Lives of Scripture

Pashhur son of Immer was a priest serving as chief officer in the temple, responsible for maintaining order (Jeremiah 20:1). When he heard Jeremiah publicly prophesying the temple's destruction and Judah's coming captivity, he had Jeremiah beaten and locked in stocks at the upper Benjamin Gate overnight (20:2) -- an attempt to silence a message he found intolerable rather than weigh whether it was true. When Pashhur released him the next day, Jeremiah did not soften his words; instead he declared that the LORD had renamed Pashhur "Magor-missabib," meaning "terror on every side" (20:3). Jeremiah pronounced that Pashhur himself, his household, and his friends would see Judah fall to the king of Babylon, that Pashhur would be carried into exile, and that he would die and be buried there, along with everyone to whom he had "falsely prophesied" peace (20:4-6). Pashhur's attempt to punish the prophet into silence became the occasion for one of Jeremiah's starkest personal judgment oracles -- naming an individual persecutor by name and fate, rather than speaking only in general terms. His story warns against using power to suppress an unwelcome word from God rather than heeding it, and it shows Jeremiah's own costly faithfulness: this beating and the mockery he endured afterward drove him, in the very next verses, to one of his rawest complaints against God (Jeremiah 20:7-18).