Jeremiah 20:17

because he did not kill me from the womb, and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

A Conservative Version

In The King James Version

Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

In Context

16And let that man be as the cities which LORD overthrew, and did not relent. And let him hear a cry in the morning, and shouting at noontime,

18Why did I come forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

Read all of Jeremiah 20

Cross References

Job 3:10Because it did not shut up the doors of my [mother's] womb, nor hide trouble from my eyes.

Job 3:16Or I should have been as a hidden untimely birth, as infants that never saw light.

Ecclesiastes 6:3If a man begets a hundred sons, and lives many years so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial, I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 20:15-18

The Prophet's Impatient Appeal. ( b. c. 600.) 14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. 16 And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; 17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always… Read the whole commentary →

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