Verse 1 :
Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things. • "
Pashhur, the son of Immer", leader of the "Temple police", publicly struck Jeremiah (
verse 2; KJV: "smote"), earning a prophecy of doom with the new name "" (
Jeremiah 20:3). Pottery shards with the name
Pashhur written on it were unearthed at
Tel Arad in the 1970s, and this so-called "Tel Arad Ostraca" may refer to the same individual mentioned in this verse. • "Chief governor" (from ,
): or "deputy governor", that is, a person overseeing "the temple, temple guards, entry into the court and so on" and must be a priest. The
nagid, or "governor", of the temple was
the high priest (), the office held at that time by Seraiah the high priest, the grandson of Hilkiah (; or possibly still his father, Azariah, Hilkiah's son and Jeremiah's brother, ;
Ezra 7:1), and Pashhur was his ''
(or pakid
; "deputy"; cf. : God appointed Jeremiah, "set thee over" - literally, "have made thee ''"). The
Jerusalem Bible treats Jeremiah's altercation with Passhur as part of the narrative of the broken jug in
chapter 19.
Verse 3 :
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib. • "Magormisabib": transliterated from Hebrew: (; "terror on every side" or "fear on every side"; in this verse; ; ), is a new name given to
Pashhur, the son of Immer, after he struck Jeremiah the prophet, as prophecy that Pashhur would share the fate of Jerusalem's inhabitants who were taken into the
exile (, ). ==Jeremiah’s unpopular ministry (20:7–18)==