Jeremias 20:14
Cursed be the day wherein I was borne: let not the day in which my mother bore me, be blessed.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Maledicta dies in qua natus sum ! dies in qua peperit me mater mea non sit benedicta !
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἐπικατάρατος ἡ ἡμέρα ἐν ᾗ ἐτέχθην ἐν αὐτῇ. ἡ ἡμέρα ἐν ᾗ ἔτεκέν με ἡ μήτηρ μου μὴ ἔστω ἐπευκτή·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אָר֣וּר הַיּ֔וֹם אֲשֶׁ֥ר יֻלַּ֖דְתִּי בּ֑וֹ י֛וֹם אֲשֶׁר יְלָדַ֥תְנִי אִמִּ֖י אַל יְהִ֥י בָרֽוּךְ
Haydock's commentary
Cursed, &c. In these and the following words of the prophet, there is a certain figure of speech to express with more energy the greatness of the evils to which his birth had exposed him. (Challoner)
The wicked would deem the day of his birth cursed, or unlucky. (Menochius)
Jeremias was now in prison, (Grotius) and people in pain express themselves forcibly, particularly in the East, ver. 7., and Job iii. 2. (Calmet)
Perhaps no man had announced the tidings of his birth, or he might be no longer living to feel the effects of a curse: as the day was certainly irrevocably past. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Book III
“Exsecranda” autem “dies in qua natus sum, et ut non sit optanda,” inquit Jeremias: non absolute exsecrandam dicens generationem, sed populi peccata ægre ferens et inobedientiam. Subjungit itaque: “Cur enim natus sum ut viderem labores et dolores, et in perpetuo probro fuerunt dies mei?” Quin etiam omnes, qui prædicabant veritatem, propier eorum, qui audiebant, inobedientiam, quæ rebantur ad pœnam, et veniebant in periculum. “Cur enim non fuit uterus matris meæ sepulcrum, ne viderem affiictionem Jacob et laborera generis Isræl?” ait Esdras propheta. “Nullus est a sorde mundus,” ait Job, “nee si sit quidera una dies vita ejus.” Dicant ergo nobis, ubi fornicatus est infans natus? vel quomodo sub Adæcecidit exsecrationem, qui nihil est operatus? Restat ergo eis, ut videtur, consequenter, ut dicant malam esse generationem, non solum corporis, sed etiam animæ, per quam exsistit corpus. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Paula
2. But what is this? I wish to check a mother’s weeping, and I groan myself. I make no secret of my feelings; this entire letter is written in tears. Even Jesus wept for Lazarus because He loved him. But he is a poor comforter who is overcome by his own sighs, and from whose afflicted heart tears are wrung as well as words. Dear Paula, my agony is as great as yours. Jesus knows it, whom Blæsilla now follows; the holy angels know it, whose company she now enjoys. I was her father in the spirit, her foster-father in affection. Sometimes I say: “Let the day perish wherein I was born,” and again, “Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth.” I cry: “Righteous art thou, O Lord…yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
xx. 14, 17, 18 . Cursed be the day wherein I was born, etc.