Jeremiah 20

August 9, 2022

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Reading along with us in Jeremiah? Here’s today’s reading:

Jeremiah 20 (NIV)

Jeremiah and Pashhur
1 When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, 2 he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the Lord’s temple. 3 The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord’s name for you is not Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side.............Continue Reading

Next: Jeremiah 21
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Back: Jeremiah 19

This Post Has 6 Comments

  4. It is not uncommon that those who do not want to hear God’s words at first disagree and then try to silence it through intimidation. It is sad to see Jeremiah suffer this but he certainly gives his persecutor an ear full. And we can also understand after being taunted and beaten he could feel abandoned by God and frustrated with the mission. There is precedent In Scripture that God wants to hear our frustrations and have us bring those to Him when we feel the way Jeremiah does here. But it is important as Jeremiah does in the chapter that there are glimmers of hope and faith, a confidence in God’s presence and His ability to protect and defend. It was also interesting to see here the way things worked in a prophets life…..the word of God burned within and he couldn’t keep it down….he could not remain silent. We also see Jeremiah’s depressive nature here ruing the day that he was born in pretty graphic terms. It just goes to show that God calls real people to be on mission for Him, with all our faults, failures and finiteness.

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  5. Oh, wow, poor Jeremiah.
    He tried not to speak!
    He was damned if he did and damned (figuratively) if he did not!

    “Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
    Nor speak anymore in His name.”
    But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
    Shut up in my bones;
    I was weary of holding it back,
    And I could not.”

    He curses the day he was born!

    In the middle, he reminds himself of the truth of God.

    “But the Lord is with me as a mighty, awesome One.
    Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and will not prevail.
    They will be greatly ashamed, for they will not prosper.
    Their everlasting confusion will never be forgotten.
    But, O Lord of hosts,
    You who test the righteous,
    And see the mind and heart,
    Let me see Your vengeance on them;
    For I have pleaded my cause before You.
    Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord!
    For He has delivered the life of the poor
    From the hand of evildoers.”

    I can’t wait to see Jeremiah in glory. He should get a crown.

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  6. Not surprising after speaking the words in chapter 19 that he would be beaten. Jeremiah had such turmoil in his heart in that he knew his life here on earth would be more comfortable if he just stopped speaking God’s words but at the same time his close relationship with God made him so aware of how bad his eternal life could be without God.
    His internal struggle expressed at the end of this chapter was heartbreaking and yet he always reminds himself (and us at the same time) that no matter how bad it gets God has him and God is on his side and so nothing happening is worse than losing that!

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