Jeremiah 20 is the most personal chapter in the book. The chief officer of the temple has Jeremiah beaten and locked in the stocks overnight. When he is released, Jeremiah pours out his heart to God more bitterly than any prophet before him: “thou hast deceived me.” He has tried to stop preaching, and he cannot: “his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones.” In twelve verses he goes from accusation to confidence to praise, and then down into the darkest curse in the book.
A study in Jeremiah 20 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 13 min read
Pashur And The Stocks
“Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the LORD, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. Then 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. And 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 Magor-missabib.”
Jeremiah 20:1-3
“These things” are the words Jeremiah had just spoken at the temple after smashing the potter’s jar in chapter 19. Pashur was a priest and the “chief governor in the house of the LORD,” the officer in charge of keeping order in the temple courts. He had Jeremiah beaten and fastened in the stocks, a wooden frame that held the feet, hands and neck in a painful bent position, at a public gate where everyone could see and mock.
A night in the stocks did not change Jeremiah’s message. When he was released the next morning, he gave Pashur a new name: “Magor-missabib,” which means “terror on every side.” The man who tried to frighten the prophet into silence would himself become a byword for fear, and he would go into exile and die in Babylon (20:6).
“The prophet’s words, instead of leading to confession and repentance, aroused the anger of those high in authority, and as a consequence Jeremiah was deprived of his liberty. Imprisoned, and placed in the stocks, the prophet nevertheless continued to speak the messages of Heaven to those who stood by. His voice could not be silenced by persecution.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 432
Thou Hast Deceived Me
“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. 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.”
Jeremiah 20:7, 8
These are some of the boldest words any believer has ever spoken to God. “Thou hast deceived me.” The Hebrew word means to persuade, to entice, to talk someone into something. Jeremiah feels God talked him into a calling that has brought him nothing but mockery. When God called him as a young man, he objected that he could not speak, and God overruled him (1:6-9). Now he looks at the bruises from the stocks and says, in effect, “You overpowered me. You were stronger than I, and You won.”
Was God really deceiving him? No. God had warned Jeremiah from the start that kings, princes, priests and people would fight against him (1:18-19). What Jeremiah is expressing is how it feels, not what is true. And the Bible records it honestly. God does not need His servants to hide their feelings from Him. He would rather hear an honest complaint than a pious silence.
Ellen White described the kind of man Jeremiah really was underneath his bold public words:
“Naturally of a timid and shrinking disposition, Jeremiah longed for the peace and quiet of a life of retirement, where he need not witness the continued impenitence of his beloved nation. His heart was wrung with anguish over the ruin wrought by sin.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 419
“Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed.” There is a hint of Jacob here, who wrestled with God through the night and was told, “as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Jacob was blessed by losing to God. So, in the end, was Jeremiah.
A Burning Fire Shut Up In My Bones
“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.”
Jeremiah 20:9
Jeremiah tried to quit. “I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.” He had every reason to. Speaking for God had cost him his friends, his reputation and now his freedom.
But he could not do it. God’s word inside him was “as a burning fire shut up in my bones.” He tried to hold it in until he was worn out from the effort, “weary with forbearing,” and finally, “I could not stay.” Silence was more painful than persecution.
Every true messenger of God has known this fire. David felt it: “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue” (Psalm 39:3). Peter and John, ordered by the council to stop preaching about Jesus, answered, “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). Paul wrote, “woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). And the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, after Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, said, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).
The fire is not a feeling we stir up in ourselves. It is God’s own word, taking hold of a heart until it must be spoken. Jeremiah’s strength never came from his personality. It came from the word that would not let him go.
The LORD Is With Me As A Mighty Terrible One
“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. 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. 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. Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.”
Jeremiah 20:10-13
Jeremiah’s enemies are now using Pashur’s new name against him, whispering “fear on every side.” Even his “familiars,” his close friends, are watching for him to stumble. And notice their words: “Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him.” It is the same Hebrew word Jeremiah used in verse 7. He felt God had “enticed” him; his enemies were hoping to entice him. The difference is everything. God draws us toward what is good. The enemy draws us toward a fall.
Then, suddenly: “But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one.” The man who felt overpowered by God now remembers that this same powerful God is on his side. The strength he resented in verse 7 is the strength that will protect him in verse 11. And the section ends in a song: “Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.”
“But the faithful prophet was daily strengthened to endure.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 420
Paul described the same experience: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9). “Fear on every side” is real. But so is the God who stands beside us in the middle of it.
Cursed Be The Day Wherein I Was Born
“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 the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; 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. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?”
Jeremiah 20:14-18
Right after the song of praise comes the darkest passage in the book. Jeremiah curses the day he was born. It seems out of order, but it is true to life. Faith and despair often come in waves, one right after the other. A believer can sing God’s praise in the morning and wish he had never been born by night.
Jeremiah is not alone. “After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day,” saying, “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (Job 3:1, 3). Elijah, after his great victory on Mount Carmel, sat under a juniper tree and “requested for himself that he might die” (1 Kings 19:4). God did not reject any of these men for their despair. He fed Elijah and let him sleep. He answered Job out of the whirlwind. And He kept Jeremiah going for decades more.
Notice what Jeremiah does not do. He curses the day and the messenger who announced his birth, but he does not curse God. Even in his darkest moment, he brings his pain to the One who called him. The chapter does not end with an answer, but the rest of the book is the answer. The man who wished he had never been born went on to stand before kings, to buy a field in hope, and to see every word God gave him come true.
If you have ever felt what Jeremiah felt in this chapter, overpowered by your calling, mocked for your faith, tempted to stop speaking, or wishing you had never been born, this chapter is in the Bible for you. God can handle your honesty. And His word, once it takes hold of your heart, will not let you go.
