Teks -- Jeremiah 20:17 (NET)

20:17 For he did not kill me before I came from the womb, making my pregnant mother’s womb my grave forever.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

JFB: Jer 20:14-18

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.

JFB: Jer 20:17 - he

"that man" (Jer 20:15-16).

JFB: Jer 20:17 - from the womb

That is, at that time while I was still in the womb.

Written probably when, after having repulsed the Egyptians who brought succors to the Jews (Jer 37:5-8; 2Ki 24:7), the Chaldees were a second time advancing against Jerusalem, but were not yet closely besieging it (Jer 21:4, Jer 21:13) [ROSENMULLER]. This chapter probably ought to be placed between the thirty-seventh and thirty-eight chapters; since what the "princes," in Jer 38:2, represent Jeremiah as having said, is exactly what we find in Jer 21:9. Moreover, the same persons as here (Jer 21:1) are mentioned in Jer 37:3; Jer 38:1, namely, Pashur and Zephaniah. What is here more fully related is there simply referred to in the historical narrative. Compare Jer 52:24; 2Ki 25:18 [MAURER].

Calvin: Jer 20:17 - NO PHRASE

After having denounced his imprecations on his birth-day, and on the messenger who had wished to convey joy to his father, Jeremiah now expostulates with God. It hence appears how great was his madness; for thus must we speak. But if Jeremiah spared not God, how should he spare a mortal man? There is then no doubt but that he raged furiously against God, for his expostulation is that of a man wholly desperate; he asks, why he was not slain from the womb, as though he did not regard it as a kindness that he came alive into light. But this life, though exposed to many sorrows, ought yet to be counted as an evidence of God’s inestimable favor. As the Prophet, then, not only despised this goodness of God, but contended with God himself, because he had been created a man and brought into light, how great was his ingratitude!

TSK: Jer 20:17 - he slew

he slew : Job 3:10,Job 3:11, Job 3:16, Job 10:18, Job 10:19; Ecc 6:3

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Jer 20:17

These various expressions do only let us see to what a tide passion swelled in this good man’ s heart, and teach us how much need we have to pray to be delivered from our own passions. Jeremiah’ s leaving these things recorded by himself, is one instance of what is brought as a rational argument to prove that only men wrote the Scriptures by inspiration from God, they would never else have recorded their own gross failings, men commonly writing for their own honour, not to their own defamation.

Haydock: Jer 20:17 - Who

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)

Gill: Jer 20:17 - Because 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

Because he slew me not from the womb,.... As soon as he came out of it; that is, as soon as he was born; either because God slew him not so soon, as Kimchi; or the angel of death, as Jarchi: or rather the man that carried the tidings of his birth to his father, who is all along spoken of in the two former verses; he curses him for not doing that, which, had he done, would have been exceeding criminal in him indeed; for not committing murder, even for not murdering an innocent babe;

or that my mother might have been my grave; he wishes he had died in her womb, and had never been brought forth; and so that had been his grave, where he should have been at ease and safety:

and her womb to be always great with me; or, "her womb an everlasting conception" ^m; his wish was, that she had been always conceiving, or ever big with child of him, but never bring forth; which was a more cruel and unnatural wish than the former concerning the man, the carrier of the tidings of his birth; since this was wishing a perpetual, painful, and intolerable evil to his own mother.