Pashhur

Overview

• Testament: Old
• Role: Priest and temple official who had Jeremiah beaten and put in stocks; Jeremiah renamed him “Magor-missabib” (terror on every side)
• Family: Son of Immer; a priest
• Key Books: Jeremiah

Biography

Pashhur son of Immer was the chief officer of the temple in Jerusalem during the early ministry of Jeremiah, responsible for maintaining order in the sacred precincts. He represents the institutional religious establishment’s hostility toward prophetic critique — a pattern that runs throughout the book of Jeremiah and reaches its most violent expression in the prophet’s arrest and eventual imprisonment.

The incident that defines Pashhur’s place in the biblical narrative comes in Jeremiah 20. Jeremiah had just delivered his shattering sermon at the Potsherd Gate (Jeremiah 19), smashing a clay jar as a prophetic symbol of the destruction coming on Jerusalem and Judah. When Pashhur heard Jeremiah prophesying these things in the temple courts, he struck the prophet and had him put in stocks at the upper Benjamin Gate of the temple — a publicly humiliating and painful form of restraint. Pashhur’s action was the first recorded physical violence against Jeremiah by a named individual.

When Pashhur released Jeremiah the following day, Jeremiah’s response was devastating. Rather than backing down, Jeremiah immediately renamed him: “The LORD does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side” (Jeremiah 20:3). This renaming was both prophecy and verdict. Jeremiah declared that Pashhur would witness the fall of all his companions, that he himself would be taken captive to Babylon along with his household, his friends, and all Judah, and that he would die there and be buried there — because he had “prophesied falsely” to the people of Judah.

The irony is theological: Pashhur’s name may have meant something like “freedom on every side” or “Horus rules,” but Jeremiah’s renaming makes him a walking symbol of the very terror he refused to proclaim. By silencing and punishing the true prophet, Pashhur sealed his own fate in the judgment that was coming. His story is one of the starkest examples in the Old Testament of the consequences of suppressing prophetic warning.

It should be noted that a second “Pashhur” appears in Jeremiah 38:1, son of Malchiah, who was one of the officials who had Jeremiah thrown into a cistern. This appears to be a different individual, though the repetition of the name reinforces the portrait of priestly and official resistance to Jeremiah’s ministry.

Key Events

• Hears Jeremiah prophesying judgment at the temple (Jeremiah 20:1)
• Strikes Jeremiah and puts him in stocks at the Benjamin Gate (Jeremiah 20:2)
• Releases Jeremiah the next day (Jeremiah 20:3)
• Receives the new name “Magor-missabib” (Terror on Every Side) from Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:3)
• Prophesied to fall into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar and die in Babylon (Jeremiah 20:4–6)

Relationships

• Jeremiah - the prophet he persecuted and whose prophecy condemned him
• Immer - father; a priestly family in Jerusalem

Important Verses

• Jeremiah 20:1–3
• Jeremiah 20:6

Cross-References

• Jeremiah 20 - The complete account of his attack on Jeremiah and the renaming
• Jeremiah 38 - A second Pashhur (son of Malchiah) also persecutes Jeremiah

Notes

• Pashhur embodies the danger of institutional religion protecting its own authority against prophetic critique — a pattern Scripture condemns repeatedly
• The renaming “Magor-missabib” (Terror on Every Side) is particularly ironic because Jeremiah had just used the same phrase to describe the coming judgment (Jeremiah 20:10), making Pashhur a living embodiment of what he refused to warn others about
• The attack on Jeremiah in Jeremiah 20 triggers the most psychologically intimate passage in the entire book — Jeremiah’s “confessions” in 20:7–18, in which he wrestles with God about his call, his suffering, and his inability to stop speaking