Jeremiah 20:14 - Meaning and Application

What does this mean? Can blessing and cursing come from the same mouth? Could the prophet who had just said so gladly, “Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord” (Jeremiah 20:13), now say so bitterly, “Cursed be the day I was born” (Jeremiah 20:14)? How do we make sense of that? I think Jeremiah records this here, to his own shame, just as he had recorded the earlier words for God’s glory.

This was likely the heat of his spirit while he was in the stocks. By faith and hope, he had later recovered himself. It is more likely this was a record of that earlier storm within him than of a later temptation he fell into again. It is like David’s words, “I said in my haste, I am cut off” (Psalm 31:22), and the same thought appears in Psalm 77:7. When grace has won the victory, it is good to remember how corruption struggled against it. That should humble us, make us admire God’s goodness in not taking us at our word, and warn us to watch our hearts more closely next time.

Here we see how strong the temptation was that the prophet, by God’s help, overcame. We also see how far he gave in to it, so that we will not lose hope if we are tempted in the same way through the weakness of the flesh. Let us look at what his words were in that trial.

First, he put a mark of shame on the day of his birth, as Job did in a moment of pain (Job 3:1). “Cursed be the day I was born,” he says. “It was a bad day for me” (Jeremiah 20:14), because it began a life of sorrow and opened the door to all this misery. He is wishing that he had never been born at all. Judas in hell has reason to wish that (Matthew 26:24), but no one on earth has reason to wish it, because no one knows whether he may yet become a vessel of mercy. Certainly no good man has any reason to wish such a thing. Some people celebrate their birthday with joy each year, but he would treat his as a sad day, marked by grief and thought of as unlucky.

Second, he wished harm on the messenger who brought the news of his birth, as the next verses show (Jeremiah 20:15-16). His father had been glad to hear that a child was born, and perhaps especially glad that it was a son, since as a priest’s son he might one day serve at God’s altar. Yet Jeremiah is ready to curse the man who brought the news, even though his father may have rewarded him for it. Parents are often overjoyed when a child is born, but if they could see all the sorrow ahead, they might weep instead of rejoice.

He speaks very harshly against that messenger (Jeremiah 20:16). He wishes him to be like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Lord completely destroyed without easing their pain. He wants him to hear the cry of enemy armies in the morning, so that he starts in fear, and by noon to hear their shouts of victory. In other words, he wishes him a life of constant terror.

Third, he is troubled that he was not treated like the Hebrew children in Egypt. He wishes he had been killed in the womb, that his first breath had been his last, and that he had been strangled as soon as he entered the world (Jeremiah 20:17). He even wishes the messenger of his birth had become his murderer. More than that, he wishes his mother had remained pregnant with him forever, so that the womb where he was conceived would also have been his grave. Job shows the close link between the womb and the grave when he says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return” (Job 1:21).

Fourth, he thinks his present suffering is enough to excuse these bitter wishes (Jeremiah 20:18). He asks why he ever came out of the womb, where he had been hidden, unseen, unhated, safe, and ignorant of evil. Why did he come into a life filled with labor and sorrow, to have his days consumed with shame, always troubled and abused? He feels that his life has not only been full of trouble, but worn away by it.

We should not copy these words, but we can still learn from them. First, they show how empty human life is and how much grief can fill it. If there were no life after this one, we might often be tempted to wish we had never known life at all, because our few days here are full of trouble.

Second, they show the foolishness of sinful passion, which speaks wildly when it is left unchecked. How foolish it is to curse a day, or to curse the messenger because of the message! How cruel and senseless for a child to wish his own mother had never given birth to him! We can see how absurd this is in someone else, and that should warn us to stop such angry bursts in ourselves. We must choke them off at the start and not let these evil feelings speak. When the heart is hot, the tongue must be held back (Psalm 39:1-2).

Third, this shows the weakness of even good people, because at best they are still human. Those who think they stand must be careful not to fall. They should pray daily, “Father in heaven, do not lead us into temptation.”