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Selected Verse: Jeremiah 20:14 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Jer 20:14 |
King James |
Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| The contrast between the spirit of this passage and the preceding thanksgiving is to be explained thus: to show how great was the deliverance (Jer 20:13), he subjoins a picture of what his wounded spirit had been previous to his deliverance; I had said in the time of my imprisonment, "Cursed be the day"; my feeling was that of Job (Job 3:3, Job 3:10-11, whose words Jeremiah therefore copies). Though Jeremiah's zeal had been stirred up, not so much for self as for God's honor trampled on by the rejection of the prophet's words, yet it was intemperate when he made his birth a subject for cursing, which was really a ground for thanksgiving. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Cursed - This sudden change makes some think that these words proceeded from Jeremiah rather as a repetition of a former passion into which the abuses of his enemies had put him, than as the immediate product of his spirit at this time. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| Cursed be the day wherein I was born - If we take these words literally, and suppose them to be in their proper place, they are utterly inconsistent with that state of confidence in which he exulted a few minutes before. If they are the language of Jeremiah, they must have been spoken on a prior occasion, when probably he had given way to a passionate hastiness. They might well comport with the state he was in Jer 20:9. I really believe these verses have got out of their proper place, which I conjecture to be between the eighth and ninth verses. There they will come in very properly; and might have been a part of his complaint in those moments when he had purposed to flee from God as did Jonah, and prophesy no more in his name. Transpositions in this prophet are frequent; therefore place these five verses after the eighth, and let the chapter end with the thirteenth, and the whole will form a piece of exquisite poetry, where the state of despair and the hasty resolutions he had formed while under its influence, and the state of confidence to which he was raised by the succouring influence of God, will appear to be both illustrative of each other, and are touched with a delicacy and fervor which even a cold heart must admire. See Job 3:3 (note), and the notes there. The two passages are very similar. |
10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
13 Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
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.