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Jeremias xx.
Notes & Commentary:
Ver. 1.
Son, or descendant. His father was Melchia, chap. xxi. 1., and 1 Paralipomenon ix. 12. (Calmet) --- Chief: high
priest, (Theodoret) or rather a chief officer, (chap. xxix. 25.) or prince, (Matthew xxvi. 27.; Tolet.; Grotius) whose
duty it was to take up impostors. He treated Jeremias in this light. (Calmet) --- See Luke xxii. 52. (Haydock)
Ver. 2.
Struck, or seized. (Grotius) --- Upper gate, nearer the temple. (Calmet)
Ver. 3.
Phassur. This name signifies, increase and principality; and therefore is here changed to Magor-Missabib,
or "fear on every side," to denote the evils that should come upon him in punishment of his opposing the word of God. (Challoner)
--- Aquila renders Posseur, "a stranger," and St. Jerome, "blackness of visage." (Haydock) --- It may also mean, "one
who causes paleness." (Calmet) --- Mogur may signify "fear or distress." Septuagint and Syriac, "an exile."
(Haydock) --- He deserved to be thus treated, ver. 6. (Calmet) --- He would be terrified by many enemies. (Worthington)
Ver. 6.
Lie. He was therefore a false prophet, and vexed that Jeremias should contradict him. (Calmet)
Ver. 7.
Thou hast deceived, &c. The meaning of the prophet is not to charge God with any untruth; but what he calls deceiving,
was only the concealing from him, when he accepted of the prophetical commission, the greatness of the evils which the execution
of that commission was to bring upon him. (Challoner) --- Hebrew, "thou hast enticed me," when I declined the office. (Tirinus)
--- God never promised that he should suffer no persecution. (Haydock) --- Jeremias might also have supposed that he was to
be sent to the Gentiles, chap. i. 5. (St. Jerome in chap xxv. 18.) --- The oriental languages are much more lofty than ours,
and express common things in the strongest manner. (Calmet) --- We may perceive the different emotions of fear and joy (Du
Hamel) with which the prophet was actuated, like St. Paul, and our Saviour himself. The saints evince the weakness of man
and the power of divine grace. (Calmet) --- Hebrew, "If thou, Lord, hast deceived me, I am," &c. (Tournemine)
Ver. 8.
Day. They keep asking where are these enemies from the north, the plagues? &c. (Calmet) --- He is sorry to see
the word of God despised, (Theodoret) and is guilty of a venial pusillanimity, concluding that his words had no good effect.
(Menochius)
Ver. 9.
And there, or "for," &c. I was grieved continually. (Sanctius) --- I could not however refrain from speaking, Acts
xvii. 16., and 1 Corinthians ix. 16., and Job xxxii. 18.
Ver. 10.
Side, seeking an opportunity to ruin me, as the Pharisees did our Saviour, Psalm xl. 10. (Calmet) --- Protestants,
"familiars watched for my halting, saying, peradventure he," &c. (Haydock)
Ver. 12.
Let me see, &c. This prayer proceeded not from hatred or ill-will, but zeal of justice. (Challoner) --- He expresses
in a human manner a future punishment.
Ver. 13.
Sing. God having shewn that his prayer should be heard, he gives thanks, (Calmet) and thus shews that what he is going
to say proceeds not from impatience. (Theodoret)
Ver. 14.
Cursed, &c. In these and the following words of the prophet, there is a certain figure of speech to express with
more energy the greatness of the evils to which his birth had exposed him. (Challoner) --- The wicked would deem the day of
his birth cursed, or unlucky. (Menochius) --- Jeremias was now in prison, (Grotius) and people in pain express themselves
forcibly, particularly in the East, ver. 7., and Job iii. 2. (Calmet) --- Perhaps no man had announced the tidings
of his birth, or he might be no longer living to feel the effects of a curse: as the day was certainly irrevocably
past. (Haydock)
Ver. 16.
Repented, his decree for the ruin of Sodom being fixed. --- Noon. This is more extraordinary than at midnight.
Let him always be terrified with dismal sounds. (Calmet)
Ver. 17.
Who. Septuagint, "because he (the Lord.; Du Hamel; Tirinus) slew me not in my mother's womb." (Haydock) --- Syriac,
Grotius, &c., explain the Hebrew in the same sense, though it may also agree with the Vulgate, from the womb, or
as soon as I was born. O that I had never seen the light! (Calmet) --- He abstracts from the effects of original sin. (Tirinus)
--- It is better not to exist than to be in constant misery, Matthew xxvi. (St. Jerome) (Worthington) --- The prophet bewailed
the abuse which was made of God's word, by unbelievers, ver. 8. (Haydock)
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Bible Text & Cross-references:
The prophet is persecuted: he denounces captivity to his
persecutors, and bemoans himself.
1 Now Phassur, the son of Emmer, the priest, who was appointed chief
in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremias prophesying these words.
2 And Phassur struck Jeremias, the prophet, and put him in the stocks,
that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord.
3 And when it was light the next day, Phassur brought Jeremias out of
the stocks. And Jeremias said to him: The Lord hath not called thy name Phassur, but fear on every side.
4 For thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will deliver thee up to fear, thee
and all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thy eyes shall see it, and I will give
all Juda into the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall carry them away to Babylon, and shall strike them with the sword.
5 And I will give all the substance of this city, and all its labour,
and every precious thing thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Juda will I give into the hands of their enemies:
and they shall pillage them, and take them away, and carry them to Babylon.
6 But thou, Phassur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall go into captivity,
and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there thou shalt be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom
thou hast prophesied a lie.
7 Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived: thou hast been stronger
than I, and thou hast prevailed. I am become a laughing-stock all the day, all scoff at me.
8 For I am speaking now this long time, crying out against iniquity,
and I often proclaim devastation: and the word of the Lord is made a reproach to me, and a derision all the day.
9 Then I said: I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in
his name: and there came in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it.
10 For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute
him, and let us persecute him: from all the men, that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may
be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.
11 But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore, they that
persecute me, shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, *because they have not understood the everlasting
reproach, which never shall be effaced.
12 And thou, O Lord of hosts, *prover of the just, who seest the reins
and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them: for to thee I have laid open my cause.
13 Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered the
soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked.
14 *Cursed be the day, wherein I was born: let not the day in which my
mother bore me, be blessed.
15 Cursed be the man that brought the tidings to my father, saying: A
man-child is born to thee: and made him greatly rejoice.
16 Let that man be as the cities that the Lord hath overthrown, and hath
not repented: let him hear a cry in the morning, and howling at noon-tide:
17 Who slew me not from the womb, that my mother might have been my grave,
and her womb an everlasting conception.
18 Why came I out of the womb, to see labour and sorrow, and that my
days should be spent in confusion?
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*
11: Jeremias xxiii. 40.
12: Jeremias xi. 20. and xvii. 10.
14: Job iii. 2.
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