Jeremiah: Hero of Faith or Defeatist? Concerning the Place and Function of Jeremiah 20.14-18

Abstract

Cursed the day when I was born; the day when my mother bore me let it not be blessed. Cursed the man who brought good tidings to my father, saying: 'a son, a male is born to you', causing himjoy,joy indeed. Let that man be as the cities which the LORD overturned, without regretting it; he will hear shouting in the morning, and a battle cry at noon, because he did not kill me in my mother's womb, and my mother had become my grave, her womb forever pregnant. Why have I come out of the mother's womb? To see trouble and torture? That my days might end in shame? (Jer. 20.14-18). 1