Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 20:3

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashhur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, Jehovah hath not called thy name Pashhur, but Magor-missabib." — Jeremiah 20:3 (ASV)

Magor-missabib. —The words are a quotation from Psalm 31:13, and are rightly rendered, Fear is round about; they had already been used by the prophet in Jeremiah 6:25. We may venture to think that the Psalm had been his comfort in those night-watches of suffering, and that he now uttered the words which described the bitterness of the Psalmist’s sorrow, as at last feeling sure that they belonged to his persecutor rather than to himself.

It is scarcely necessary to seek a special significance in the name of Pashur as contrasted with this new nomen et omen; but Hebrew scholars, according to various, and admittedly, conjectural etymologies, have found in it the ideas of widespread joy, “joy round about,” or else of freedom and deliverance. The prophet repeats the combination in Jeremiah 46:5; Jeremiah 49:29; Lamentations 2:22, and it had evidently become a kind of “burden” in both senses of the word, weighing on the prophet’s thoughts and finding frequent utterance. The word that stands for “fear” is a rare one, and outside the passages now referred to is found only in Isaiah 31:9.