Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 20:17

"because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great." — Jeremiah 20:17 (ASV)

Because he slew me not ... —The wish that he had never been born is uttered by the prophet in strange, bold language. It would have been better that the messenger who announced that he was born had killed him before his birth, that his mother’s womb had been his grave, and that she had never had strength to give birth to him. Thought, structure, and even grammar, in their abruptness and irregularities, are equally significant of intense emotion.