Jeremiah 20:11

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. THEREFORE MY PERSECUTORS SHALL STUMBLE, AND THEY SHALL NOT PREVAIL - as they hoped to do (; ). THEY SHALL NOT PROSPER - in their plot....

Here the Prophet sets up God’s aid against all the plottings formed against him. However, then, might perfidious friends on one hand try privately to entrap him, and open enemies might on the other hand publicly oppose him, he yet doubted not but that God would be a sufficient protection to him. And we ought to act exactly in the same manner, whenever Satan rouses the wicked against us to oppose us either by secret artifices or by open cruelty; God alone must be, as they say, our brazen wall. But we must first know that he stands on our side; for the power of God can avail nothing to animate us, except we be firmly persuaded of this truth, that he is on our side. And how this confidence can be obtained, we shall presently see. He says, that his _persecutors _would fall, so that they would _not prevail, _but be _ashamed _We see how many persecuted the holy man, and also with what arms the...

7-13 The prophet complains of the insult and injury he experienced. But ver. Jeremiah 20:7 may be read, Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded. Thou wast stronger than I; and didst overpower me by the influence of thy Spirit upon me. So long as we see ourselves in the way of God, and of duty, it is weakness and folly, when we meet with difficulties and discouragements, to wish we had never set out in it. The prophet found the grace of God mighty in him to keep him to his business, notwithstanding the temptation he was in to throw it up. Whatever injuries are done to us, we must leave them to that God to whom vengeance belongs, and who has said, I will repay. So full was he of the comfort of God's presence, the Divine protection he was under, and the Divine promise he had to depend upon, that he stirred up himself and others to give God the glory. Let the people of God open their ca...

Verse Jeremiah 20:11. _BUT THE LORD_ IS _WITH ME AS A MIGHTY TERRIBLE ONE_] Thus was he, by his strong confidence in the strong God, delivered from all his fears, and enabled to go on comfortably with his work....

In the rest of the chapter we have an outbreak of deep emotion, of which the first part ends in a cry of hope Jeremiah 20:13, followed nevertheless by curses upon the day of his birth. Was this the result of feelings wounded by the indignities of a public scourging and a night spent in the stocks? Or was it not the mental agony of knowing that his ministry had (as it seemed) failed? He stands indeed before the multitudes with unbending strength, warning prince and people with unwavering constancy of the national ruin that would follow necessarily upon their sins. Before God he stood crushed by the thought that he had labored in vain, and spent his strength for nothing. It is important to notice that with this outpouring of sorrow Jeremiah’s ministry virtually closed. Though he appeared again at Jerusalem toward the end of Jehoia

EXPOSITION JEREMIAH 20:1 The continuation of the preceding narrative. PASHUR THE SON OF TRAINER. This man belonged to the sixteenth of the sacerdotal families or classes (1 Chronicles 24:14). Another of the same name is referred to in Jeremiah 21:1 (see note). The one here mentioned was "chief overseer" (there were several inferior overseers, 2 Chronicles 31:13); the eminence of the position appears from the fact that Zephaniah, Pashur's successor (Jeremiah 29:26), is s

BUT THE LORD IS WITH ME AS A MIGHTY TERRIBLE ONE,.... The Targum is, "the Word of the Lord is for my help.'' "Mighty" to support, uphold, defend, and deliver him; and "terrible" to his enemies. The prophet looks back to the promise the Lord had made him, of his gracious and powerful presence, Jeremiah 1:18; which he now takes comfort from; and it would have been well if he had kept this always in view, and had continued in the same actings of faith and temper of mind: but this lasted not long, as some following verses show; THEREFORE MY PERSECUTORS SHALL STUMBLE, AND SHALL NOT PREVAIL; though they should very hotly and furiously pursue him, yet they should stumble and fall by the way, and not be able to overtake him, and execute their designs upon him; the Lord, who was with him, and on his side, would throw some things in their way, at which th

CHAPTER 20 Pashur.-Jeremiah's Perplexity and Complaint _ 1. Pashur and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:1) _ 2. Jeremiah's great perplexity and complaint (Jeremiah 20:7) Jeremiah 20:1. A great scene now follows the message in connection with the broken bottle. The great Pashur, the chief governor in the house of the LORD had heard of the message. He smites Jeremiah and puts him in the stocks, which must have been some form of cruel torture by which the victim was rendered helpless, besides being exposed to the vulgarity of the people who passed by and would taunt him. In this position Jeremiah remained all night before the high gate of Benjamin. In the morning he was released. He then speaks a

THE PROPHET'S TROUBLES, HOPES, AND DARK DESPAIR. In passionate protest against his lot (possibly occasioned by the incident just related) Jeremiah complains that Yahweh has beguiled him into the work of a prophet, only that he may incur bitter shame, and suffer violence. Yet the inner compulsion of the prophetic word will not allow him to restrain it (_i.e._ forbear, Jeremiah 20:9), though it subjects him to the charge of treasonable utterance (Jeremiah 26:11). Jeremiah 20:11 (if originally here) mark a change of mood, and express Jeremiah's confidence that Yahweh will avenge him. The depth of his despair is reached in...

Jeremiah 20:7-18. The prophet bitterly complains to God of his lot The passage opens to us the depths of the prophet's soul, and we see him in intimate converse with God, and possessed now by the emotions of despair, and now by confident hope. We have here the thoughts, as Gi. and Co. observe, which may well have occupied his mind when in confinement, and Jeremiah 20:7 at any rate are thus closely connected both in time and subject-matter with Jeremiah 20:1. As derision was still the prophet's fate (Jeremiah 20:7), they can hardly be later than the early part of Jehoiakim's reign, when the hope that danger would be averted wa