4 "For thus says the Lord , 'Behold , I am going to make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends ; and while your eyes look on, they will fall by the sword of their enemies . So I will give over all Judah to the hand of the king of Babylon , and he will carry them away as exiles to Babylon and will slay them with the sword .
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 20:4
Commentary on Jeremiah 20:1-6
(Read Jeremiah 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.