively rare word, but one which belongs exclusively to poetic and prophetic phraseology; it occurs only eight times in the Old Testament, and except once in Isa. (Isa 31:9 in another connection), only in the formula here used, six times in Jeremiah and in Psa 31:14. 2. The expression is evidently one peculiar to Jeremiah, as is clear from what has been stated; in addition to which may be remarked, that Psalms 31. contains so many elements peculiar to the style of Jeremiah or related to it, that the question whether Jeremiah was not its author is fully justified. As it can scarcely be doubted that those scoffers applied his own phrase to the prophet, it is further in the highest degree probable that they did this from an occasion on which it had been used by the prophet not by the way, but in a pregnant manner. This latter was, however, the case when Jeremiah changed the name of so important a personage as Pashur into Magor-missabib. The question is of subordinate interest in what sense they applied the expression to the prophet; whether it was as a menace against him, or as a reproach for his hostile disposition towards the community. Probably they wished to unite both.All who are obligated, etc. Comp. Jer 22:22; Oba 1:8; Psa 41:10.Watch for my halting. in the meaning of side, according to which who cover my side would be in apposition.Friends [literally: men of my peace], from the want of a predicate, gives no sense [though adopted by Schmid, Schnurrer, Eichhorn, and Gesenius]. Doubtless it is, as in Psa 35:15, claudicatio, tottering, making a false step. For in the sense of to watch for, to lie in wait, see Psa 56:7; Psa 71:10; Job 10:14; Job 13:27.Overpower him. Comp. Jer 1:19; Jer 15:20.My persecutors. Comp. Jer 15:15; Jer 17:18.Not prevail. Comp. Jer 5:22; Jer 3:5Effect nothing. Comp. Comm. on Jer 10:21.Eternal disgrace. Comp. Jer 23:40.But Jehovah (Jer 20:12). Comp. Jer 11:20.Justly, might be accusative. But from the parallel with Jer 11:20, we perceive that it is intended to define more particularly the action predicated. The sense is also more satisfactory, if it is not merely said, what the Lord sees, but also how He sees it.Sing, etc. A hymn of the hopeful man, who by faith possesses that which is still future (Heb 11:1).
Footnotes:
[1]Jer 20:7.. The construction is like , Jer 11:18.
[2]Jer 20:7., transitive as in 1Ki 16:22; 1Ch 28:20.
[3]Jer 20:8.According to the Masoretic punctuation, is connected as asyndeton with , depending on , as an accusative. This punctuation is supported on the fact that the latter phrase frequently occurs in this connection: Jer 6:7; Amo 3:10; Eze 45:9. In itself it would certainly be allowable and more in accordance with the sense to consider the later sentence as apodosis of the former.
[4]Jer 20:9.On the form of the conditional sentence, comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 85 a, etc.
[5]Jer 20:9., being in apposition to , is to be rendered as neuter: inclusum aliquid. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 60, 4.
[6]Jer 20:12.[Henderson: The Trier of the righteous.S. R. A.]
B. FOR THE PRESENT NOTHING BUT SORROW: THE PROPHET CURSES THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH
Jer 20:14-18
14Cursed be the day wherein I was begotten!
Let not the day, wherein my mother bare me, be blessed!
15Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying,
A son is born to thee, a man child!making him very glad.
16And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew without mercy,
And let him hear the cry in the morning and alarm of war at noontide,
17Because he slew me not in the womb;
So that my mother might have been my grave,
And her womb have remained always gravid.
18Wherefore came I forth from the womb,
To see labour and sorrow and my days consumed in shame?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet curses the day of his begetting and the day of his birth (Jer 20:14). He further curses the man, who brought to his father the first news of his birth (Jer 20:15). He wishes that this man may be like Sodom and Gomorrah (Jer 20:16), because he did not kill him in the womb and thus prevent his birth (Jer 20:17). Finally he breaks out again into a lamentation:O why must I be born to a life of misery and shame (Jer 20:18)? Two questions here arise. 1. Is such a cursing in the mouth of a prophet to be justified? 2. Is it in place in this connection immediately after the hopeful words in Jer 20:11-13? As to the first question, as a preliminary all those arbitrary interpretations are to be rejected, which understand by the day which Jeremiah curses, not the day of his birth, but some other day, especially some future day, as that of the destruction of Jerusalem (as according to Jerome the older Rabbins),or which suppose that Jeremiah speaks not in his own name, but in the name of others (perditorum hominum),or which suppose that Jeremiah complains here not of external but internal trials, or of the perversity of the people (Calvin), or that he gives an account of a trial which he had endured previously (in explanation of , Jer 20:13, on account of which or is to be supplied before Jer 20:14. Seb. Schmidt). It should be observed that this entire passage from Jer 20:7 onwards, is not proclaimed by the prophet as a word of Jehovah (Comp. 1Co 7:25). He gives us merely a true reflex of his human feeling. Who can dispute the possibility of a man like Jeremiah having such temptations of indignation and despair? Is it not human? Do the men of God cease to be men? Think of that man of God, Job, whose words evidently (Jer 3:3 sqq.) hovered before the mind of the prophet. It is further to be observed, that the cursing is merely a rhetorical form. It has no object. The long past day of his birth is as little an object, to which the curse might really attach itself as the man who announced to the father the birth of his son,who in reality, probably, never existed. For were men witnesses of confinements? Is it not of purpose that the prophet speaks of a man, and not of a woman? Therefore Chrysostom says concerning Job: inanimatis facit injuriam (Ghisl II., S. 523). Finally, however, it must be admitted, as Seb. Schmidt sets forth, that it manifests an infirmity on the part of the prophet. Frster even says: Grande hoc et inexcusabile prophet peccatum est. And indeed the sinfulness of it consists partly in the high degree of impatience and ill-humor, which is here manifested, and partly in the form in which it displays itself. If this may be regarded as rhetorical hyperbole, yet this mode of expression is not New Testament, Christian, evangelical. We find here, too, somewhat of the spirit of the Ben-Hargem, to whom Christ said: Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of (Luk 9:55). Comp. the Doctrinal and Ethical remarks on Jer 18:20. The second question, whether this outbreak of indignation suits, the connection, or is supposable as following Jer 20:11-13, is answered by many in the negative. Ewald even places Jer 20:14-18 before Jer 20:7. Graf regards it as an independent fragment, a further development of Jer 15:10, which is placed here only on account of its agreement in purport with Jer 20:7-10. Now it must certainly be admitted that an outbreak of ill-humor such as this, after Jer 20:13, is in a high degree remarkable. But observe the following points: 1. It is not necessary to suppose that Jer 20:14-18 contain the expression of a state of mind, which followed immediately on that joyous state described in the previous context. There may have been a pause, a transition. None the less does the prophet portray the occurrences in his own mind with perfect correctness. He gives us to understand that his stare of comfort did not long continue, but soon made way for its opposite. 2. This arrangement of the psychological tableaux corresponds also to the course of history: the prophet never attained in this life to the enjoyment of outward peace. If he had now and then a moment of rest and of hope, it was soon past. Jer 20:18 corresponds only too exactly to the actual tenor of his life.
Jer 20:14. Cursed be the day be blessed. Even R. Salomo and Abarbanel, in order to avoid tautology took in the sense of beget. They add that Jeremiah was begotten on the day that Manasseh killed the prophets of the Lord (2Ki 21:16). Moreover comp. Jer 15:10; Job 3:3 sqq.
Jer 20:15-18. Cursed be the man consumed in shame. The Rabbins say this man was Pashur.Brought tidings with accusatives of the person, 1Sa 31:9; 2Sa 18:19.As the cities, etc. Allusion to Gen 19:25In the morning at noontide = unceasingly, without any breathing pause. Comp. Psa 55:18.In [A. V.: from] the womb. . Comp. Job 3:11. The preposition , on account of the following sentence, cannot be = fromaway, but is used here in accordance with that idiom, by which the terminus a quo is used for the terminus in quo, or in quem. Comp. , eastwards. Gen 11:2. [Eng. Vers. from the eastS. R. A]. he flees into the distance. Isa 17:13; Pro 7:19; Naegelsb.Gr., 112, 5 d. The man may be regarded equally well with Jehovah [Henderson], as the subject of slew, especially if we remember that the whole description is not of a historical but rhetorical character. Comp. Psa 31:10. [While destitute of the sublime imagery employed by Job, this passage is not surpassed in pathos; there is a unity and condensation throughout which heighten its poetical beauty. Henderson.S. R. A.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer 18:2. What is the prophet of God to learn in the house of the potter? How shall this be his Bible or his school? But God chooses the foolish things to confound human wisdom (1Co 1:27). Cramer. [An orator would never choose such an instance for the purpose of making an impression on his audience; still less for the purpose of exhibiting his own skill and liveliness. It must be for business, not for amusement, that such a process is observed.What we want in every occupation is some means of preserving the continuity of our thoughts, some resistance to the influences which are continually distracting and dissipating them. But it is especially the student of the events of his own time, of the laws which regulate them, of the issues which are to proceed from them, who has need to be reminded that he is not studying a number of loose disconnected phenomena, but is tracing a principle under different aspects and through different manifestations. A sensible illustration, if we would condescend to avail ourselves of it, would often save us from much vagueness and unreality, as well as from hasty and unsatisfactory conclusions. Maurice.S. R. A.]
2. On Jer 18:6 sqq. Omne simile claudicat. Man is not clay, though he is made of clay (Gen 2:7). Consequently in Jer 20:8; Jer 20:10 the moral conditions are mentioned, which by virtue of his personality and freedom must be fulfilled on the part of man, in order that the divine transformation to good or bad may take place. If the clay is spoiled on the wheel, it cannot help it. It is probably only the potters fault. Nothing then is here symbolized but the omnipotence of God, by virtue of which He can in any given case suppress whole kingdoms and nations, and transform them with the same ease and rapidity as the potter rolls up the spoiled vessel into a ball of clay, and immediately gives it a new form. It would be well for all to convince themselves, by witnessing the process, of the wonderful ease with which the potter forms the clay on the wheel.
3. On Jer 18:6-10. Cogitet unusquisque peccata sua, et modo illa emendet, cum tempus est. Sit fructuosus dolor, non sit sterilis pnitudo. Tanquam hoc dicit Deus, ecce indicavi sententiam, sed nondum protuli. Prdixi non fixi. Quid times, quia dixi? Si mutaveris, mutatur. Nam scriptum est, quod pniteat Deum. Numquid quomodo hominem sic pnitet Deum? Nam dictum est: si pnituerit vos de peccatis vestris, pnitebit me de omnibus malis, qu facturus eram vobis. Numquid quasi errantem pnitet Deum? Sed pnitentia dicitur in Deo mutatio sententi. Non est iniqua, sed justa. Quare justa? Mutatus est reus, mutavit judex sententiam. Noli terreri. Sententia mutata est, non justitia. Justitia integra manet, quia mutato debet parcere, quia justus est. Quomodo pertinaci non parcit, sic mutato parcit. Augustin, Sermo 109. De Tem ad medium.
4. On Jer 18:6-10. Comminationes Dei non intelligend sunt absolute, sed cum exceptione pnitenti et conditione impnitenti. Promissiones itidem non sunt absolute sed circumscript cum conditione obedienti, tum exceptione crucis. God stipulates everywhere for the cross. Comp. Deuteronomy 28. Frster.
5. On Jer 18:6-10. Prscientia et prdictio Dei non injicit absolutam eventus necessitatem rebus prscitis ac prdictis. Frster.
6. On Jer 18:8. O felix pnitentium humilitas! Quam potens es apud omnipotentem. Bernard of Clairvaux.
[On Jer 18:8-10. I apprehend that we shall learn some day that the call to individual repentance, and the promise of individual reformation, has been feeble at one time, productive of turbulent, violent, transitory effects at another, because it has not been part of a call to national repentance, because it has not been connected with a promise of national reformation. We may appeal to men by the terrors of a future state; we may use all the machinery of revivalists to awaken them to a concern for their souls; we may produce in that way a class of religious men who pursue an object which other men do not pursue (scarcely a lass selfish, often not a less outward object):who leave the world to take its own course;who, when they mingle in it, as in time they must do for the sake of business and gain, adopt again its own maxims, and become less righteous than other men in common affairs, because they consider religion too fine a thing to be brought from the clouds to the earth, while yet they do not recognise a lower principle as binding on them. But we must speak again the ancient language, that God has made a covenant with the nation, and that all citizens are subjects of an unseen and righteous King, if we would have a hearty, inward repentance, which will really bring us back to God; which will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers; which will go down to the roots of our life, changing it from a self-seeking life into a life of humility and love and cheerful obedience; which will bear fruit upwards, giving nobleness to our policy and literature and art, to the daily routine of what we shall no more dare to call our secular existence. Maurice.S. R. A.]
7. On Jer 18:10. God writes as it were a reflection in our heart of that which we have to furnish to Him. For God is disposed towards us as we are disposed towards Him. If we do well, He does well to us; if we love Him, He loves us in return; if we forsake Him, He for sakes us. Psa 18:26. Cramer. [Sin is the great mischief maker between God and a people; it forfeits the benefits of His promises, and spoils the success of their prayers. It defeats His kind intentions concerning them (Hos 7:1), and baffles their pleasing expectations from Him. It ruins their comforts, prolongs their grievances, brings them into straits, and retards their deliverances. Isa 49:1-2. HenryS. R. A.]
8. On Jer 18:12. Freedom of the Spirit! Who will allow himself to be brought into bondage by the gloomy words of that singular man, Jeremiah? Every one must be able to live according to his own way of thinking. Diedrich, The prophet Jeremiah and Ezekiel briefly expounded. 1863, S. 59.This is the watchword of impiety in all times. If in truth everyone bears the divinity within him, then it is justified. But since every man bears within him only a , a divine germ or spark, a point of connection for the objectively divine, and at the same time a point of connection for the diabolical, it is a hellish deception when one supposes he must follow his ingenium. For the question is, whether the voice from within is the voice of God or the voice of the devil. Here it is necessary to try ourselves and to open an entrance to the divine sun of life, so that the divine life-germ in us may be strengthened, and enabled to maintain its true authority.
9. On Jer 18:14. On the summits of the high mountains, even in tropical countries, the snow does not entirely melt, and therefore the mighty cool springs at their feet never dry up. With those men only does the pure white snow of divine knowledge and godly fear never melt, whose heads are elevated above the steam and vapor of earthly cares and passions, into the pure clear air of heaven. And they it is, from whose bodies flow streams of living water (Joh 7:38).
10. On Jer 18:18. Consult the treatise of Luther: How a minister should behave when his office is despised?
11. On Jer 18:18. (Come and let us smite him with the tongue, etc.). It is indeed uncertain whether this is said by the preachers or by the whole people; but this is certain, that such actions are performed daily by those teachers, who know no other way of stopping the mouth of a servant of Jesus. And not give heed to any of his words. This is au pis aller. If we can do him no harm, we will stop our ears, and he shall not convince us. Zinzendorf.
12. On Jer 18:19. (Give heed to me, O Lord). This takes place in two ways. A teacher is looked at by the eye which is as flames of fire. He is also guided by the same eye, which looks on all lands, to strengthen those whose hearts are towards the Lord. No child can rest more securely in the cradle, while the nurse is looking for any fly that might disturb it, than a servant of the Lord can, to whom God gives heed. Zinzendorf.
13. On Jer 18:20. It is a pleasing remembrance, when a teacher considers that he has been able to avert divine judgments from his people. It is also an undeniable duty. The spirit of Job, Moses, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Paul in this respect is the true spirit of Jesus Christ. He is a miserable shepherd who can give up his sheep and look on with dry eyes, while the fold is being devastated. Not to mention that teachers are now-a-days, by the salaries which they receive from their congregations, brought into the relation of servitude, and besides the regular obligation of the head are laid under indebtedness, as hospitals and other institutions, to pray for their founders. They give themselves the name of intercessors and thus bind themselves anew to this otherwise universal duty of all teachers. Zinzendorf. But when the servant of God receives odium pro labore, persecutio pro intercessione, this is the worlds gratitude and gratuity. Frster.
14. On Jer 18:21-23. With regard to this prayer against his enemies Calvin remarks, this vehemence, as it was dictated by the Holy Spirit, is not to be condemned, nor ought it to be made an example of, for it was peculiar to the Prophet to know that they were reprobates. For the prophet, he says, was (1) endued with the spirit of wisdom and judgment, and (2) zeal also for Gods glory so ruled in his heart, that the feelings of the flesh were wholly subdued, or at least brought under subjection; and farther, he pleaded not a private cause.As all these things fall not to our lot, we ought not indiscriminately to imitate Jeremiah in this prayer: for that would then apply to us which Christ said to His disciples, Ye know not what spirit governs you (Luk 9:55). In general the older Comm. agree in this. Oecolampadius says tersely: Subscribit sententi divin. Frster also says that originally such a prayer is not allowed, but that to the prophet, who by the divine inspiration was certain of the obstinata et plane insanabilis malitia of his hearers, it was permitted as singulare et extraordinarium aliquid. The Hirschberger Bibel also explains the words as a consignment to the divine judgment, since God Himself has several times refused to hear prayer in their behalf (Jer 14:13-14), and they themselves could not endure it (Jer 20:18). Vide Neumann II. S. 15.Seb. Schmidt says plainly, Licet hominibus impiis et persecutoribus imprecari malum, modo ejusmodi imprecationes non fiant ex privata vindicta, et conditionat sint ad constantem eorum impietatem. Nisi enim ejusmodi imprecationes etiam piis essent licit, propheta non imprecatus esset persecutoribus gravissimam pnam hanc. I believe that it is above all to be observed that Jeremiah does not announce these words (Jer 20:18-18) as the word of Jehovah. It is a prayer to the Lord, like Jer 20:7-18. That which was remarked on Jer 20:14-18, on the Old Testament character of the prayer, applies here also and in a higher degree. For here as there we may set a good share of the harshness to the account of the rhetoric. The standard of judgment may be found in Mat 5:43. Many ancient Comm. ex. gr. Jerome, who regard the suffering prophet as a type of the suffering Saviour, point out the contrast between this prayer of Jeremiahs against his enemies and the prayer of Christ for His enemies (Luk 23:34). The only parallel adduced from the New Testament is 2Ti 4:4. But there it is (according to the correct reading of Tischendorf) not (Text. Rec., Knapp).
15. On Jer 19:1. If man were only a Platonic , and did not dwell in the flesh, but were pure spirit and soul, as the Schwenkfelder dreamed a man might be, he would not need such visible signs.But because man consists of body and soul, God uses, together with the Holy Ghost, the word and Sacrament and other signs. Cramer.
16. On Jer 19:6-9. . Herodotus. Vide Frster, S. 106.
17. On Jer 19:10-11. What is more easily broken in pieces than an earthen vessel? Equally easy is it for the hand of the Almighty to break in pieces the kingdoms of men. And if He spared not the kingdom of Judah, whose king was a son of David and the people the chosen nation, shall He spare the kingdoms of the heathen, none of which can point to any prophecy in its behalf, like that which we read in 2Sa 7:16? Comp. Dan 2:21; Dan 4:14; Dan 4:22; Dan 4:29; Dan 5:21; Sir 10:4; Sir 10:8; Sir 10:10; Sir 10:14.
18. On Jer 19:11-13. This prophecy was not completely fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. For Jerusalem was restored after this destruction. The second destruction, by the Romans, must then be regarded as the definitive fulfillment. Comp. Jerome ad loc.Tophet was used by the inhabitants of Jerusalem for idolatrous purposes. In consequence, the fires of Tophet set Jerusalem on fire, and again the corpses which filled Jerusalem extended even to Tophet, and by reciprocal calamity Tophet became like Jerusalem and Jerusalem like Tophet.
19. On Jer 20:1-2. . Honores mutant mores. Frster. Quod hic fuit tormentum, illic erit ornamentum. Augustin.
20. On Jer 20:3-6. Mark, who is the stronger here: Pashur or Jeremiah? For 1. Jeremiah overcomes his sufferings by patience, 2. He is firm in opposition to his enemy and does not allow himself to be terrified by his tyranny, but rebukes him to his face for his sins and lies. Cramer.
21. On Jer 20:3-6. Pashurs punishment consists in this, that he will participate in the terrible affliction and be a witness of it, without being able to die.He is a type of the wandering Jew.
22. On Jer 20:7-12. The prophet could say with a good conscience that he had not pressed into this office. It was his greatest comfort that the Lord had persuaded and overpowered him, when resisting, and that afterwards the fire within kindled by the Lord compelled him to speak. Thus he at last becomes so joyful, that in the midst of his sufferings he sings a hymn on his deliverance.
Lord Jesus, for Thy work divine,
The glory is not ours, but Thine;
Therefore we pray Thee stand by those,
Who calmly on Thy word repose.
23. On Jer 20:14-18. When the saints stumble this serves to us; 1. for doctrine: we see that no man is justified by his own merits; 2. for , i. e. for the refutation of those, who suppose that there are ; 3. for , if we follow Ambrose, who called to the emperor Theodosius: Si Davidem imitatus es peccantem, imitare etiam pnitentem; 4. for , that he who stands take heed that he do not fall; 5. for , that he who has fallen may after their pattern rise again. Frster.
24. On Jer 20:17-18. The question is, Does a man do right in wishing himself dead? Answer: He who from impatience wishes himself dead like Job, Elijah, Jonah, Tobias, and here Jeremiah, does wrong, and this is a piece of carnal impatience. But when we think of the wicked world and the dangerous times in which we live and on the other hand of the future joy and glory, and therefore desire with Simeon and Paul to be released, we are not to be blamed. Cramer.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. The 18th homily of Origen has for its text Jer 18:1-16 and Jer 20:1-7. The 19th has Jer 20:7-12.
2. On Jer 18:1-11. Comfort and warning, implied in the fact that the threatenings and promises of the Lord are given only conditionally: 1. The comfort consists in this, that the threatened calamities may be averted by timely repentance. 2. The warning in this, that the promises may be annulled by apostasy.
3. On Jer 18:7-10. Comp. the Homiletical on Jer 17:5-8.
4. On Jer 18:7-11. How we should be moved by Gods judgments and goodness: that each, 1. Should turn from his wickedness; 2. should reform his heart and life. Kapff, Passion, Easter and Revival Sermons. 1866.
5. [On Jer 18:12. The sin, danger and unreasonableness of despair. The devils chief artifices are to produce either false security and presumption or despair. Despair Isaiah 1. sinful, (a) in itself, (b) because it is the parent of other sins, as is seen in the cases of Cain, Saul, and Judges 2. It is dangerous. 3. It is groundless, because (a) we still enjoy life and the means of grace, (b) of the long-suffering character of God, (c) of the universality of the scheme of redemption, (d) of the person, character and invitations of Christ, (e) of many instances of final salvation. Payson.S. R. A.]
6. On Jer 18:18-20. Text for a Sermon on the Anniversary of the Reformation. Opposition of the office which has apparent authority to that which has true authority; 1. The basis of the opposition: the assertion of the infallibility of the former office. 2. The mode of the opposition; (a) in not being willing to hear, (b) in the attempt to destroy the latter by violence. 3. The result of the opposition is nugatory, for (a) the Lord hears the voice of the opposers to judge them, (b) He gives heed to His servants to protect them.
7. On Jer 20:7-13. The trial and comfort of a true minister of the Word; 1. The trial: (a) scorn and derision; (b) actual persecution. 2. The comfort: (a) the Lord put him in office and maintains him in it; (b) that the Lord will interpose for His servants and. thus, (1) help His cause to victory, and (2) save their persons.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
The Prophet’s complaint to the Lord, of being deceived, means being disappointed. Jeremiah concluded, (but too hastily) that the people would regard his preaching, coming from the Lord, and in the Lord’s name, and deliver him from them. Jer 1:19 . He felt what all gracious souls feel, distress at the contempt they put upon God’s words. And he felt for himself also. But what were the feelings of the Lord Jesus in his unequalled exercises? Psa 22 and Psa 69 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 20:7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
Ver. 7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. ] a From hence to the end of the chapter the prophet, not without some tang and taint of human frailty, grievously quiritateth and expostulateth with God about the hard usage and ill success he met with in the execution of his prophetic function. But as ex incredulitate Thomae nostra contirmata est fides, Thomas’s unbelief serveth to the settling of our faith; and as Peter’s fall warneth us to look well to our standings; so when such a man as Jeremiah shall miscarry in this sort, and have such outbursts, oh be not high minded, but fear. Some render the text, Lord, if I be deceived, thou hast deceived me; and so every faithful man who keepeth to the rule, may safely say. Piscator hath it, Persuasisti mihi Iehova, et persuasus sum. O Lord, thou persuadedst me, and I was persuaded – sc., to undertake this prophetic office – but I have small joy of it. Some think he thus complained when he was put in prison by Pashnr.
I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
a Iterum more solito causam suam coram Deo agit. – Oecolamp.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 20:7-13
7O LORD, You have deceived me and I was deceived;
You have overcome me and prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
Everyone mocks me.
8For each time I speak, I cry aloud;
I proclaim violence and destruction,
Because for me the word of the LORD has resulted
In reproach and derision all day long.
9But if I say, I will not remember Him
Or speak anymore in His name,
Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
And I am weary of holding it in,
And I cannot endure it.
10For I have heard the whispering of many,
Terror on every side!
Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!
All my trusted friends,
Watching for my fall, say:
Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him
And take our revenge on him.
11But the LORD is with me like a dread champion;
Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed,
With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
12Yet, O LORD of hosts, You who test the righteous,
Who see the mind and the heart;
Let me see Your vengeance on them;
For to You I have set forth my cause.
13Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD!
For He has delivered the soul of the needy one
From the hand of evildoers.
Jer 20:7-13 This is another complaint/lament. Even those called by God experience doubt and fear! He feels that YHWH has
1. deceived him – BDB 834, KB 984, Piel PERFECT and Niphal IMPERFECT (this is an intensified form of a strong VERB often used of seduction; it refers to his call in chapter 1)
2. overcome him – BDB 304, KB 302, Qal PERFECT
3. prevailed against him – BDB 407, KB 410, Qal IMPERFECT
The results (cf. Jer 20:7-8) are that
1. he has become a laughingstock all day long (cf. Jer 48:26; Jer 48:39; Lam 3:14)
2. everyone mocks him (cf. Lam 3:14)
3. he is reproached
4. he is derided
Jer 20:10 describes the fear he feels as he hears people whispering their curses.
1. he has described his own situation by the very words YHWH used to rename Pashhur (i.e., terror on every side!)
2. they denounce him
3. his friends are watching for him to fall
4. they hope to prevail against him
5. they hope to take revenge against him
Since the current canonical structure of Jeremiah is an anthology of his poetic messages, Jer 20:7-13 are obviously placed here because of the catch-word Magor-missabib of Jer 20:3; Jer 20:10 (cf. Jer 6:25; Jer 46:5; Jer 49:29).
Jer 20:9 Jeremiah tries to express both the pain and joy of being YHWH’s spokesperson. Remember this is highly figurative poetry.
1. he tries to forget YHWH
2. he tries not to speak His words anymore
But he cannot! They are like a burning fire shut up in his bones. He cannot hold them back. He must speak (cf. Amo 3:8).
Many of us who feel called to preach/teach/share know these thoughts and feelings.
Jer 20:11 Jer 20:11 describes YHWH as a dreaded champion (BDB 150 and BDB 792, cf. Jer 1:8; Jer 1:19; Jer 15:20). Notice what happens to those who oppose him.
1. they will stumble
2. they will not prevail
3. they will be utterly ashamed
4. they will not succeed
5. they will have an everlasting disgrace
6. they will not be forgotten in their shame
Jer 20:12 Jeremiah describes YHWH.
1. You test the righteous.
2. You see the mind (i.e., kidneys)
3. You let me present my cause to You (cf. Jer 11:20).
Jer 20:13 This verse starts with two IMPERATIVES.
1. sing to the Lord – BDB 1010, KB 1479, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. praise the Lord – BDB 237, KB 248, Piel IMPERATIVE
This adulation is because YHWH has delivered the soul of the needy one from the hand of evil doers.
What a wild swing of emotions is expressed in these verses. From complete discouragement in YHWH in Jer 20:7 to joyous praise in Jer 20:13. This wild swing continues in the next poem (Jer 20:14-18). Jeremiah was a highly emotional person.
deceived = induced, or persuaded. Hebrew. pathah, in a good sense: Gen 9:27 (“enlarge”). Pro 25:15 (“persuade”). Hos 2:14 (“allure”). The adjective Petthi means persuasible, and generally in a good sense: Psa 19:7; and is rendered “simple”: (Psa 19:7; Psa 116:6; Psa 119:130. Pro 1:4; Pro 8:5; Pro 21:11, &c.)
stronger = stronger (to hold fast). Hebrew. hazak. Not the same word as in Jer 20:5.
mocketh = is laughing at.
Jer 20:7-18
Jer 20:7-10
O Jehovah, thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, every one mocketh me. For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, Violence and destruction! because the word of Jehovah is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day. And if I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with forbearing, and I cannot [contain]. For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, [say] all my familiar friends, they that watch for my fall; peradventure he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
This is indeed a pitiful complaint on the part of Jeremiah. All of his close neighbors and friends preferred to believe the false prophets such as Pashhur rather than the terrible warnings of Jeremiah; and it appears here that they confidently expected him to be destroyed rather than themselves and their city. How wrong they were!
“This paragraph reveals at what terrible personal cost God’s word was faithfully delivered by Jeremiah.” Note that Jeremiah, on occasion, had tried to refrain from delivering such sorrowful news to his beloved people and their city; but he had found it impossible to hide God’s message, unpopular as it surely was.
The word of Jehovah is made a reproach unto me…
(Jer 20:8). Several things had contributed to this. The message was not one of blessing, but of punishment and destruction. Furthermore, the years had slipped away, and the false prophets were screaming that the true prophecies of men like Isaiah and Jeremiah were false. No destruction had yet come upon Jerusalem; and they were shouting that the prophecies were false because they had not yet come to pass. The people, who strongly preferred to put their trust in the false prophets, took up all of the cries of violence and destruction, of terror on every side, etc., and affixed them to Jeremiah as a nickname. Here comes old ‘Violence and Destruction’; here comes old ”Terror on Every Side’!
Jeremiah here responds to his situation with words that are little short of blasphemy. He accused God of “persuading him.” “The literal Hebrew word here is ‘deceived,’ and it actually means ‘to seduce,’ as a virgin is seduced (Exo 22:16).” Jeremiah was saying that, “He was unwilling to take the prophetic office at first, but that God had over-persuaded him with promises, as in Jer 1:8; Jer 1:17-18. However, Jeremiah had simply misunderstood the promises, for God had promised no immunity from persecution and hatred of men, but that Jeremiah would prevail.” God certainly knew his man; because despite Jeremiah’s bitter lament, he did indeed prevail.
The whole paragraph here, “Depicts a man loudly complaining about his lot in life, yet showing that he is still submissive, loyal and obedient to God’s will.”
Jer 20:11-13
JEREMIAH REAFFIRMS HIS FAITH IN GOD
But Jehovah is with me as a mighty one [and] a terrible: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail; they shall be utterly put to shame, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which shall never be forgotten. But, O Jehovah of hosts, that triest the righteous, that seest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee have I revealed my cause. Sing unto Jehovah, praise ye Jehovah; for he hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers.
The appearance of this remarkable expression of faith and trust in Jehovah and a repeated call for men to sing God’s praise beautifully expresses the attitude with which Jeremiah came through the terrible sorrows depicted in this chapter; nor can the subsequent verses of the chapter cast any reflection against such a conclusion. Let it be noted that there were no more complaints or laments by Jeremiah. After the conclusion of this chapter, the attitude expressed in Jer 20:11-13 ever afterward prevailed as the true faith and attitude of the great prophet. We believe that the very fact of there being no more complaints proves this to be true. “In later times when the prophet had still more afflictions to endure, we no longer read of his trembling or bewailing the sufferings connected with his calling.”
Jer 20:14-18
JEREMIAH’S THOUGHTS WHILE IN THE STOCKS
Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man-child is born unto thee; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which Jehovah overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime; because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
The words of this final paragraph of the chapter are so radically different from the trust and confidence expressed in the previous verses that scholars are at a total loss to understand how they should be interpreted.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS:
(1) The boldest and most radical solution was proposed a long while ago by Ewald. “He simply moved this bottom paragraph and placed it between Jer 20:6 and Jer 20:7.” That, of course, would solve the problem completely. Opposed to this is the fact that the arrangement of the verses as in this chapter is likewise found, “In all the ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew text.”
(2) “Some have rejected Jer 20:11-13 as a late doxology interpolated into the text”; but the same scholar rejected the idea as absolutely “unnecessary.”
(3) Some have even attempted to identify Jer 20:14-18 as the words of Pashhur; “But such an hypothesis has little to commend it.”
(4) Still others think that the final paragraph reflects the psychological condition of Jeremiah, “That he could at one time burst into a hymn of praise to God, and then drop into a severe mood of depression.” That this is not the true explanation is evident because, if Jeremiah had dropped into such a mood after the exultant words of Jer 20:11-13, God would most assuredly have answered him, as God did upon the occasion of Jeremiah’s similar depression in Jer 11:20. Also, if these allegedly alternate moods of depression and exultation were indeed characteristic of this prophet, how could the fact of there never again being a lament be explained? Certainly the conditions for Judah grew worse and worse; and there were far more bitter oppositions to Jeremiah yet to come. No! There has to be another explanation.
(5) Still another explanation, suggested by Green, and also found in the writings of many older scholars is that, “Jer 20:14-18 was spoken before the words of Jer 20:7-13.”
Of course, we are already aware that it is not safe to date statements in Jeremiah by their location in this book. Green backed up his conclusion with three arguments, which we believe to be valid: (1) There were no more laments by Jeremiah. This surely indicates that Jeremiah received an answer; and that answer clearly lies in verses Jer 20:11-13. (2) Following this chapter, Jeremiah remained centered in God. (3) Jeremiah’s portrayals of the future became brighter and brighter as the situation around him grew blacker and blacker.
Jer 20:11-13 cannot be denied to the prophet Jeremiah, because the vocabulary and style “argue for the originality of the passage.”
Matthew Henry, an older scholar, and a man of incredibly extensive reading and understanding stated that Jer 20:14-18, “Seems to be Jeremiah’s relation of his thoughts while he was in the ferment he had experienced in the stocks, and out of which his faith and hope had rescued him, rather than a new temptation into which he later fell.” He also cited another scripture where a similar thing occurs. “David said in Psa 31:22, ‘I said in my grief’ I am cut off.” Perhaps we should understand of Jer 20:14-18, that they relate what Jeremiah said to himself while in the torture of the stocks.
As Keil noted, “The bitterness of these last verses, rising at last to the cursing of the day of his birth is only intelligible as a consequence of the ill-usage Pashhur had inflicted upon him.”
It was against the Mosaic Law for one to curse one’s parents; and Jeremiah carefully avoided such a capital offense. He did not curse his mother, but the day he was born. He did not curse his father, but the man who brought news of his birth to his father (Lev 20:9; Lev 24:10-16).
The explanation which we have here proposed for the mention of such awful curses almost in the same breath with Jer 20:11-13 goes all the way back to John Calvin. “The explanation of Calvin was that Jeremiah here related what went through his mind while he was confined by Pashhur and that explanation is plausible, and has been adopted by Grotius, Henry, and others.”
Payne Smith pointed out that, “The public ministry of Jeremiah was now, for a time to cease; and, afterward, there would be a long and ominous silence.”
Looking back on his long life of preaching and pleading with Judah to repent and turn to the Lord, it was clear enough to the prophet that, in one sense, his life had been totally wasted; and it was that sense of failure that no doubted caused his feelings of despondency when he contemplated it.
It was in this very trait that Jeremiah fell short of being “The Suffering Servant” foretold by Isaiah, Our Lord alone attaining the perfection foretold in Isaiah. That might have been one of the reasons that the Divine Inspiration retained and recorded for our benefit Jeremiah’s understandable but nevertheless sinful language of this chapter.
We shall add one more approving witness to the adequacy of the explanation we have adopted here for the appearance of these last five verses in such close proximity to the shout of praise and deliverance in Jer 20:11-13. Jamieson has the following. The contrast between the spirit of this passage and the preceding thanksgiving is to be explained thus. In order to show how great was his deliverance, he subjoins a picture of what his wounded spirit had been previous to his deliverance.
We are aware that this explanation does not answer all of the questions; but it surely comes nearer to doing so than any other explanation this writer has encountered.
That Jeremiah indeed, during his torture at the hands of Pashhur, felt deserted even by God Himself could not be called a sin; for the Holy Christ himself cried from the Cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But the solemn imprecations and curses leveled against the day he was born, which was a blessing, and a day of rejoicing, must fall into the category of sinful words which every thoughtful person must deplore. Still, we are sure that God forgave him.
HE HUMAN VESSEL Jer 20:7-18
In his public confrontation with Pashur Jeremiah had remained as firm as a rock. Now in his private moments with God he breaks down completely. He looks upon his ministry not as a high privilege but as an intolerable burden. He is discouraged with his task; he is disgruntled with his God. This is the fourth personal crisis in the ministry of Jeremiah. His confession moves through three stages: (1) complaint (Jer 20:7-10); (2) conviction (Jer 20:11-13); and (3) curse (Jer 20:14-18).
Complaint Jer 20:7-10
In this bitter moment Jeremiah accuses God of deceiving him. The same Hebrew verb is used of seducing a maiden (Exo 22:16) or enticing a husband (Jdg 14:15; Jdg 16:5). In 1Ki 22:21 a spirit from God enticed Ahab to go up to Ramoth-gilead in order that he might meet his death. Of course this accusation against God is absolutely false, God had not deceived His prophet in the least about his mission. He had pointedly warned His prospective prophet that his mission was fraught with danger and disappointment (cf. Jer 1:18). The accusation continues: you completely overpowered me, literally, you took hold of me and you prevailed. Jeremiah seems to be complaining that he was compelled against his own will to preach the word of God. Now because of the nature of his ministry Jeremiah has become the object of ridicule and mockery (Jer 20:7). Jeremiah could face physical torture without flinching but he seems to cringe before the barbs of ridicule. He blames his plight upon the nature of his message. He must be a prophet of doom. He must constantly cry Violence! Destruction! This message had brought him nothing but reproach and derision (Jer 20:8).
A tremendous battle rages in the heart and mind of this sensitive man of God. On the one hand he wanted to resign his ministry and retreat to the peaceful and quiet life at Anathoth. He could not bear to face the prospect of continued ridicule and opposition. He wanted to forget all about his recent unpleasant experiences and never preach another sermon again. On the other hand his heart was burdened with a sense of prophetic obligation and divine mission. The fire of Gods wrath against sin burns fiercely within him. He tries to hold it back but cannot. He becomes utterly exhausted from trying to fight his compulsion to preach. In spite of himself he must follow the divine call, he must resume his ministry (Jer 20:9).
Jeremiah knows the dangers attendant upon his resumption of the prophetic ministry. He knows his enemies are plotting against him. He even seems to hear them urging one another to lay false charges against him. Even his friends (literally, all the men of my peace)-those who greeted him with familiar greetings of friendship-are watching his every move. They hope that he will take one false step so that they may take advantage of it. Perhaps, they think, the prophet can be enticed or seduced into making some mistakes or saying something on which a charge of treason can be based. These enemies will stop at nothing. They are out for revenge against the meddlesome prophet who had dared contradict their pro-Egypt policy and pronounce the doom of their nation (Jer 20:10).
Conviction Jer 20:11-13
The light seems to suddenly shine through Jeremiahs personal gloom and the prophet bursts forth in expressions of joyous trust in God. He suddenly seems to realize that God is on his side after all. Perhaps he recalls the words of promise given to him at the time of his call: They shall not overcome! For I am with you to deliver you! The Lord, a fearsome warrior, will fight the battles of His prophet. Those enemies who are plotting, whispering, and watching would not succeed. On the contrary they will stumble and fall and experience eternal and unforgettable shame (Jer 20:11). Jeremiah simply resolves to lay his case at the feet of the Judge of all the earth knowing that He will do right. He alone is qualified to test and judge the righteous, for He alone can observe the inward thoughts and motives. Jeremiah is confident that he will be vindicated at the judgment bar of God and that his enemies will experience the vengeance of the living God who is a consuming fire (Jer 20:12). The latter part of Jer 20:12 can be translated as a simple declarative: I shall see your vengeance on them or as a cohortative: Let me see your vengeance on them. So confident is Jeremiah of deliverance from his foes that he bursts forth in a song of praise to his divine deliverer (Jer 20:13). Faith has been victorious over doubt!
Curse Jer 20:14-18
From the mountain top of victorious faith Jeremiah plunges suddenly, unexpectedly, unexplainably into the abyss of despair and self-pity. His sights have suddenly dropped from the Righteous Judge who reigns above to the wicked men who plot against him here below. His song of praise has turned to bitter lament. Like Job (Jer 3:3-12) before him he curses the day of his birth (Jer 20:14). When news came that a son had been born, Jeremiahs father rejoiced exceedingly. How ironic. The father rejoices over the birth of one who would live a life of tragedy. Cursed be the man who brought that good news to my father, cries the prophet (Jer 20:15). He wishes that this messenger would experience the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. He hopes that this messenger will hear the cry of the terrified inhabitants of the city when the enemy comes smashing through the walls in the morning hours of the day. He hopes that at noontime this man will hear the bloodthirsty battle cry of the invaders as they plunder the city (Jer 20:16). Why such a curse on this anonymous messenger? Because he should have slain me when I was born or else simply left me in my mothers womb (Jer 20:17). Jeremiah simply could not understand why God would allow him to be born only to suffer such heartache, pain, distress and disgrace (Jer 20:18).
Was it right for Jeremiah to curse the day of his birth? It is easy for one who has not experienced the persecutions of Jeremiah to condemn him. Those who have undergone similar trials can empathize with him. The experience of Jeremiah here might be compared to that of the prophet Elijah. After descending from the triumph of Mt. Carmel, Elijah sat under his juniper tree of depression (1Ki 19:4). Both prophets had moments of being strong in the Lord; both had moments of being weak in the flesh. Both men were merely clay vessels which God was able to use for His glory.
How is it possible that such a curse could follow immediately after the joyous confidence of Jer 20:13? Some would argue that Jer 20:14-18 have been dislocated and do not belong here. This is hardly necessary. Nor is it necessary to postulate an interval of time between Jer 20:13 and Jer 20:14. Any saint who takes his eye off the Lord for even a moment may be engulfed by self-pity and despair. This passage is the brutally frank and honest revelation of a tortured soul. Such passages indicate that, of all the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah is probably the most human and also the most heroic, Men of God shall ever be indebted to Jeremiah for recording these autobiographical lines for they set in bold relief the grace of God. Sinful, weak and frail as Jeremiah proved to be, God could forgive him and still use him. The Lord does not reject His servant because of this momentary outburst.
Jeremiah and Pashhur – Jer 20:1-18
Open It
1. What kinds of crises might make a person wish he or she had never been born?
2. When was the last time you were bitterly disappointed?
3. When have you felt as if everyone were just waiting for you to make a mistake?
Explore It
4. How did the chief officer respond to Jeremiahs prophecy in the temple? (Jer 20:1-2)
5. What unlikely person had Jeremiah beaten? Why? (Jer 20:1-2)
6. What future did Jeremiah foretell for Pashhur and all of Judah? (Jer 20:3-6)
7. What was Jeremiahs complaint to the Lord? (Jer 20:7-8)
8. Why was Jeremiah upset with God? (Jer 20:7-10)
9. What would happen if Jeremiah tried to stop speaking the word of the Lord? (Jer 20:9)
10. What did Jeremiah hear the people saying about him? (Jer 20:10)
11. From where did Jeremiah derive consolation for his disappointments? (Jer 20:11-13)
12. What did Jeremiah believe about Gods ability to set things straight? (Jer 20:11-13)
13. What was the basis for Jeremiahs song of praise to God? (Jer 20:13)
14. How had Jeremiah come to feel about life and his presumably joyful entry into it? (Jer 20:14-18)
Get It
15. Why do some people try to silence those who speak Gods Word?
16. How could Jeremiah be so confident that his enemies wouldnt have the final word?
17. Why is it encouraging to know that no human being can keep the Word of God from going forth?
18. What would motivate even Jeremiahs friends to try to silence him?
19. What value is there in the fact that the Bible records Jeremiahs (and other servants of God) discouragement?
20. What should we do whenever we feel disappointed?
Apply It
21. What servant of God do you know who is in a period of despair and in need of your words of comfort?
22. What injustice is weighing on you which you can turn over to God?
Questions On Jeremiah Chapter Twenty
By Brent Kercheville
1 What happens to Jeremiah after prophesying these messages (Jer 20:1-3)?
2 What did Jeremiah prophesy after this happened to him (Jer 20:3-6)?
3 What is Jeremiahs prayer and complaint (Jer 20:7-18)?
4 Why must Jeremiah continue to preach (Jer 20:9)? What do we learn from this?
TRANSFORMATION:
How does this relationship change your relationship with God?
What did you learn about him?
What will you do differently in your life?
deceived: or, enticed, Jer 1:6-8, Jer 1:18, Jer 1:19, Jer 15:18, Jer 17:16, Exo 5:22, Exo 5:23, Num 11:11-15
thou art: Jer 20:9, Eze 3:14, Mic 3:8, 1Co 9:6
I am: Jer 15:10, Jer 29:26, 2Ki 2:23, Psa 22:6, Psa 22:7, Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16, Psa 69:9-12, Lam 3:14, Hos 9:7, Luk 16:14, Luk 22:63, Luk 22:64, Luk 23:11, Luk 23:35, Luk 23:36, Act 17:18, Act 17:32, 1Co 4:9-13, Heb 11:36
Reciprocal: Gen 19:14 – as one 2Ch 36:16 – mocked Psa 94:19 – General Psa 119:51 – proud Isa 8:11 – with a strong hand Isa 28:22 – be ye Isa 29:21 – and lay Jer 17:15 – General Jer 20:8 – the word Jer 23:33 – What Jer 45:3 – Woe Lam 3:59 – thou hast Eze 7:7 – the day Amo 5:10 – hate Jon 1:3 – to flee Jon 4:2 – he prayed Mat 27:29 – platted 1Co 9:16 – for 2Co 7:8 – though I did
Jer 20:7. The word deceived has been rendered also by allure and “entice, and means that Jeremiah had simply followed the Instructions of the Lord. That required hint to make the unpleasant predictions against Pashur and other evil characters, and as a result he was being held in derision daily among the citizens.
Jer 20:7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me, &c. This is a very harsh and improper translation of the prophets words, , which properly and literally signify, Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded. Some, to make the sense more clear, supply a few words, and make the whole sentence stand thus; O Lord, thou hast persuaded me to carry thy commands to thy people, and I was persuaded: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed That is, It was sore against my will, that I undertook the prophetic office, which I would gladly have declined, chap. Jer 1:6. But thy commands and inspiration did, in a manner, constrain me to it. The occasion of the words was this: The prophet had met with a large share of ill usage, from an ungrateful people, in return for the faithful discharge of his prophetic office. Under these his calamitous circumstances he looks up to God, and appeals to him, the searcher of hearts, as his witness, that it was not through any ambition of his own that he had entered upon that invidious office; nor had he taken upon him, of his own accord, to reprove his countrymen: but he had done all in pure obedience to the divine command. He would gladly have declined the office, but God would not suffer him: wherefore, hereupon he says, speaking to the Almighty, Thou hast persuaded me, &c. The passage carries in it a lively idea of the prophets great modesty, and profound humility, in not affecting high things or shining offices; but submitting, however, to the burden of them, in obedience to the will of God. See Waterlands Script. Vind., part 3. page 84.
Jer 20:7-18. The Prophets 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, Jer 20:9), though it subjects him to the charge of treasonable utterance (Jer 26:11). Jer 20:11-13 (if originally here) mark a change of mood, and express Jeremiahs confidence that Yahweh will avenge him. The depth of his despair is reached in Jer 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 (Gen 19:25, Isa 13:19), and the alarms of war (Jer 4:19). He wishes he had never been born, because of his hard fate (Jer 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 prophets sincerity, when claiming to speak by Divine inspiration.
Jer 20:8. Violence and spoil: i.e. as being suffered by the speaker.
Jer 20:17. For from read in, with LXX, Syr.
20:7 O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was {c} deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast {d} prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
(c) In this appears the impatiency which often overcomes the servants of God when they do not see their labours profit, and also feel their own weakness. See Geneva “Jer 15:18”
(d) You thrust me forth to this work against my will.
Jeremiah’s struggle with his calling 20:7-13
This section is another of Jeremiah’s autobiographical "confessions." In literary form it is another individual lament, like many of the psalms (cf. Psalms 6). It is one of Jeremiah’s most significant self-disclosures. The section has two parts: God the antagonist (Jer 20:7-10), and God the protagonist (Jer 20:11-13).
The prophet complained that the Lord had deceived him (cf. Exo 20:16; 1Ki 22:20-22) and had overcome him. He had made Jeremiah a laughingstock and an object of constant mockery by his people. Evidently Jeremiah hoped that the people would repent at his preaching, and when they did not, he felt betrayed by the Lord.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)