Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 20:14
Cursed [be] the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bore me be blessed.
14. “The days of the year are not for the Hebrew mind mere marks of time, they are objective entities, each of which in its turn visits the world (cp. the twelve months in the fairy tale).” Pe.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
14 18. See summary at commencement of section. Cp. Job 3:3-12. The latter passage is even more vehement than this and also bears traces of artificiality as compared with this natural and spontaneous outburst of a deeply moved human soul. We can hardly therefore doubt that the Job passage is based upon this one and not vice vers. The words express in the intense language of Eastern emotions the bitterness of the pangs which ever and again seized upon the prophet’s mind and heart, as he contemplated his position and that of his country. Cp. 2Sa 1:21.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born] If we take these words literally, and suppose them to be in their proper place, they are utterly inconsistent with that state of confidence in which he exulted a few minutes before. If they are the language of Jeremiah, they must have been spoken on a prior occasion, when probably he had given way to a passionate hastiness. They might well comport with the state he was in Jer 20:9. I really believe these verses have got out of their proper place, which I conjecture to be between the eighth and ninth verses. There they will come in very properly; and might have been a part of his complaint in those moments when he had purposed to flee from God as did Jonah, and prophesy no more in his name. Transpositions in this prophet are frequent; therefore place these five verses after the eighth, and let the chapter end with the thirteenth, and the whole will form a piece of exquisite poetry, where the state of despair, and the hasty resolutions he had formed while under its influence, and the state of confidence to which he was raised by the succouring influence of God, will appear to be both illustrative of each other, and are touched with a delicacy and fervour which even a cold heart must admire. See Job 3:3, and the notes there. The two passages are very similar.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This sudden change of the prophets style maketh both Mr. Calvin, and some other good interpreters, think that these words proceeded from Jeremiah rather as a repetition of a former passion, into which the abuses of his enemies had put him, than as the immediate product of his spirit at this time. Whenever they were spoken, they speak a very extravagant passion, to show us, that though Jeremiah was a great man, yet he was but a man, encompassed with infirmities, and subject to like passions with other men. We find Job in the like passion, Job 3:3. These great failures of Gods people stand in Scripture, as rocks in the sea appear, to mind mariners to keep off them, not to run upon them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14-18. The contrast between thespirit of this passage and the preceding thanksgiving is to beexplained thus: to show how great was the deliverance (Jer20:13), he subjoins a picture of what his wounded spirit hadbeen previous to his deliverance; I had said in the timeof my imprisonment, “Cursed be the day”; my feeling wasthat of Job (Job 3:3; Job 3:10;Job 3:11, whose words Jeremiahtherefore copies). Though Jeremiah’s zeal had been stirred up, not somuch for self as for God’s honor trampled on by the rejection of theprophet’s words, yet it was intemperate when he made his birth asubject for cursing, which was really a ground forthanksgiving.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Cursed [be] the day wherein I was born,…. If this was said immediately upon the foregoing, it was a most strange and sudden change of frame indeed that the prophet came into, from praising God, to cursing the day of his birth; wherefore some have thought it was delivered at another time, when in great anguish of spirit; very likely when so ill used by Pashur, as before related; but here repeated, to show in what distress he had been, and what reason there was for praise and thanksgiving; for the words may be connected with the preceding, thus, “for he hath delivered from the hand of evil doers the soul of the poor, who said” l, in the time of his distress, “cursed be the day”, c but, whenever it was spoke, it showed the impatience of the prophet, the weakness of his faith, and the greatness of his folly, to curse a day, and his birth day too, as Job did, when under affliction, Job 3:1;
let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed; to myself or others; let it be reckoned among the unhappy and unfortunate days; let it not be blessed with the light of the sun, or with the light of joy and prosperity; see Job 3:4; let it not be said on this occasion, as commonly is, we wish you joy on your birth day, and may you see many happy days of this kind. Abendana observes, that some of their Rabbins say, that Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth, because it was the ninth of Ab, the day on which the temple was burnt.
l So it is supplied by Grotius and Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Prophet’s Impatient Appeal. | B. C. 600. |
14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. 16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; 17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. 18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
What is the meaning of this? Does there proceed out of the same mouth blessing and cursing? Could he that said so cheerfully (v. 13), Sing unto the Lord, praise you the Lord, say so passionately (v. 14), Cursed be the day wherein I was born? How shall we reconcile these? What we have in these verses the prophet records, I suppose, to his own shame, as he had recorded that in the foregoing verses to God’s glory. It seems to be a relation of the ferment he had been in while he was in the stocks, out of which by faith and hope he had recovered himself, rather than a new temptation which he afterwards fell into, and it should come in like that of David (Ps. xxxi. 22), I said in my haste, I am cut off; this is also implied, Ps. lxxvii. 7. When grace has got the victory it is good to remember the struggles of corruption, that we may be ashamed of ourselves and our own folly, may admire the goodness of God in not taking us at our word, and may be warned by it to double our guard upon our spirits another time. See here how strong the temptation was which the prophet, by divine assistance, got the victory over, and how far he yielded to it, that we may not despair if we through the weakness of the flesh be at any time thus tempted. Let us see here,
I. What the prophet’s language was in this temptation. 1. He fastened a brand of infamy upon his birth-day, as Job did in a heat (ch. iii. 1): “Cursed be the day wherein I was born. It was an ill day to me (v. 14), because it was the beginning of sorrows, and an inlet to all this misery.” It is a wish that he had never been born. Judas in hell has reason to wish so (Matt. xxvi. 24), but no man on earth has reason to wish so, because he knows not but he may yet become a vessel of mercy, much less has any good man reason to wish so. Whereas some keep their birth-day, at the return of the year with gladness, he will look upon his birth-day as a melancholy day, and will solemnize it with sorrow, and will have it looked upon as an ominous day. 2. He wished ill to the messenger that brought his father the news of his birth, v. 15. It made his father very glad to hear that he had a child born (perhaps it was his first-born), especially that it was a man-child, for then, being of the family of the priests, he might live to have the honour of serving God’s altar; and yet he is ready to curse the man that brought him the tidings, when perhaps the father to whom they were brought gave him a gratuity for it. Here Mr. Gataker well observes, “That parents are often much rejoiced at the birth of their children when, if they did but foresee what misery they are born to, they would rather lament over them than rejoice in them.” He is very free and very fierce in the curses he pronounces upon the messenger of his birth (v. 16): “Let him be at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Lord utterly overthrew, and repented not, did not in the least mitigate of alleviate their misery. Let him hear the cry of the invading besieging enemy in the morning, as soon as he is stirring; then let him take the alarm, and by noon let him hear their shouting for victory. And thus let him live in constant terror.” 3. He is angry that the fate of the Hebrews’ children in Egypt was not his, that he was not slain from the womb, that his first breath was not his last, and that he was not strangled as soon as he came into the world, v. 17. He wishes the messenger of his birth had been better employed and had been his murderer; nay, that his mother of whom he was born had been, to her great misery, always with child of him, and so the womb in which he was conceived would have served, without more ado, as a grave for him to be buried in. Job intimates a near alliance and resemblance between the womb and the grave, Job i. 21. Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. 4. He thinks his present calamities sufficient to justify these passionate wishes (v. 18): “Wherefore came I forth out of the womb, where I lay hid, was not seen, was not hated, where I lay safely and knew no evil, to see all this labour and sorrow, nay to have my days consumed with shame, to be continually vexed and abused, to have my life not only spent in trouble, but wasted and worn away by trouble?”
II. What use we may make of this. It is not recorded for our imitation, and yet we may learn good lessons from it. 1. See the vanity of human life and the vexation of spirit that attends it. If there were not another life after this, we should be tempted many a time to wish that we have never known this; for our few days here are full of trouble. 2. See the folly and absurdity of sinful passion, how unreasonably it talks when it is suffered to ramble. What nonsense is it to curse a day–to curse a messenger for the sake of his message! What a brutish barbarous thing for a child to wish his own mother had never been delivered of him! See Isa. xlv. 10. We can easily see the folly of it in others, and should take warning thence to suppress all such intemperate heats and passions in ourselves, to stifle them at first and not to suffer these evil spirits to speak. When the heart is hot, let the tongue be bridled, Psa 39:1; Psa 39:2. 3. See the weakness even of good men, who are but men at the best. See how much those who think they stand are concerned to take heed lest they fall, and to pray daily, Father in heaven, lead us not into temptation!
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 14-18: THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR
1. The birth of a child in Israel was an occasion for great joy, and was considered an evidence of divine favor.
2. In a mood of defeat and despair, however, Jeremiah does not so view the day of his own birth.
3. Rather, he pronounced a curse upon: a. The day of his birth, (vs. 14; comp. Job 3:3-6), and b. The person who brought the news to his father.
4. He even wishes that his life might have been extinguished while he was still within his mother’s womb!
5. Since life has brought him nothing but trouble, shame, reproach and perplexity, he wonders why he was ever born! (vs. Jeremiah 18; Jer 15:10; comp. Psa 102:1-11).
6. Though one may be tempted to charge Jeremiah with cowardice, or lack of faith, he must remember that this secret of the prophet’s innermost being would never have been known had he not chosen to confide in us!
7. John Bright, in his excellent work entitled “The Kingdom of God” (p. 119-120), sets forth the real secret of Jeremiah’s personality.
“Here, indeed, we learn what -faith really is: not that smug faith which is untroubled by questions because it never asked any; but that true faith which has asked all the questions and received very few answers, yet has heard the command, Gird up your loins! Do your duty! Remember your calling! Cast yourself forward upon Godl
“in this connection, it would seem, Jeremiah refutes the popular, modern notion that the end of religion is an integrated personality, freed of its fears, its doubts, and its frustrations. Certainly Jeremiah was not integrated personality … But the summons of faith is neither to an integrated personality nor to the laying by of all questions, but to the dedication of personality – with all its fears and questions -to its duty and destiny under God.”
8. We do not know how God dealt with the prophet’s complaint; we do know that, from this furnace of affliction, Jeremiah emerged a stronger and Christ-like person: “a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall” – never again to register such complaint against the Lord, (Jer 1:18; comp. Job 23:10). And we may well profit from his experience!
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
It seems, as I have said, that the Prophet was inconsistent with himself; from joy and thanksgiving he immediately passed into curses and execrations; what could have been less appropriate? If we say that he was tried by a new temptation, yet this seems by no means satisfactory, though it is in this way that interpreters commonly untie the knot. But it seems to me a levity unworthy of the holy man to pass suddenly from thanksgiving to God into imprecations, as though he had forgotten himself. I, therefore, doubt not but that the Prophet here relates how grievously he had been harassed by his own thoughts. The whole of this passage, then, is connected with thanksgiving, for he amplifies the deliverance which he has just mentioned, that is, that he had been brought back, as it were, from the lower regions. Thus he recites, in the latter passage, what had before happened to him, as though he had said, “When I now declare that I have been rescued by God from the hand of the wicked, I cannot sufficiently express the greatness of that favor, until I make it more clearly known to all the godly how great and how dreadful agonies I suffered, so that I cursed my birth-day, and abhorred everything that ought to have stimulated me to give praise to God.”
In short, the Prophet teaches us here that he was not only opposed by enemies, but also distressed inwardly in his mind, so that he was carried away contrary to reason and judgment, by turbulent emotions which even led him to give utterance to vile blasphemies. For what is here said cannot be extenuated; but the Prophet most grievously sinned when he became thus calumnious towards God; for a man must be in a state of despair when he curses the day in which he was born. Men are, indeed, wont to celebrate their birth-day; and it was a custom which formerly prevailed, to acknowledge yearly that they owed it to God’s invaluable goodness that they were brought forth into vital light. As then it is a reason for thanksgiving, it is evident that when we turn to a curse what ought to rouse us to praise God, we are no longer in a right mind, nor possessed of reason, but that we are seized as it were with a sacrilegious madness; and yet into this state had the Prophet fallen. (17)
We may then here learn with what care ought every one of us to watch himself, lest we be carried away by a violent feeling, so as to become intemperate and unruly.
At the same time I allow, and it is what we ought carefully to notice, that the origin of his zeal was right. For though the Prophet indirectly blamed God, we ought yet to consider the source of his complaint; he did not curse his birth-day because he was afflicted with diseases, or because he could not endure poverty and want, or because he suffered some private evils; no, nothing of this kind was the case with the Prophet; but the reason was, because he saw that all his labor was lost, which he spent for the purpose of securing the wellbeing of the people; and further, because he found the truth of God loaded with calumnies and reproaches. When, therefore, he saw the ungodly thus insolently resisting him, and that all religion was treated with ridicule, he felt deeply moved. Hence it was that the holy man was touched with so much anguish. And we hence clearly see, that. the source of his zeal was right.
But we are here reminded how much vigilance we ought to exercise over ourselves; for in most instances, when we become weary of life, and desire death, and hate the world, with the light and all the blessings of God, how is it that we are thus influenced, except that disdain reigns within us, or that we cannot with resignation bear reproaches, or that poverty is too grievous to us, or that some troubles press on us too heavily? It is not that we are influenced by a zeal for God. Since, then, the Prophet, who had no regard to himself nor had any private reason either of gain or of loss, became yet. thus exasperated and so very vehement, nay, seized with so violent a feeling, we ought surely to exercise the more care to restrain our feelings; and though many things may daily happen to us, which may produce weariness, or overwhelm us with so much disdain as to render all things hateful to us, we ought yet to contend against such feelings; and if we cannot, at the first effort, repress and subdue them, we ought, at least, according to the example of the Prophet, to learn to correct them by degrees, until God cheers and comforts us, so that we may rejoice and sing a song of thanksgiving.
(17) The greatest difficulty in this passage is the connection. That Jeremiah should have cursed his birthday is what can be accounted for, as in the case of Job. Nature, even in the best of men, sometimes utters its own voice. But how he came to do this immediately after having thanked God for his deliverance, seems singular. The explanation of Calvin, that he relates what had passed in his mind, while he was confined by Pashur, is plausible, and has been adopted by Grotius, Gataker, Cocceius, and Henry. Grotius considered, “I had said,” to be understood at the beginning of the fourteenth verse. Adam Clarke thought that the words have been transposed, and that the five last verses ought to come in between the eighth and the ninth verse: and he says what is true, that there are many transpositions in this book. Houbigant, approved by Horsley, thought the right place for these verses is between the sixth and the seventh verse. But these transpositions are not satisfactory. Venema’s notion is, that Jeremiah does not speak in his own name, but in the name of Pashur. Having described in the previous verse his own ease, the protection he found from God, he describes in these verses the wretchedness and misery of his persecutor, and introduces him as cursing his birth-day, etc. But this is very far-fetched and fanciful. Scott acknowledges the transition to be very extraordinary, but yet thinks that the Prophet describes what had passed through his own mind, and says that the experience of good men proves that such sudden changes occur. “An experimental acquaintance with our hearts,” he says, “and the variations of our passions, under sharp trials, as encouraging or discouraging thoughts occur to our minds, will best enable us to understand it.” This is probably the right view of the subject. The Prophet, indeed, acknowledged God’s kindness in saving his life, and invited others to join him in praising him: yet when he considered his circumstances, he gave way to his own natural feelings. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
C. Curse Jer. 20:14-18
TRANSLATION
(14) Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day on which my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! (15) Cursed is the man who brought the good news to my father, saying, A son is born to you! and made him exceedingly glad. (16) And may that man be as the cities which God overthrew and did not relent; may he hear a cry in the morning and a battle cry at noontime; (17) because he did not slay me from the womb so that my mother might be my grave and her womb have everlasting pregnancy. (18) Why did I come forth from the womb to see trouble and sorrow that my days end in shame?
COMMENTS
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,[216] 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.
[216] C. R. Erdman, The Book of Jeremiah and Lamentations (Westwood, N. J.: Revell, 1955), pp. 46, 47.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(14) Cursed be the day wherein I was born . . .The apparent strangeness of this relapse from the confidence of the two previous verses into a despair yet deeper than before is best explained by the supposition that it is in no sense part of the same poem or meditation, but a distinct fragment belonging to the same period, and placed in its present position by Jeremiah himself, or by the first editor of his prophecies. By some, indeed, it has been thought that we have here an accidental dislocation, and that Jer. 20:14-18 should stand before Jer. 20:7. The prophet utters a cry of anguish yet keener than that which now precedes it, and borrows the language of that cry from the book of Job (Jer. 3:3). The prophet turned in the depth of his suffering to the words in which the great representative of sufferers had cursed his day. The question whether we are to blame or to palliate such utterances, how far they harmonise with Christian feeling, is one on which we need not dwell long. It is enough to note (1) that, while we cannot make for them the half-evasive apology which sees in Jeremiahs prayers against his enemies, and in the imprecatory psalms, prophecies rather than prayers, they indicate the same temper as those psalms and prayers indicate when taken in their natural sense, and so help us to understand them; and (2) that in such cases, while we give thanks that we have the blessing of a higher law and the example of a higher life, we are not called upon to apportion praise or blame. It is enough to reverence, to sympathise, to be silent.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14-18. Cursed be the day, etc. Violent and unexpected is the contrast of this passage with the preceding. Instantly and without warning we are precipitated from the height of perfect and triumphant confidence into the deepest depth of sorrow. The faith which had just shone out full-orbed seems suddenly to pass into a fearful eclipse.
But though there is here a startling contrast, there is no essential inconsistency. The faith of the preceding section, and the intense and bitter sorrow of this, are alike genuine facts of the prophet’s experience; and are not necessarily incongruous. Indeed the sorrow which Jeremiah experienced, and which is expressed in these passionate utterances, is not in itself a difficulty; but only its degree as measured by these fearful utterances, and its close relation to the victorious faith of the preceding passage.
But let not the spirit of these passionate words be misunderstood. Too little allowance has been made for the fact that we have here only a summary of the prophet’s oral teachings, so that what we now read in a few sentences represents the experiences of this earnest man, it may be for months and even years. Passages which here stand alongside of each other may reflect states of mind which, in the prophet’s actual experience, were separated by a considerable time. Hence the real difficulty, if any there be, must consist in the essential incongruity of these words with a state of loyalty to God.
As we carefully examine this passage, so far from finding it essentially inconsistent with a personal theistic faith, we see that it could come only from one in whom the idea of God “ Like one great furnace flamed” in his fervid soul. It is his jealous regard for God’s honour that gives the keenest bitterness to his grief. The darkest feature of the coming calamity is the fact that it would over-spread God’s own particular heritage, and sweep away the defences of Jehovah’s cause.
In outward form these words are very similar to those fearful utterances of Job recorded in the third chapter of that book. But a careful study of them discloses important differences. Jeremiah’s words are not, like Job’s, turned directly against God, neither are they so violent and passionate and selfish. They are called forth, not by personal losses of property, health, or friends, but by that which he was inevitably to see, though he had struggled against it so long the ruin of the commonwealth and the discomfiture of God’s people before their heathen enemies. We do not, indeed, deny that there is in this fierce outcry an element of human passion. Jeremiah may have felt that he had been sacrificed to no good end that he had been too much left to himself in executing Jehovah’s commission. Like Moses, Elijah, and even John, he may have mingled his selfish hopes and disappointments with the deeper experiences of faith and loyalty to God. But this only proves what is so abundantly illustrated everywhere that this man of God was also “subject to like passions as we are.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jeremiah Curses The Day Of His Birth ( Jer 20:14-18 ).
This passage closes off the section with a heart rending call by Jeremiah that the day of his birth be cursed, along with all who assisted in ensuring his survival, on the grounds that it would have been better for him to have been left in the womb than ever to have seen daylight. It is clear from what he says that even more shame must have been heaped on him to such an extent that it has become almost unbearable. It sums up how arduous he was finding his ministry to be. He has almost reached the end of his tether.
It is a reminder that those who serve God in dark times do not come off lightly. They simply have to persevere whatever happens. (compare Heb 11:36-38). This cry from the heart may have been part of his reflections during his painful night in the stocks, vividly remembered as he looked back on it, or he may have prayed it when in hiding from Jehoiakim after his book had been cut to pieces (Jer 36:23), or he may even have written it when, having written down many of his prophecies up to this point, and seeing a grim future ahead, he felt the burden of them piercing his soul, especially if his body was still suffering the consequences of the time spent in the stocks. But whenever it occurred he has chosen it as providing a fitting conclusion to this first section of his book with all its ups and downs, in order to bring home that his ministry was not without agony. As he had stated, he would carry on prophesying because it was forced upon him, but let none think that he was enjoying it.
Jer 20:14-18
‘Cursed be the day on which I was born,
Let the day on which my mother bore me not be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying,
“A male child is born to you”, making him very glad.’
And let that man be as the cities which YHWH overthrew,
And he did not relent,
And let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime,
Because he did not slay me from the womb,
And so my mother would have been my grave,
And her womb always enlarged (great).
Why did I come forth from the womb to see labour and sorrow,
That my days should be consumed with shame?’
Familiar with the scenes which regularly took place on the birth of a newborn son, Jeremiah pictures his own birth in those terms and curses the very day. His mother would have been thrilled and would have blessed the day, as would her relatives, while the good news would have been speedily carried by a messenger to the waiting father, resulting in great gladness of heart. But Jeremiah calls for the day now to lose its blessedness, and for a curse to come upon it.
Indeed so bitter are his feelings about that day that he calls for the man who bore the news of his birth to be like Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities which YHWH overthrew (Gen 19:29), something which YHWH, he points out, carried through without any thought of retraction. So Jeremiah says, let Him now show the same constancy in destroying the messenger who bore the news of his birth. The reference to the crying of lamentation in the morning, followed by the shouting at noontide as the invaders break in, indicates that he expects it to happen when his prophecies are fulfilled in the overthrow of the city (compare Jer 6:4; Jer 15:8; Jer 18:22; Jer 9:17-22). And the man was to experience this fate because he had failed to show mercy in preventing the birth of Jeremiah. Better far, he claims, would it have been if he had died in his mother’s womb, the only sign of his presence then being a distended stomach, rather than coming forth into life where it would involve such shame and trouble.
We must not take the curse as intended too seriously. Jeremiah was well aware that to curse his father and mother would have been a heinous offence and so he was looking for substitutes. But he would not really have expected anyone genuinely to accept the thought that God would punish a man for allowing a baby to be born normally (the opposite position being that He would have blessed him had he murdered the young Jeremiah). He is rather using the idea in order to express the depths of his grief.
With these words ends the series of more general undated prophecies of Jeremiah, and it is noteworthy that from this point onwards we hear no more complaints from him, in spite of all that he will later go through. Having come struggling through his own Gethsemane he becomes a man of steel.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 20:14-15. Cursed be the day, &c. See the note on Jer 20:7. These verses are so like those in Job 3:3 that they seem to have been borrowed thence. The sentiments are the same, and the expressions not greatly dissimilar. The prophet, indeed, has filled up the ellipses, smoothed the abrupt style of Job, and extended his short distich into two distichs or pairs of verses, in which he himself much abounds. Hence we find that the imprecation of the prophet contains more of complaint than indignation: it is indeed milder, softer, more dolorous, and more especially adapted to excite pity; in which this prophet’s peculiar excellence undoubtedly consists: whereas Job does not so much raise pity as excite terror. This lamentation is written in poetical figures, like the ancient funeral songs; in which every circumstance proper to raise the passions is mentioned; which therefore are not to be considered as so many expressions of indignation and malice, but rather of mourning and sorrow. See Bishop Lowth’s 14th Prelection.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
So great a contrast there is between the last verse of the preceding paragraph and the beginning of this, that I cannot but suppose the Prophet is not speaking these things of himself. And I the rather am inclined to suppose this from the great sameness that there is in the words here spoken, to what we meet with in Job’s complaint: so as that one might conclude the Prophet quoted them from Job. See Job 3:3 , etc. The Reader will remember, that I do not decide upon it, I refer him to the passage. But if the Prophet, like the Patriarch, uttered this vehement lamentation, we only learn from both, what a compound of grace and corruption there is in the best of men as men: It is thou only blessed Jesus, of whom it can be said, there was no guile found in thy lips; but as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so thou openedst not thy mouth. 1Pe 2:22-23 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 20:14 Cursed [be] the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
Ver. 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born. ] What a sudden change of his note is here! Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, saith James, these things ought not so to be. Jam 3:10 But here human weakness prevailed; and this part of the chapter hath much of man in it. The best have their outbursts; and as there be white teeth in the blackest blackamore, and, again, a black bill in the whitest swan, so the worst have something in them to be commended, and the best to be condemned. See on Jer 20:7 . Some of the Fathers seek to excuse Jeremiah altogether; but that can hardly be, neither needeth it. Origen saith that the day of his birth was past, and therefore nothing now; so that cursing it, he cursed nothing. This is like those among us who say they may now without sin swear by the mass, because it is gone out of the country, &c. Isidor., that Jeremiah’s cursing is but conditional, if any, let that day be cursed, &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 20:14-18
14Cursed be the day when I was born;
Let the day not be blessed when my mother bore me!
15Cursed be the man who brought the news
To my father, saying,
A baby boy has been born to you!
And made him very happy.
16But let that man be like the cities
Which the LORD overthrew without relenting,
And let him hear an outcry in the morning
And a shout of alarm at noon;
17Because he did not kill me before birth,
So that my mother would have been my grave,
And her womb ever pregnant.
18Why did I ever come forth from the womb
To look on trouble and sorrow,
So that my days have been spent in shame?
Jer 20:14-18 These verses continue the lament begun in Jer 15:10. Remember these are hyperbolic poetic images! The questions are Why is he so sad? Is it his personal life or the terrible judgment coming to Judah and Jerusalem?
Jer 20:16 The first two lines refer to YHWH’s destruction of the cities of the plain in Gen 19:24-28.
Some suggest that man be emendated to day, but there is no textual or versional evidence.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
let not the day, &c. Figure of speech Pleonasm.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 15:10, Job 3:3-16
Reciprocal: Gen 30:1 – or else I die Exo 16:3 – we had Num 11:11 – Wherefore hast thou 2Sa 1:21 – no dew 1Ki 19:4 – he requested Job 3:1 – cursed Job 10:18 – hast thou Psa 37:8 – fret Ecc 2:17 – I hated Jer 8:3 – death Lam 3:1 – the man Lam 3:17 – I forgat Eze 3:14 – General Jon 4:3 – take
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 20:14-18, Cursed is used in the sense of being unprofitable. It is an extremely strong statement of humility to show how vain the life of the prophet would have been when mentioned in the light of human strength alone. Jeremiah just got through rejoicing in the support that God had given him, which shows he believed the Lord considered him to be worth preserving. The passage therefore means to express the great appreciation the prophet had for the goodness of God, that he would preserve and care for an unworthy creature iike him. Job made almost the same statements, and I have commented on the passage verse by verse. I ask the reader to see Job 3:1-7 in Vol. 2 of this COMMENTARY.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 20:14. Cursed be the day, &c. If the reader be surprised at this sudden change of the prophets discourse, from joyful thanks for deliverance to bitter complaints, he must observe that the order of time is not strictly observed in the prophetic writings, nor does the discourse always go on in a regular series. Therefore, though these complaints are placed immediately following a thanksgiving, it does not follow that they were pronounced immediately after it. In the following chapters of Jeremiah, it is very evident the order of time is not kept; and it is not unlikely that these words of complaint were uttered before the foregoing, which are expressive of confidence in God and gratitude for deliverance; namely, at a time when his sense of present evils, or his prospect of those just at hand, produced in his mind the most pungent grief and the greatest perturbation. They represent, it seems, the melancholy thoughts which oppressed him while he was struggling with the malice of his enemies, and, as Lowth justly observes, are to be considered, not as expressions of indignation and malice, but rather of mourning and sorrow; or, as a lamentation written in a poetical strain, like a Lessus, Nnia, or mournful ditty, such as the mourning women used to sing, (see note on chap. Jer 9:17,) wherein strong poetical figures were wont to be used, and all the circumstances brought in, which were calculated to raise the passions, but which it would be extremely wrong to interpret in a strict and literal sense. The expressions here used are so similar to those in Job 3., that they seem to have been borrowed from thence; and the reader is referred to the notes on that chapter for our views of them. Bishop Lowth has cited other similar instances of grief, discharging itself in invectives and bitter wishes against objects equally blameless and undeserving with those which our prophet has singled out. Among the rest is the following exclamation in Davids celebrated lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, 2Sa 1:21, Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fields of offering. Upon which the bishop thus descants: All which if you were to bring to the standard of cool and dispassionate reason, what could appear more absurd? But, if you have an eye to nature, and the ordinary flow of the passions, what more genuine, more exact? The falling upon a wrong cause, instead of the right, though a fault in logic, is sometimes an excellence in poetry; because the leading principle in the former is right reason, in the latter it is passion. De Sacr. Poes. Hebrews Prlect. 23. Let not the day, wherein my mother bare me be blessed Let it not be celebrated with those good wishes and expressions of joy which are wont to be used on birthdays.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
20:14 {h} Cursed [be] the day in which I was born: let not the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.
(h) How the children of God are overcome in this battle of the flesh and the Spirit, and into what inconveniences they fall till God raises them up again: read Job 3:1, Jer 15:10 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jeremiah’s deep despair 20:14-18
This is another autobiographical "confession." It is a personal lament, or curse poem, concerning the sorrow Jeremiah had experienced for most of his life resulting from the calling that the Lord had laid on him.
"In these verses Jeremiah plumbed the depths of bitterness and despair, revealing a depth of misery and agony surpassing any other cry of anguish recorded among his lamentations." [Note: Thompson, p. 463.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Again Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth; he felt bitterly sorry that he had ever been born (cf. Jer 15:10; Job 3:3-6). Cursing one’s parents or God was a capital offense under the Mosaic Law (Lev 20:9; Lev 24:10-16), but Jeremiah did not do that. He meant that his birth occurred on a day that God had cursed, and that accounted for his misfortune.