Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Jeremiah 20:14 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 14. 14Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
The prophetic word through Jeremiah states or reports “Cursed be the day wherein I was born” at Jeremiah 20:14 as a specific part of “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth.”
Read It With
- Jeremiah 20:14–18
Read Jeremiah 20:14 with 20:14–18. By itself, “Cursed be the day wherein I was born” can be detached from the speaker, addressee, date, imperial horizon, poetic movement, or outcome that gives it force. The complete unit establishes: The confession ends by cursing birth, messenger, womb, and a life of toil and shame rather than offering tidy resolution.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Within the same chapter, this unit advances from “Terror, Surveillance, and Praise Share One Confession” into “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth.” Its non-interchangeable movement is: The confession ends by cursing birth, messenger, womb, and a life of toil and shame rather than offering tidy resolution. This verse's placement is specific: The prophetic word through Jeremiah states or reports “Cursed be the day wherein I was born” at Jeremiah 20:14 as a specific part of “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth.”
Follow the Context
- The unit begins at 20:14 with the speech, scene, image, or date named in its title.
- The confession ends by cursing birth, messenger, womb, and a life of toil and shame rather than offering tidy resolution.
- At 20:18 the movement reaches its response or transition before the next unit.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
Cursing the birth day does not condemn mothers, births, or people experiencing suicidal despair.
What Remains True
The confession ends without resolving Jeremiah's anguish. In Jeremiah 20:14, that bounded truth is carried through this verse's role: The prophetic word through Jeremiah states or reports “Cursed be the day wherein I was born” at Jeremiah 20:14 as a specific part of “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth.”
How It Can Shape Life
- When a person voices despair like Jeremiah's unresolved birth curse, respond with presence, immediate safety planning, and qualified professional support rather than slogans.
Teach It Back
Explain Jeremiah 20:14's precise role in Jeremiah 20:14–18: The prophetic word through Jeremiah states or reports “Cursed be the day wherein I was born” at Jeremiah 20:14 as a specific part of “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth.” State how “Jeremiah Curses the Day of His Birth” controls the line, keep this uncertainty visible—The poem does not condemn birth, mothers, or people with suicidal despair; readers should respond with safety, presence, and professional help where needed.—trace role to contextual meaning to enduring truth to application, and reject one use the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Jeremiah 20:14–18 — Jeremiah Curses the Day of His BirthSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Readings differ over historical reconstruction, composition, rhetoric, theology, and later reception. The preferred reading follows this complete unit while preserving the limit: The poem does not condemn birth, mothers, or people with suicidal despair; readers should respond with safety, presence, and professional help where needed.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Jeremiah 20:14–18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Jeremiah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2; fixed commit
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a critical apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Jer.xml, OSIS 20:14–18
Open the fixed Hebrew Jeremiah file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Jeremiah with Translator, Textual, and Study Notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; official eBible PDF distribution, NET Bible Second Edition; official PDF accessed 2026
Supports: Verse-level controls for Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, dates, names, textual problems, and material translation alternatives.
Exact location: Official NET Bible Jeremiah PDF, pp. 1258-1459, translator, study, and textual notes attached to Jeremiah 20:14–18
Open the official NET Jeremiah PDF ↗modern scholarly book course
Jeremiah: Summary, Outline, Background, Introductory Issues, Themes, and Bible in the World
Terence E. Fretheim and Michael Chan
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, current public course accessed 2026
Supports: Reader-oriented historical, literary, theological, and pastoral synthesis with ancient-to-modern limits.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Jeremiah course, Outline, Themes, and passage studies: covenant, confessions, signs, and prophetic suffering; applied to Jeremiah 20:14–18
Open the Enter the Bible Jeremiah course ↗open university study guide series
Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Jeremiah Parts 1-3 Study Guides
Joel S. Baden and Jacqueline Vayntrub
Yale Bible Study, 2024
Supports: Current university-level literary-historical synthesis and explicit composition questions.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Jeremiah Part 1 study guide, pp. 1-6: composition, Josianic setting, temple sermon, and imperial context; applied to Jeremiah 20:14–18
Open the Yale Jeremiah and Ezekiel course ↗peer reviewed lament and trauma article
Lamenting Back to Life
Kathleen M. O'Connor
Interpretation 62.1, 2008
Supports: Abstract-level control for reading Jeremiah's confessions as protest and communication amid loss; no inaccessible page detail is claimed.
Exact location: O'Connor, 'Lamenting Back to Life,' Interpretation 62.1 (2008), abstract and bibliographic pages 34-47; applied only at inspected abstract level to Jeremiah 20:14–18
Open the publisher record for O'Connor on lament ↗