Jeremiah 20
Pashur the son of Immer was a priest and chief governor in the house of the LORD - a man of real authority in the temple. When he hears Jeremiah prophesying the things God has given him, he does not argue; he strikes the prophet and locks him in the stocks at the high gate of Benjamin, the most public place he can find. It is meant to silence and shame. But when Pashur lets him out the next morning, Jeremiah does not retract a word. He gives the priest a new name - Magor-missabib, “terror on every side” - and tells him plainly what is coming: Babylon, the sword, captivity, and a foreign grave for a man who prophesied lies (vv. 1-6).3
Then the chapter turns from the public square to the prophet's own interior, and what comes out is the most unguarded lament in the book. O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived… I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me (v. 7). The word he was given has made him a laughingstock. He decides to stop speaking it - and finds he cannot, because 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 (v. 9). The compulsion to speak is stronger than the pain of being mocked. All around him he hears whispering, plotting, fear on every side, as even his close companions wait for him to slip.2
And then, without warning, faith breaks back in: But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble (v. 11). For three verses the prophet trusts, even sings - Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD (v. 13). But the chapter does not leave him there. It ends in the dark, with a cry as old as Job: Cursed be the day wherein I was born… Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? (vv. 14, 18). Scripture sets the fire, the trust, and the darkness all on one page, and does not tidy them into a neat resolution. It lets a faithful man be this honest - and in doing so tells the reader what kind of speech God is willing to hear.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 20:1-6Terror on Every Side
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 Magor-missabib. 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.
The chapter opens with raw force. Pashur the son of Immer the priest was no minor figure; he was chief governor in the house of the LORD (v. 1), a man charged with order in the temple itself. When he hears Jeremiah prophesying the words God has given him, he answers not with argument but with violence: Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks (v. 2). The stocks were a device of public confinement and humiliation, fixing the body in a bent, painful posture for all to see - and the place chosen sharpens the cruelty. The high gate of Benjamin… by the house of the LORD was a thoroughfare; the prophet is pinned on display where the worshippers stream past. The deepest sting is who does it. Not a pagan king but a priest. Not an enemy of God's house but its appointed guardian. The man whose office was to serve the worship of the LORD is the man who assaults the LORD's messenger. From the very first verses the chapter exposes a hard truth: the fiercest opposition to a word from God can come from inside the very institution meant to honour Him.3
When Pashur releases him the next morning, Jeremiah does not flinch or recant. He answers with a prophetic act - a renaming: The LORD hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magor-missabib (v. 3). To rename someone in Scripture is to declare their true destiny, and the new name is a verdict: terror on every side. Then Jeremiah unfolds what it means. I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends (v. 4) - the man who inflicted fear will become a thing of fear, watching his own friends fall by the sword. And the horizon widens past the one priest to the whole nation: I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon (v. 4), the city's strength and treasures carried off (v. 5), Pashur himself dragged to Babylon to die… and shalt be buried there (v. 6). The closing charge is devastating in its precision: a foreign grave for a man to whom thou hast prophesied lies. Pashur had played the prophet, telling people the comfortable falsehood they wanted; now the true word he tried to silence stands, and his own false one collapses under him. The one who struck the prophet to stop the word only sealed his place inside it.
Jeremiah 20:7-10A Burning Fire Shut Up in My Bones
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.
Here the chapter turns from the public gate to the prophet's own heart, and the language is startling in its frankness: O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed (v. 7). This is not the voice of a man who has lost his faith; it is the voice of a man wrestling God to the ground in prayer. Jeremiah feels overpowered - as if God called him with a strength he could not resist, set him to a task that has brought him nothing but ruin, and then left him exposed to the consequences. His complaint is specific: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. Faithfulness has not earned him respect; it has made him the town joke. And he traces the wound to its source: the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily (v. 8). The very thing that should have been his honour - carrying the word of God - has become the thing people use to shame him. Notice that he says all of this to God, not behind His back. This is the remarkable thing the passage models. Jeremiah does not paper over his bitterness with pious phrases; he brings the raw, accusing ache straight to the LORD, trusting that God is big enough to be addressed honestly. Scripture preserves the complaint without rebuke - which tells us something about the kind of prayer heaven is willing to receive.
Then comes the turn at the center of the whole chapter. Worn down by the mockery, Jeremiah makes a decision: Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name (v. 9). He will quit. He will hold the word in and save himself the pain. But - and everything hangs on that word - he discovers he cannot: 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 image is unforgettable. The word he tried to bury did not go quiet; it became a fire, sealed inside him, building heat with no way out. Trying to contain it - forbearing, holding back - exhausted him more than speaking ever did. The word of God, once truly received, is not a message a person can simply set down when it becomes inconvenient. It takes up residence. It burns. This is the deepest answer the chapter gives to Pashur's violence: you can beat the prophet and lock him in the stocks, but you cannot put out the fire in his bones. The compulsion to speak is not stubbornness or pride; it is the pressure of a living word that will not be smothered. Jeremiah keeps prophesying not because he is strong but because silence has become impossible.
The prophet's isolation deepens as the section closes: For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side (v. 10). That phrase - fear on every side - is the very name he had pinned on Pashur, Magor-missabib, now turned back upon himself; the terror he announced as judgment has become the atmosphere he must live in. He hears the whispering campaign against him: Report, say they, and we will report it - people egging one another on to spread accusations, hoping something will stick. Worst of all is who is doing it: All my familiars watched for my halting - his own close companions, the people who should have stood with him, lying in wait for him to stumble. They are hoping he will be enticed, lured into some misstep, so they can prevail against him and take our revenge. This is the loneliness of faithfulness at its sharpest. It is one thing to be opposed by obvious enemies; it is another to feel your friends watching for your fall. Jeremiah is hemmed in on every side - mocked by the crowd, plotted against by intimates, and unable to stop speaking the very word that draws all this fire. And it is precisely here, at the bottom, that the chapter will make its surprising turn upward.
Jeremiah 20:11-13The LORD Is With Me as a Mighty Terrible One
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.
After the bottom of verse 10 comes one of the most sudden and bracing turns in the prophets: But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one (v. 11). That single word But swings the whole chapter on its hinge. A breath ago the prophet was hemmed in by mockers and watched by treacherous friends; now he remembers who stands beside him. The image is striking - not a gentle comforter but a mighty terrible one, a warrior fearsome to His enemies, a champion at the prophet's side. The same dread (the root of Magor-missabib) that Jeremiah's foes hoped to make his portion is revealed to belong, in truth, to them: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail. Note that Jeremiah's circumstances have not changed at all between verse 10 and verse 11. He is still mocked, still plotted against, still alone among men. What changes is the direction of his gaze. He looks up from the whispering and remembers the LORD is with him - and that one fact reorders everything. His persecutors will be the ones greatly ashamed; their everlasting confusion, not his, shall never be forgotten. This is how faith works in the dark: not by improving the situation, but by recalling who is present in it.
Out of that recovered confidence Jeremiah brings his case before God in the language of a courtroom: O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart (v. 12). To try is to test and examine, as a judge weighs evidence; the reins (the kidneys, in Hebrew thought the seat of the inmost feelings) and the heart together stand for the whole hidden interior of a person. Jeremiah is appealing past the court of public opinion - which has condemned him - to the only Judge who sees all the way in. Men see a humiliated prophet in the stocks and assume he is in the wrong; God sees the reins and the heart and knows the truth. So Jeremiah commits his vindication to Him: let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause. He does not take revenge into his own hands - he lays the whole matter before God and leaves the verdict there. And then comes the most surprising line of all: Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers (v. 13). With his troubles still unresolved, Jeremiah breaks into praise - speaking of his deliverance as already accomplished, calling not only himself but others to sing. Faith here outruns sight. The deliverance is so certain to him that he begins the song before the rescue has visibly come.
Jeremiah 20:14-18Cursed Be the Day Wherein I Was Born
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?
The chapter does not end in the song of verse 13. It plunges, with no transition, into the darkest words Jeremiah ever speaks: Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed (v. 14). He goes further, cursing even the messenger who once carried the happy news of his birth - Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad (v. 15) - and wishing that man had instead been the one to end his life in the womb (vv. 16-17). This is despair laid utterly bare. It must be read honestly, not softened: a faithful prophet, hours after singing God's praise, wishing he had never existed. Two things steady the reader here. First, notice the careful line Jeremiah does not cross. He curses the day, the messenger, his own birth - but never God, and never the people he is sent to. His anguish is turned inward, not blasphemous. Second, notice that Scripture records this and does not condemn him for it. The Bible is not embarrassed by the despair of its saints. It does not airbrush Jeremiah into a tidy hero who never broke. It lets a true servant of God say that he wishes he had never been born - and leaves the words standing, raw, on the page.
The chapter ends on a question with no answer: Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame? (v. 18). Labour and sorrow - toil and grief - is how Jeremiah now sums up his whole life. He has borne a message no one wanted, watched the destruction of his people draw nearer with every refusal to listen, and been beaten, mocked, and plotted against for his trouble. From inside that, the cry makes a terrible kind of sense: why was I even born? And there the chapter stops. There is no neat resolution, no closing verse of restored joy, no tidy lesson to round it off. This is deeply important. By ending here, in the dark, Scripture refuses to pretend that the life of faith is one of unbroken cheerfulness. Real faithfulness sometimes looks like this - weary to the bone, asking why, unable to see the point. The presence of this passage in the canon is itself a kind of gift to every believer who has ever felt it: you are not the first faithful person to sit in this darkness, and sitting here does not mean your faith has failed. Jeremiah will rise and prophesy again. But on this page he is simply allowed to be a man at the end of himself - and God lets the cry stand.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 20 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the disputed verb patah in verse 7 (rendered “deceived,” but ranging from “persuade” and “entice” to “overpower”), for the name Magor-missabib in verse 3, and for the image of fire shut up in the bones in verse 9.
- Jeremiah 20 ↔ Job 3 · 1 Corinthians 9 · Matthew 26-27Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah's lament to the rest of Scripture - the curse on his birthday (vv. 14-18) read beside Job's let the day perish wherein I was born (Job 3:3), the word that could not stay (v. 9) beside woe is unto me, if I preach not (1 Cor. 9:16), and the prophet's sorrow beside the Man of Sorrows in Gethsemane and on the cross.
- Jeremiah 20 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 20 - the office Pashur held in the temple (v. 1), the force of the verb behind “deceived” in verse 7, the legal-courtroom language of verse 12 (“the reins and the heart”), and the structure of the closing lament that ends the chapter in unrelieved darkness.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Terror on Every Side
- Jeremiah 1:8Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.The promise given at Jeremiah’s call - tested here in the stocks (v. 2) and clung to again in verse 11.
- Matthew 23:37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee.The pattern of verses 1-2 named by Jesus - God’s messengers struck by the very city meant to receive them.
- Acts 5:40when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they... commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus.Pashur’s tactic repeated (v. 2) - beating used to silence those who carry God’s word, and failing.
- Jeremiah 6:25Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side.The same phrase Jeremiah turns into Pashur’s new name (v. 3) - the encircling dread of the coming judgment.
- Jeremiah 28:15-17Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah... the LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.The fate of one who prophesied lies (v. 6) - the false prophet exposed and judged, as Pashur is here.
A Burning Fire Shut Up in My Bones
- 1 Corinthians 9:16necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!The compulsion of verse 9 in the apostle - the word as a necessity that cannot be held back.
- Acts 4:19-20we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.The fire of verse 9 in Peter and John - commanded to be silent, yet unable to stop.
- Jeremiah 23:29Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?The LORD names His own word fire (v. 9) - the very image that burns in the prophet’s bones.
- Psalm 13:1-2How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever?... how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?The honest lament of verses 7-8 - faith arguing openly with God, a prayer Scripture welcomes.
- Luke 24:32Did not our heart burn within us... while he opened to us the scriptures?The burning word of verse 9 kindled by the risen Christ - the same fire, now of the gospel.
The LORD Is With Me as a Mighty Terrible One
- Romans 8:31If God be for us, who can be against us?The confidence of verse 11 in the gospel - the persecuted upheld because God Himself is on their side.
- Jeremiah 1:18-19they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee... to deliver thee.The very promise Jeremiah leans on in verse 11 - God’s word at his call, that his foes would not prevail.
- 1 Peter 2:23when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.What Jeremiah does in verse 12 - opening his cause to the Judge who sees the heart rather than taking revenge.
- Psalm 7:9the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.The Judge Jeremiah appeals to in verse 12 - the One who sees past appearances into the hidden self.
- Matthew 28:20lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.The abiding presence of verse 11 promised to Christ’s own - the same God who is with the persecuted.
Cursed Be the Day Wherein I Was Born
- Job 3:1-3After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day... Let the day perish wherein I was born.The closest parallel to verses 14-18 - another righteous sufferer cursing the day of his birth, preserved without rebuke.
- Isaiah 53:3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.The sorrow of verse 18 gathered up in the Servant - the One who knew labour and grief to the full.
- Matthew 27:46My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?The unanswered “why” that ends the chapter (v. 18), now on the lips of Christ in His darkest hour.
- Psalm 88:1-3O LORD God of my salvation... let my prayer come before thee... for my soul is full of troubles.A psalm that, like verses 14-18, ends in darkness - faithful lament with no tidy resolution, still addressed to God.
- 1 Kings 19:4It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.Elijah’s despair after victory, echoing verse 14 - a faithful prophet, spent, wishing for death, and not condemned.