Jeremiah 20:15
The man who told my father
- The gospel’s word בָּשַׂר basar · to bear tidings
Original
Translations
Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy.
Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad.
Cursed [is] the man who bore tidings [to] my father, Saying, “A male child has been born to you,” Making him very glad!
나의 아비에게 소식을 전하여 이르기를 네가 생남하였다 하여 아비를 즐겁게 하던 자가 저주를 받았더면,
내 아버지에게 소식을 전하여 이르기를, 당신에게 사내아이가 태어났다, 하여 그를 매우 기쁘게 한 사람이 저주를 받았더라면,
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Jer 20:14-18 as a whole
When grace has the victory, it is good to be ashamed of our folly, to admire the goodness of God, and be warned to guard our spirits another time. See how strong the temptation was, over which the prophet got the victory by Divine assistance! …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley
Nothing on this verse itself.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Few places where basar carries good news are as bitter as this one. A man once made a father glad with the news that a son was born; that son, Jeremiah, now curses him.
Jeremiah 20 begins with Pashhur, the chief official of the temple, having Jeremiah "beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin" (Jeremiah 20:2). Then the prophet pours out his complaint to God: "the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long" (Jeremiah 20:8). He tried to stop speaking in God's name, but "His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones" (Jeremiah 20:9). The complaint climbs to trust and to praise, "Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD! For He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers" (Jeremiah 20:13), and then, in the very next line, falls into darkness: "Cursed be the day I was born!" (Jeremiah 20:14). Our verse stands in the middle of that curse.
"Brought the news" is bisar, a piel perfect of , third person masculine singular. Its object is "my father": the one who receives the news stands directly as the object of the verb. The news itself is "A son is born to you," in Hebrew a son, a male child, and its effect was joy: sammeach simmechahu, "making him very glad" as the KJV puts it, the same verb doubled for emphasis. Here basar is plainly good news. Unlike the runner who brought word of a defeat (1 Samuel 4:17), this man carried a family's joy. Yet the life that news opened became so painful that the son now curses the one who brought it.
The English versions keep the Hebrew curse formula, arur, "Cursed be." The KJV reads, "Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad." The BSB has "bringing him great joy," and the LSV, more starkly, "Cursed [is] the man who bore tidings [to] my father." The Korean Bibles take a different path. Both the 흠정역 and the 개역한글 render the curse as a wish about the past, ‘if only that man had been cursed,’ linking it to verses 16–17. The English keeps the force of the formula; the Korean brings out that this is less a curse hurled at another man than a cry against the prophet's own existence.
Matthew Henry is frank about what is happening: "He is angry that his first breath was not his last" Matthew Henry. He adds: "While we remember that these wishes are not recorded for us to utter the like, we may learn good lessons from them" Matthew Henry. And he ends his note, "Let us consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself" Matthew Henry. Wesley notes the turn from praise to curse and reports that "This sudden change makes some think that these words proceeded from Jeremiah rather as a repetition of a former passion into which the abuses of his enemies had put him, than as the immediate product of his spirit at this time" Wesley.
When Jeremiah was first called, the LORD told him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). There was more in that birth than the man who brought word to Jeremiah's father could have known.
The good news the angel brought to the shepherds in the fields was also news that a son was born. "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10), he said, and "Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you" (Luke 2:11). That Son also knew contempt and suffering. That Scripture keeps Jeremiah's cry, and does not erase it, tells the one who hears the gospel that he need not hide his own darkness from God.