because he did not kill me at birth. Oh, that I had died in my mother’s womb, that her body had been my grave!
Parallel translations
- WEB because he didn’t kill me from the womb; and so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.
- KJV 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.
- BSB because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged.
- NKJV Because he did not kill me from the womb, That my mother might have been my grave, And her womb always enlarged with me.
- NASB Because he did not kill me before birth, So that my mother would have been my grave, And her womb forever pregnant.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jeremiah wishes he had died in the womb so his mother would have been his grave. He feels that non-existence would have been preferable to a life of such sorrow.
Overview
The prophet's despair reaches its lowest point as he wishes he had never been born alive, echoing Job's similar lament. This is the voice of acute suffering, recorded faithfully rather than commended as right thinking. Even here God's purpose for Jeremiah's life stood firm, reminding us that our worth is anchored in God's calling, not our feelings; the same God who knew Jeremiah in the womb ultimately sent his own Son into the womb to redeem a sorrowing world.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Job 3:10–11because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
- Job 10:18–19“‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
- Job 3:16or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
- Eccl 6:3If a man fathers a hundred children, 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 a stillborn child is better than he:
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 20:17 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.