tells why the curse should fall on that man: because (אשׁר, causal) he slew me not from the womb, i.e., according to what follows: while yet in the womb, and so (ותּהי with ו consec.) my mother would have become my grave. Logically considered, the subject to מותתני can only be the man on whom the curse of Jeremiah 20:15 is pronounced. But how could the man kill the child in the mother's womb? This consideration has given occasion to various untenable renderings. Some have taken "from the womb," according to Job 3:11, in the sense: immediately after birth, simul ac ex utero exiissem (Ros.). This is grammatically fair enough, but it does not fall in with the context; for then the following Vav consec. must be taken as having the negative force "or rather," the negation being repeated in the next clause again (Ros., Graf). Both these cases are grammatically inadmissible. Others would supply "Jahveh" as subject to מותתני, or take the verb as with indefinite subject, or as passive. But to supply "Jahveh" is quite arbitrary; and against the passive construction it must be said that thus the causal nexus, indicated by אשׁר, between the man on whom the curse is to fall and the slaying of the child is done away with, and all connection for the אשׁר with what precedes would be lost. The difficulty arising from simply accepting the literal meaning is solved by the consideration, that the curse is not levelled against any one particular person. The man that was present at the birth, so as to be able to bring the father the news of it, might have killed the child in the mother's womb. Jeremiah is as little thinking how this could happen as, in the next words, he is of the possibility of everlasting pregnancy. His words must be taken rhetorically, not physiologically. That pregnancy is everlasting that has no birth at the end of it. - In Jeremiah 20:18 a reason for the curse is given, in that birth had brought him only a life of hardship and sorrow. To see hardship, i.e., experience, endure it. His days pass away, vanish in shame, i.e., shame at the discomfiture of hopes; for his life-calling produces no fruit, his prophetic work is in vain, since he cannot save his people from destruction.

The curse on the day of birth closes with a sigh at the wretchedness of life, without any hint that he again rises to new joyful faith, and without God's reprimanding him for his discontent as in Jeremiah 11:19. This difficulty the comm. have not touched upon; they have considered only the questions: how at all such a curse in the mouth of a prophet is to be defended; and whether it is in its right place in this connection, immediately after the words so full of hope as Jeremiah 20:11. (cf. Ng.). The latter question we have already discussed art the beginning of the exposition of these verses. As to the first, opinions differ. Some take the curse to be a purely rhetorical form, having no object whatsoever. For, it is said, the long past day of his birth is as little an object on which the curse could really fall, as is the man who told his father of the birth of a son - a man who in all probability never had a real existence (Ng.). To this view, ventured so early as Origen, Cor. a Lap. has justly answered: obstat, quod dies illa exstiterit fueritque creatura Dei; non licet autem maledicere alicui creaturae Dei, sive illa praesens sit sive praeterita. Others, as Calv., espied in this cursing quasi sacrilegum furorem, and try to excuse it on the ground that the principium hujus zeli was justifiable, because Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth not because of personal sufferings, sicknesses, poverty, and the like, but quoniam videret se perdere operam, quum tamen fideliter studeret eam impendere in salutem populi, deinde quum videret doctrinam Dei obnoxiam esse probris et vituperationibus, quum videret impios ita procaciter insurgere, quum videret totam pietatem ita haberi ludibrio. But the sentence passed, that the prophet gravissime peccaverit ut esset contumeliosus in Deu, is too severe one, as is also that of the Berleburg Bible, that "Jeremiah therein stands for an example of warning to all faithful witnesses for the truth, showing that they should not be impatient of the reproach, contempt, derision, and mockery that befall them on that account, if God's long-suffering bears with the mockers so long, and ever delays His judgments." For had Jeremiah sinned so grievously, God would certainly have reproached him with his wrong-doing, as in Jeremiah 15:19. Since that is not here the case, we are not entitled to make out his words to be a beacon of warning to all witnesses for the truth. Certainly this imprecation was not written fore our imitation; for it is doubtless an infirmitas, as Seb. Schm. called it - an outbreak of the striving of the flesh against the spirit. But it should be to us a source of instruction and comfort. From it we should, on the one hand, learn the full weight of the temptation, so that we may arm ourselves with prayer in faith as a weapon against the power of the tempter; on the other hand, we should see the greatness of God's grace, which raises again those that are stumbling to their fall, and does not let God's true servants succumb under the temptation, as we gather from the fact, that the Lord does not cast off His servant, but gives him the needed strength for carrying on the heavy labours of his office. - The difficulty that there is no answer from the Lord to this complaint, neither by way of reprimand nor of consolation, as in Jeremiah 12:5., Jeremiah 15:10, Jeremiah 15:19., is solved when we consider that at his former complainings the Lord had said to him all that was needed to comfort him and raise him up again. A repetition of those promises would have soothed his bitterness of spirit for a time, perhaps, but not permanently. For the latter purpose the Lord was silent, and left him time to conquer from within the temptation that was crushing him down, by recalling calmly the help from God he had so often hitherto experienced in his labours, especially as the time was now not far distant in which, by the bursting of the threatened judgment on Jerusalem and Judah, he should not only be justified before his adversaries, but also perceive that his labour had not been in vain. And that Jeremiah did indeed victoriously struggle against this temptation, we may gather from remembering that hereafter, when, especially during the siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, he had still sorer afflictions to endure, he no longer trembles or bewails the sufferings connected with his calling.

Jeremiah 21:6 Parallel Commentaries

I will.

Jeremiah 7:20 Therefore thus said the Lord GOD; Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on beast...

Jeremiah 12:3,4 But you, O LORD, know me: you have seen me, and tried my heart toward you: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter...

Jeremiah 33:12 Thus said the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof...

Jeremiah 36:29 And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, Thus said the LORD; You have burned this roll, saying, Why have you written therein...

Genesis 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing...

Isaiah 6:11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man...

Isaiah 25:1-6 O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things...

Ezekiel 14:13,17 Son of man, when the land sins against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out my hand on it...

Ezekiel 14:19,21 Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury on it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast...

Ezekiel 33:27,29 Say you thus to them, Thus said the Lord GOD; As I live, surely they that are in the wastes shall fall by the sword...

Hosea 4:3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field...

Micah 3:12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps...

Zephaniah 1:3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea...

Luke 21:24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations...

they.

Jeremiah 32:24 Behold the mounts, they are come to the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans, that fight against it...

Jeremiah 34:17 Therefore thus said the LORD; You have not listened to me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother...

Jeremiah 42:22 Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence...

Ezekiel 5:12,13 A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the middle of you...

Ezekiel 7:15 The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword...

Ezekiel 12:16 But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence...