Jeremiah 20:8

20:7-13 The prophet complains of the insult and injury he experienced. But ver. 7 may be read, Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded. Thou wast stronger than I; and didst overpower me by the influence of thy Spirit upon me. So long as we see ourselves in the way of God, and of duty, it is weakness and folly, when we meet with difficulties and discouragements, to wish we had never set out in it. The prophet found the grace of God mighty in him to keep him to his business, notwithstanding the temptation he was in to throw it up. Whatever injuries are done to us, we must leave them to that God to whom vengeance belongs, and who has said, I will repay. So full was he of the comfort of God's presence, the Divine protection he was under, and the Divine promise he had to depend upon, that he stirred up himself and others to give God the glory. Let the people of God open their cause before Him, and he will enable them to see deliverance.

For since I spake, I cried out,.... Or, "when I speak, I cry" (a); whensoever I speak in the name of the Lord, and deliver message from him to the people, I lift up my voice and cry aloud, that all may hear and understand; and as showing zeal, fervour, and diligence: or, "I cry" with grief and trouble at the usage I meet with, and the contempt that is cast upon the word; or because of what I am obliged to declare to them, as follows.

The Targum takes in both sense, of the word thus, "for at the time that I prophesy, I lift up my voice, weeping, and crying.'' I cried violence and spoil: or, "proclaimed" it (b), for a different word is here used; that is, he publicly declared the rapine and oppression they were guilty of, inveighed against it, and reproved them for it; and foretold the violence of the enemy, and the spoil that he should make of them, when he should come upon them, even the king of Babylon; as well as cried out and complained of the injurious treatment he himself met with from them; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily; which is a reason either why he cried with grief and sorrow; or why he cried violence and spoil, ruin and destruction: or, "though the word of the Lord was" (c), &c; yet he went on publishing and proclaiming it: or, "surely the word of the Lord was made a reproach" (d), &c; either because of the matter of it, it not being believed, or the manner in which it was delivered; or because it was not immediately fulfilled. (a) "quum loquor exclamavi, i.e. loquor exclamans", Gataker. (b) "clamo", Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius; "proclamo", Piscator. (c) "quamvis". (d) "Verum, verbum Domini", so some in Vatablus; "utique", De Dieu, Gataker.

Jeremiah 20:8-9 . For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil — Or, rather, as Houbigant renders it, For since I spake, and cried against iniquity, and denounced desolation, the word of the Lord, &c. — Blaney’s translation is nearly to the same sense: For as often as I speak, whether I cry out against injustice or proclaim devastation, the word of Jehovah is turned against me into matter of reproach and derision continually. The prophet means that, upon account of declaring what God had revealed to him, he was reckoned an enemy to his country, and a false prophet. Then I said — Namely, within myself, for he did not speak this to any one; I will not make mention of him — Or, of it, namely, the word of God, or the message God had appointed him to deliver; nor speak any more in his name — I resolved no more to declare what God had revealed to me concerning the calamities which he was about to bring on Judah and Jerusalem. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire — It glowed inwardly, and must have vent: I found myself so pressed in spirit, felt such a burning ardour within my breast, such an immediate and powerful impulse of the prophetic spirit constraining me to speak, that I could no more be easy without executing God’s commands, than if a burning fire had been shut up in my bones.

Verse 8. - For since I spake, I cried out , etc.; rather, For as often as I speak , I must shout ; I must cry , Violence and spoil ; I can take up no other tone but that of indignant denunciation, no other theme but that of the acts of injustice constantly committed (not merely, nor indeed chiefly, against the prophet himself). Was made ; rather, is made . Jeremiah 20:8

8 . Violence and spoil ] directed generally against himself. Cp. Jeremiah 5:26-28 , Jeremiah 9:4 . a reproach unto me, and a derision ] Words applied to his own case by the great Florentine, Savonarola, “I have had nothing but tribulations, derision, and reproach.” Clark’s Savonarola , p. 169.

For since I spoke, I cried out, I cried violence and {e} spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach to me, and a derision, daily. (e) He shows that he did his office in that he reproved the people of their vices and threatened them with God's judgments: but because he was derided and persecuted for this, he was discouraged, and would have stopped preaching, except that God's spirit forced him to it.

(8) I cried out, I cried. —The two Hebrew words are not, as in the English, alike, the first being the cry of complaint, the second of protest: When I speak (the tense implies from the beginning of his work till now), I complain; I call out ( against ) violence and spoil. They had formed the burden of his discourses, he had borne his witness against them, and yet “the word of Jehovah” so proclaimed by him had exposed him simply to derision. He had been the champion of the people’s rights, and yet they mocked and scorned him.

Translate," For as often as I speak, I must complain; I call out, Violence and spoil." From the time Jeremiah began to prophesy, he had had reason for nothing but lamentation. Daily with louder voice and more desperate energy he must call out "violence and spoil;" as a perpetual protest against the manner in which the laws of justice were violated by powerful men among the people.

For since I spake, I cried out: if the particle be translated since , as we translate it, the meaning is, Since I first began to be a prophet, I have faithfully discharged my prophetical office, and that with some warmth and zeal. I cried violence and spoil: some understand it of the violence which he himself experienced: others understand it of those acts of injustice and violence which were found amongst the people; he cried out against them: others understand it as a denunciation of judgment; he prophesied that violence and spoil was coming upon them. Because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily; because of that scorn and derision with which they treated him. But others think that it were better translated surely than because , as it is in many texts, Isaiah 60:9 63:16 , &c. It is not much material which way we translate it, for it appeareth, from 2 Chronicles 36:16 , that this people’s mocking of God’s messengers, despising his words, and misusing his prophets , was one great cause of the wrath of God coming upon them; and it is certain that Jeremiah was made such a scorn and derision to them.

8. Rather, "Whenever I speak, I cry out. Concerning violence and spoil, I (am compelled to) cry out," that is, complain [Maurer]. English Version in the last clause is more graphic, "I cried violence and spoil" (Jer 6:7)! I could not speak in a calm tone; their desperate wickedness compelled me to "cry out." because—rather, "therefore," the apodosis of the previous sentence; because in discharging my prophetic functions, I not merely spake, but cried; and cried, violence … ; therefore the word of the Lord was made a reproach to me (Jer 20:7).