Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 20:18
Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
Verse 18. Wherefore came I forth] It would have been well had I never been born, as I have neither comfort in my life, nor comfort in my work.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
These words let us know the prophets temptation to these extravagant eruptions of passion; it was the reproach, and shame, and affliction which he endured for the faithful discharge of his ministry; which both lets us see the goodness of God towards those whom he spareth as to these trials, and what need we have under them to keep a watch upon our own hearts. These records also of holy writ are useful to us, if at any time we be overtaken with such errors, to comfort us, in that they are not such spots but have been found in the faces of Gods fairest ones; and to make us charitable towards such as we may see sometimes overborne with the like temptations.
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
Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow,…. “Labour” in performing his work and office as a prophet; and “sorrow” in suffering reproach, contempt, and persecution for it; which to avoid, he wishes he had never been born: a sign of a very fretful and impatient spirit, and of a carnal frame. Jarchi thinks this refers to the destruction of the temple;
that my days should be consumed with shame? through the bad usage of him, the reproach that was cast upon him, and the contempt he was had in for prophesying in the name of the Lord. All this shows that there is sin in the best of men, and what they are when left to themselves; how weak, foolish, and sinful they appear. And Jeremiah recording these his sins and failings, is an argument of the uprightness and sincerity of the man, and of the truth of Scripture.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He then adds, My mother might have been my grave; (18) that is, “This light and life I value not; why then did I not die in my mother’s womb? and why did she conceive me?” Then he says, Why came I forth from the womb that I might see trouble and sorrow, and that my days. might be consumed in, reproach? Here he gives a reason why he was wearied of life; but he could not have been cleared on this account, nor ought he to be so at this day; for what just cause can we have to contend with God? Jeremiah was created to sorrow and trouble: this is the condition of all; why, then, should God be blamed? his days were spent in reproach: there was nothing new in his case; for many who have received an honorable testimony from God had suffered many wrongs and reproaches. Why, then, did he not look to them as examples, that he might bear with patience and resignation what had happened to other holy men? but he seemed as though he wished to appear as it were in public, that he might proclaim his disgrace, not only to his own age, but to every age to the end of the world.
At the same time we must remember the object he had in view; for the Prophet, as we have said, was not seized with this intemperate spirit after he had given thanks to God, and exulted as a conqueror, but before; and in order to amplify the grace of God in delivering him as it were from hell itself, into which he had plunged himself, he mentioned what had passed through his mind. The drift of the whole description seems to be this, — “I was lost, and my mind could conceive nothing but what was bitter, and with a full mouth I vomited forth poison and blasphemies against God.” What the Prophet then had here in view, was to render more conspicuous the kindness of God in bringing him to light from so deep an abyss.
A similar mode of speaking is found in the third chapter of Job. But Job had not the reason which, as we have said, Jeremiah had; for Jeremiah was not influenced by any private grief when carried away by all insane impulse to speak against God. Whence, then, was his great grief? even because he saw he was despised by the people, and that the whole of religion was esteemed by them as nothing: in short, he saw that the state of things was quite hopeless. He was, then, inflamed with zeal for God’s glory; and he also was extremely grieved at the irreclaimable wickedness of the people; but Job had only a respect to his own sufferings. There was, therefore, a great difference between Job and Jeremiah; and yet we know that both were endowed, as it were, with angelic virtue, for Job is named as one of three just men, who seemed to have been elevated above all mankind; and Jeremiah, if a comparison be made, was in this instance more excusable than Job; and yet we see that they were both inflamed with so unreasonable a grief, that they spared neither God nor man.
Let us then learn to check our feelings, that they may not break out thus unreasonably. Let us at the same time know that God’s servants, though they may excel in firmness, are yet not wholly divested of their corruptions. And should it happen at any time to us to feel such emotions within us, let not such a temptation discourage us; but as far as we can and as God gives us grace, let us strive to resist it, until the firmness of our faith at length gains the ascendency, as we see was the case with Jeremiah. For when overwhelmed with such a confusion of mind as to lie down as it were dead in hell itself, he was yet restored, as we have seen, to such a soundness of mind, that he afterwards courageously executed his own office, and also gloried, according to what we observed yesterday, in the help of God. Let us proceed, —
(18) Our version seems right in rendering the ו in this sentence or; and so it ought to be rendered in the previous verse, otherwise there is an inconsistency in representing a man destroyed, and hearing an outcry, etc. The two verses may be thus rendered, —
16. And let that man be like the cities Which Jehovah overturned and repented not; Or a hearer of an outcry in the morning And of tumult at noon-tide.
17. Why not slay me did he from the womb? Or become to me did my mother my grave, And her womb a perpetual conception?
The last words are, literally, “a conception of perpetuity,” — the Vulg. has, “an eternal conception,” — the Syr., “a perpetual conception.” Then the next verse is as follows, —
18. For what purpose has this been? From the womb I came forth To see labor and sorrow, And spent in shame are my days.
—
Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(18) Wherefore came I forth . . .?Like the preceding verse, this is in its tone, almost in its words, an echo of Job. 3:11-12; Job. 3:20.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
REFLECTIONS
OH! Pashur! what a vast difference was there even in the moment of thy seeming triumphs, between the suffering Prophet, and the insulting Governor? And what an everlasting and eternal difference was there when his predictions were fulfilled, and thou wert a terror, a magor-missabib to thyself and all around thee! And what is it now? Reader think of that striking passage of the Prophet, and learn from it all that it contains; Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him! Woe unto the wicked it shall be ill with him!
Precious Lord Jesus! how can I hear or read of the reproaches thrown upon thy faithful servants in every age of thy Church, without having my mind insensibly directed to thee, to behold all the lesser exercises of thy prophets, swallowed up in the floods (as the streams of the earth in the vast ocean) of these unequalled sorrows. Was ever sorrow like unto thy sorrow, in the day of the Lord’s fierce anger? Here in thee may my soul always find sweet consolation, and under the taunts and reproaches of the world, recollect, that if they called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they those of his household. Grant Lord! that I may never murmur at any of thy dispensations, nor lament the day of my birth, or wish it to have been covered in darkness: but rather desire to be conformed to thy blessed image in all things, that being made partaker of the sufferings of Christ, I may be also of the glory that shall follow.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 20:18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?
Ver. 18. Wherefore came I forth, &c. ] Passions are a most dangerous and heady water when once they are out.
That my days should be consumed with shame?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Wherefore . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. Compare Job 3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
came: Job 3:20, Job 14:1, Job 14:13, Lam 3:1
to see: Jer 8:18, Gen 3:16-19, Psa 90:10, Lam 1:12, Joh 16:20, Heb 10:36
with: Psa 69:19, Isa 1:6, Isa 51:7, Act 5:41, 1Co 4:9-13, 2Ti 1:12, Heb 11:36, Heb 12:2, Heb 13:13, 1Pe 4:14-16
Reciprocal: Lev 3:14 – the fat that covereth Num 11:15 – let me not Ecc 4:3 – better Isa 15:4 – his
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jeremiah bewailed the fact that he ever came out of his mother’s womb, since his life had been so full of trouble, sorrow, and shame. Jer 20:17-18 are another indication that human life exists in a mother’s womb before birth. Jeremiah existed as a person in his mother’s womb.
"What these curses convey . . . is a state of mind, not a prosaic plea. The heightened language is not there to be analysed [sic]: it is there to bowl us over. Together with other tortured cries from him and his fellow sufferers, these raw wounds in Scripture remain lest we forget the sharpness of the age-long struggle, or the frailty of the finest overcomers." [Note: Kidner, p. 81.]
"Jeremiah was discouraged because he was a man standing against a flood. And I want to say to you that nobody who is fighting the battle in our own generation can float on a Beauty Rest mattress. If you love God and love men and have compassion for them, you will pay a real price psychologically. . . .
"But what does God expect of Jeremiah? What does God expect of every man who preaches into a lost age like ours? I’ll tell you what God expects. He simply expects a man to go right on. He doesn’t scold a man for being tired, but neither does He expect him to stop his message because people are against him." [Note: Schaeffer, pp. 69-70.]