Jeremiah 20:6

And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Thou shalt come to Babylon . . .—The sons of Immer, the section of priests to which Pashur belonged, were found in large numbers at Babylon (Ezra 2:37-38), and it lies in the nature of the case that he, as a high official, would be among the captives when Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile all but the “poorer sort of the people of the land.”

To whom thou hast prophesied lies.—The special predictions in question are not recorded, but we may infer that Pashur was one of those who encouraged the people to fight against the Chaldaeans, and to despise Jeremiah’s warnings by holding out the hope that an alliance with Egypt would avert the threatened danger (Jeremiah 14:13; Jeremiah 23:17).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:1-6 Pashur smote Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks. Jeremiah was silent till God put a word into his mouth. To confirm this, Pashur has a name given him, Fear on every side. It speaks a man not only in distress, but in despair; not only in danger, but in fear on every side. The wicked are in great fear where no fear is, for God can make the most daring sinner a terror to himself. And those who will not hear of their faults from God's prophets, shall be made to hear them from their consciences. Miserable is the man thus made a terror to himself. His friends shall fail him. God lets him live miserably, that he may be a monument of Divine justice.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou hast prophesied lies - Pushur belonged to the warlike party, whose creed it was, that Judaea by a close alliance with Egypt might resist the arms of Assyria.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. prophesied lies—namely, that God cannot possibly leave this land without prophets, priests, and teachers ("the wise") (Jer 18:18; compare Jer 5:31).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Those that teach others to disobey the commandments of God seldom escape that vengeance which cometh upon them who are seduced by them.

Pashur was one whose office it was to have taught others the fear of the Lord. and obedience to his will; he teacheth them what was false, and is not patient to hear the will of God. Jeremiah tells him he should feel the truth of it, for he himself should be one of those who should be carried into captivity, and should die there, out of his own country, and be buried there, and this should be the portion of all his friends, whom he had seduced by his false and lying prophecies.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house, shall go into captivity,.... Particularly he and his family should not escape; whoever did:

and thou shalt come to Babylon; being brought there, though sore against his will:

and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there; even in a defiled land, as all other countries were reckoned by the Jews; and to be buried in such a land, Kimchi observes, was a curse; and so it is here threatened as such:

thou, and all thy friends; that is, such as should escape the sword, Jeremiah 20:4;

to whom thou hast prophesied lies; this shows the cause of; all this threatened destruction to him and his friends; not only because he had so ill used Jeremiah, a true prophet of the Lord; but because he was a false prophet, and his friends had hearkened to his lies, and disbelieved those prophecies that came from the Lord himself.

Geneva Study Bible

And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thy house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy {b} friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies.

(b) Who have allowed themselves to be abused by your false prophecies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. prophesied falsely] He thus would appear to have assumed the functions of a prophet, and to have insisted that the warnings of Jeremiah were absurd. See Jeremiah 14:13 ff.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Comp. the prophecy against Shebna (Isaiah 22:18). Since we find, in Jeremiah 29:26, Pashur's office occupied by another, it is probable that the prediction was fulfilled by the captivity of Pashur with Jehoiachin. To whom thou hast prophesied lies (comp. Jeremiah 14:13). Pashur, then, claimed to be a prophet. Jeremiah 20:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Jeremiah 20:4. "For thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends, and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies and thine eyes behold it; and all Judah will I give into the hand of the king of Babylon, that he may carry them captive to Babylon and smite them with the sword. Jeremiah 20:5. And I will give all the stores of this city, and all its gains, and all its splendour, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and take and bring them to Babylon. Jeremiah 20:6. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity, and to Babylon shalt thou come, and there die, and there be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lyingly." - Pashur will become a fear or terror to himself and all his friends, because of his own and his friend's fate; for he will see his friends fall by the sword of the enemy, and then he himself, with those of his house and his friends not as yet slain, will go forth into exile to Babylon and die there. So that not to himself merely, but to all about him, he will be an object of fear. Ng. wrongly translates נתנך למגור, I deliver thee up to fear, and brings into the text the contrast that Pashur is not to become the victim of death itself, but of perpetual fear of death. Along with Pashur's friends, all Judah is to be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and be partly exiled to Babylon, partly put to death with the sword. All the goods and gear of Jerusalem, together with the king's treasures, are to be plundered and carried off by the enemy. We must not press "all thy friends" in Jeremiah 20:4 and Jeremiah 20:6; and so we escape the apparent contradiction, that while in Jeremiah 20:4 it is said of all the friends that they shall die by the sword, it is said of all in Jeremiah 20:6 that they shall go into exile. The friends are those who take Pashur's side, his partisans. From the last clause of Jeremiah 20:6 we see that Pashur was also of the number of the false prophets, who prophesied the verse of Jeremiah's prediction, namely, welfare and peace (cf. Jeremiah 23:17; Jeremiah 14:13). - This saying of Jeremiah was most probably fulfilled at the taking of Jerusalem under Jechoniah, Pashur and the better part of the people being carried off to Babylon.