Chapter 20

2021 - So now switch to more of a chronology of events, rather than the chronology of prophecies.

Pashhur the priest beat Jeremiah for this prophesy, and put him in stocks for a day.  Pashhur was not high priest, but chief officer, meaning he was over the temple police and charged with keeping order.  When released, Jeremiah told that priest that his (the priest's) new name was "Terror on Every Side".  MSB says the change was from "ease" or "deliverance is round about" to Magor-Missabib, meaning "terror on every side".  Then Jeremiah tells this priest what will happen specifically to him in the future.  He will watch as his friends to whom he's lied about the future are killed in front of him, he and his family will go into captivity, and he will die in that foreign land. 

2021 - This was Jeremiah's reaction to being beaten and put in stocks overnight for delivering God's true word.  The one responsible has a specific prophecy - likely to incense him even more than the original "crime" had - spoken against him.

vss 7-18 are Jeremiah's prayer, his complaint really at his treatment, and at the message he is required to continually deliver.  He says he has tried to shut up, to stop "offending" his friends and others, so that they won't hate him.  But he is unable to stop.  Keeping it in wears him out, and he has to speak.  Then Jeremiah again requests vengeance on those who persecute and torment and ridicule him.  (He can be pretty sure in this case that those who bother him will meet with a sad end.  His prayer is certainly aligned with God's purposes here!)

2021 - This NDP:

12 O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause. [Jer 20:12 ESV]

Jeremiah wishes he had never been born.  He wishes he'd been killed in the womb.  Aborted if you will...This verse:]

17 because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. [Jer 20:17 ESV]

What a phrase.  My mother would have been my grave.  How does this play in the face of the abortions of today.  Women walking around, carrying the graves of their children on their person.  Children's cemeteries, walking around on their feet, acting as if all is well.  What horror we have going on here!

This is the thought with which message 7 ends.