John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 20:17-18

"because he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great. Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?" — Jeremiah 20:17-18 (ASV)

After denouncing his imprecations on his birthday and on the messenger who had wished to bring joy to his father, Jeremiah now expostulates with God. From this it appears how great his madness was, for so we must speak.

If Jeremiah did not spare God, how would he spare a mortal man? There is then no doubt that he raged furiously against God, for his expostulation is that of a man wholly desperate. He asks why he was not slain from the womb, as though he did not regard it as a kindness that he came alive into the light.

But this life, though exposed to many sorrows, ought still to be counted as evidence of God’s inestimable favor. Since the Prophet, then, not only despised this goodness of God but contended with God Himself because he had been created a man and brought into the light, how great was his ingratitude!

He then adds, My mother might have been my grave. That is, “This light and life I do not value; why then did I not die in my mother’s womb? And why did she conceive me?” Then he says, Why came I forth from the womb that I might see trouble and sorrow, and that my days might be consumed in reproach?

Here he gives a reason why he was weary of life. But he could not have been cleared on this account, nor should he be so today, for what just cause can we have to contend with God?

Jeremiah was created for sorrow and trouble; this is the condition of all. Why, then, should God be blamed? His days were spent in reproach; there was nothing new in his case, for many who have received an honorable testimony from God had suffered many wrongs and reproaches.

Why, then, did he not look to them as examples, so that he might bear with patience and resignation what had happened to other holy men? But he seemed as though he wished to appear, as it were, in public, so that he might proclaim his disgrace not only to his own age but to every age to the end of the world.

At the same time, we must remember the objective he had in view. For the Prophet, as we have said, was not seized with this intemperate spirit after he had given thanks to God and exulted as a conqueror, but before. And, in order to amplify the grace of God in delivering him, as it were, from hell itself (into which he had plunged himself), he mentioned what had passed through his mind.

The gist of the whole description seems to be this: “I was lost, and my mind could conceive nothing but what was bitter, and with a full mouth I vomited forth poison and blasphemies against God.”

What the Prophet then had in view here was to make the kindness of God more conspicuous in bringing him to light from so deep an abyss.

A similar way of speaking is found in Job chapter 3. But Job did not have the reason that, as we have said, Jeremiah had, for Jeremiah was not influenced by any private grief when carried away by an insane impulse to speak against God.

From where, then, came his great grief? It was because he saw he was despised by the people and that the whole of religion was esteemed by them as nothing. In short, he saw that the state of things was quite hopeless.

He was then inflamed with zeal for God’s glory, and he also was extremely grieved at the irreclaimable wickedness of the people; Job, however, was concerned only with his own sufferings.

There was, therefore, a great difference between Job and Jeremiah. Yet we know that both were endowed, as it were, with angelic virtue, for Job is named as one of three just men who seemed to have been elevated above all mankind.

And Jeremiah, if a comparison is made, was in this instance more excusable than Job. Yet we see that they were both inflamed with such unreasonable grief that they spared neither God nor man.

Let us then learn to check our feelings, so that they may not break out so unreasonably. Let us at the same time know that God’s servants, though they may excel in firmness, are still not wholly divested of their corruptions.

And should we at any time feel such emotions within us, let not such a temptation discourage us. Instead, as far as we can and as God gives us grace, let us strive to resist it, until the firmness of our faith at length gains the ascendancy, as we see was the case with Jeremiah.

For when overwhelmed with such a confusion of mind as to lie down, as it were, dead in hell itself, he was still restored, as we have seen, to such soundness of mind that he afterwards courageously executed his own office and also gloried, according to what we observed yesterday, in the help of God.

Let us proceed—