Jeremiah 20:2

Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet,.... Either with his fist, or with a rod, while he was prophesying, to stop his mouth, and hinder him from going on, and to show his resentment, and influence,

Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah.

Then Pashur smote Jeremiah; it is not said how he struck him, though some think it most probable that it was with his fist, as the false prophet struck Micaiah, . We are as uncertain what is here meant by stocks, whether such an engine as is in use amongst us to punish offenders, which we call by that name; or, as others. an engine like our pillory, where malefactors are fastened by the necks; or, as others, with three holes, one for the neck of the offender, one for each hand; or whether merely a prison, where he was kept all night a prisoner; the Hebrew word will not determine us further than that it was a place of restraint, and where that will not determine, other conjectures are as uncertain as needless. There is as much uncertainty as to the place where this prison or these stocks were; we are told it was near the temple, and in the high gate of Benjamin; but whether this was a gate belonging to the temple that opened toward that part of the country which was the lot of Benjamin, or a gate of the city that opened that way, whether in the inner wall or outer wall, whether called the high gate, because nearer the temple, or upon some other account, are nice and curious speculations, the determination of which is of no moment for us to know.

Jeremiah 20:2 Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that [were] in the high gate of Benjamin, which [was] by the house of the LORD.Ver. 2. Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet.] Either with his fist, as Zedekiah did Micaiah, and as Bonner did Hawkes and other martyrs, pulling off part of their beards; or else with a staff, as they dealt by our Saviour, and as that Popish bishop, degrading a martyr minister, struck him so hard with his crosier staff as he was kneeling on the stairs at Paul’ s, that he fell down backwards and broke his head. Atqui lapidandi sunt haeretici sacrarum literarura argumentis, saith Athanasius. But heretics are to be stoned with Scripture arguments; and men may a great deal sooner be cudgelled into a treaty than into a tenet. And put him in the stocks.] As they did afterwards Paul and Silas; Clerinus the martyr, mentioned in Cyprian’ s epistles; Mr Philpot, in the Bishop of London’ s coal house; and that good woman who, suffering afterwards for the same cause, rejoiced much that her leg was put in the same hole of the stocks where Philpot’ s leg had lain before. That were in the high gate of Benjamin.] Which might be a prison like Lollard’ s tower in London whereunto were sent the martyrs, many of them for their zeal and forwardness. Action and passion go together - omne agens agendo repatitur - especially if men go a little faster than others do. "They who will live godly in Christ Jesus" - and be set upon it - "shall suffer persecution." This gate-house might well be the priests’ prison, whither they used to send such as they took for false prophets. Acts and Mon. Contra Arrian., orat. ii. Epist., lib. iv.

(2) Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet.—It is the first time that he has been so described, the office to which he was called being apparently named to emphasise the outrage which had been inflicted on him. Other prophets had, under Ahab or Manasseh, been slain with the sword, but none, so far as we know (with the one exception of Hanani the seer in 2 Chronicles 16:10), had ever before been subjected to an ignominious punishment such as this. It was so far analogous to the outrage against which St. Paul protested in Acts 23:2-3. The word “smote” implies a blow struck with the priest’s own hands rather than the infliction of the legal punishment of forty stripes save one (Deuteronomy 25:3). The English word “stocks” expresses adequately enough the instrument of torture which, like the nervus of Roman punishment, kept the body (as in Acts 16:24) in a crooked and painful position. The word here used occurs in the Hebrew of 2 Chronicles 16:10, as above, and in Jeremiah 29:26, but the A. V. there renders it as “prison-house.” In that humiliating position the prophet was left for the whole night in one of the most conspicuous places of the city, the temple-gate of Benjamin (the upper gate) on the northern side of the inner court, probably the higher or northern gate of Eze 8:3; Ezekiel 8:5; Ezekiel 9:2.

Verse 2. Put him in the stocks] Probably such a place near the gate as we term the lock-up, the coal-hole; or it may mean a sort of dungeon.

2. the stocks] Cp. Jeremiah 29:26. See HDB. I. 527 for anything that is known with reference to this mode of punishment as applied then. upper gate of Benjamin, which was in, etc.] the northern gate (built by Jotham, 2 Kings 15:35) of the upper (inner) court of the Temple, and to be distinguished from the city gate of the same name (Jeremiah 37:13, Jeremiah 38:7).

Jeremiah the prophet - Jeremiah is nowhere so called in the first 19 chapters. In this place he thus characterizes himself, because Pashur’s conduct was a violation of the respect due to the prophetic office.

2. Jeremiah the prophet — This designation indicates that he had come to have a public recognition in his prophetical character. It occurs here for the first time.