Discovery BoxJeremiah 20:14-16
Context20:14 Cursed be the day I was born!
May that day not be blessed when my mother gave birth to me. 1
20:15 Cursed be the man
who made my father very glad
when he brought him the news
that a baby boy had been born to him! 2
20:16 May that man be like the cities 3
that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.
May he hear a cry of distress in the morning
and a battle cry at noon.
[20:14] 1 sn From the heights of exaltation, Jeremiah returns to the depths of despair. For similar mood swings in the psalms of lament compare Ps 102. Verses 14-18 are similar in tone and mood to Job 3:1-10. They are very forceful rhetorical ways of Job and Jeremiah expressing the wish that they had never been born.
[20:15] 2 tn Heb “Cursed be the man who brought my father the news saying, ‘A son, a male, has been born to you,’ making glad his joy.” This verse has been restructured for English stylistic purposes.
[20:16] 3 sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the
