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20. Jeremiah's Complaint

¹ When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, ² he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the LORD’s temple. ³ The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD’s name for you is not Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. ⁴ For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword. ⁵ I will deliver all the wealth of this city into the hands of their enemies—all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon. ⁶ And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’”

Jeremiah’s Complaint

    ⁷ You deceived Or persuaded me, LORD, and I was deceived Or persuaded;
   you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
   everyone mocks me.
⁸ Whenever I speak, I cry out
   proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
   insult and reproach all day long.
⁹ But if I say, “I will not mention his word
   or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
   a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
   indeed, I cannot.
¹⁰ I hear many whispering,
   “Terror on every side!
   Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!”
All my friends
   are waiting for me to slip, saying,
“Perhaps he will be deceived;
   then we will prevail over him
   and take our revenge on him.”

    ¹¹ But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior;
   so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.
They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced;
   their dishonor will never be forgotten.
¹² LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous
   and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them,
   for to you I have committed my cause.

    ¹³ Sing to the LORD!
   Give praise to the LORD!
He rescues the life of the needy
   from the hands of the wicked.

    ¹⁴ Cursed be the day I was born!
   May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
¹⁵ Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
   who made him very glad, saying,
   “A child is born to you—a son!”
¹⁶ May that man be like the towns
   the LORD overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
   a battle cry at noon.
¹⁷ For he did not kill me in the womb,
   with my mother as my grave,
   her womb enlarged forever.
¹⁸ Why did I ever come out of the womb
   to see trouble and sorrow
   and to end my days in shame?

Here Jeremiah explains more at large why he said that Pashur would be terror on every side, even because he and his friends would be in fear; for he would find himself overwhelmed by God’s vengeance, and would become a spectacle to all others. In short, Jeremiah means, that such would be God’s vengeance as would fill Pashur and all others with fear; for Pashur himself would be constrained to acknowledge God’s hand without being able to escape, and all others would also perceive the same. He then became a spectacle to himself and to others, because he could not, however hardened he might have been, do otherwise than feel God’s vengeance; and this became also apparent to all others.

Behold, he says, I will make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends; and fall shall they by the sword of their enemies, thine eyes seeing it; and all Judah will I deliver into the hand, etc. He repeats what he had said; for Pashur wished to be deemed the patron of the whole land, and especially of the city Jerusalem. As, then, he had undertaken the cause of the people, as though he was the patron and defender of them all, Jeremiah says, that all the Jews would be taken captives, and not only so, but that something more grievous was nigh at hand, for when the king of Babylon led them into exile, he would also smite them with the sword, not indeed all; but we know that he severely punished the king, his children, and the chief men, so that the lower orders on account of their obscurity alone escaped; and those of this class who did escape, because they were not noble nor renowned, were indebted to their own humble condition. It follows, —