Jeremiah 20King James Version
A priest named Pashur hears Jeremiah's message and strikes him and puts him in the stocks. When Jeremiah is released, he renames Pashur 'Magormissabib' (terror on every side) and delivers a sharper oracle. Then one of the most devastating laments in the book: 'O Lord, thou hast deceived me.' '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.' He curses the day of his birth.
Pashur the chief priest has Jeremiah beaten and put in public stocks overnight. The next morning Jeremiah delivers a direct oracle: Pashur will see everyone he loves carried to Babylon and will die there. Then Jeremiah erupts in his most anguished lament: he was deceived, he has become a laughingstock, and when he tries to stop speaking the word burns in his bones. He curses the day of his birth.
The word of God that burns in the bones cannot be held back, even when the holder has been beaten, humiliated, and pushed to wish he had never been born.
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." The interior anatomy of prophetic compulsion.
The stocks were public. They were placed at the Benjamin Gate, one of the busiest entrances to the temple complex. Jeremiah spent the night there on display. His neighbors, his rivals, the people who hated his sermons, all walked past. He was released in the morning to deliver his sharpest oracle yet.
Pashur, the priest who beats Jeremiah and puts him in stocks, who will live to see his name changed to Magor-missabib, terror on every side. Jeremiah, who endures the beating and then unleashes his most personal lament. God, addressed in the lament as both caller and deceiver.
The beating in the stocks is the first physical violence against Jeremiah in the book. It will not be the last. The lament that follows is perhaps the most psychologically raw passage in the entire Hebrew Bible. The cursing of the day of birth (verse 14) directly echoes Job 3 and became the anchor text for every study of prophetic suffering.
For when you have tried to stop doing the hard thing and cannot, when the cost is too high but the calling burns too deep. Jeremiah does not present this as virtue. He names it as anguish.
1Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
2Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.
3And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.
4For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword.
5Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.
6And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.
7O 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.
8For 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.
9Then 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.
10For 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.
11But 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.
12But, 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.
13Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
14Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
15Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.
16And 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;
17Because 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.
18Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?