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Put him in the stocks - Probably such a place near the gate as we term the lock-up, the coal-hole; or it may mean a sort of dungeon.

Jeremiah the prophet - Jeremiah is nowhere so called in the first 19 chapters. In this place he thus characterizes himself, because Pashur‘s conduct was a violation of the respect due to the prophetic office.

The stocks - This instrument of torture comes from a root signifying to “twist.” It thus implies that the body was kept in a distorted position. Compare Acts 16:24.

The high gate … - Rather, “the upper gate of Benjamin in the house of Yahweh (compare 2 Kings 15:35);” to be distinguished from the city gate of Benjamin leading toward the north.

Pashur smote Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks. Jeremiah was silent till God put a word into his mouth. To confirm this, Pashur has a name given him, "Fear on every side." It speaks a man not only in distress, but in despair; not only in danger, but in fear on every side. The wicked are in great fear where no fear is, for God can make the most daring sinner a terror to himself. And those who will not hear of their faults from God's prophets, shall be made to hear them from their consciences. Miserable is the man thus made a terror to himself. His friends shall fail him. God lets him live miserably, that he may be a monument of Divine justice.

The prophet's words, instead of leading to confession and repentance, aroused the anger of those high in authority, and as a consequence Jeremiah was deprived of his liberty. Imprisoned, and placed in the stocks, the prophet nevertheless continued to speak the messages of Heaven to those who stood by. His voice could not be silenced by persecution. The word of truth, he declared, “was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” Jeremiah 20:9. PK 432.1

It was about this time that the Lord commanded Jeremiah to commit to writing the messages He desired to bear to those for whose salvation His heart of pity was continually yearning. “Take thee a roll of a book,” the Lord bade His servant, “and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” Jeremiah 36:2, 3. PK 432.2

In obedience to this command, Jeremiah called to his aid a faithful friend, Baruch the scribe, and dictated “all the words of the Lord, which He had spoken unto him.” Verse 4. These were carefully written out on a roll of parchment and constituted a solemn reproof for sin, a warning of the sure result of continual apostasy, and an earnest appeal for the renunciation of all evil. PK 432.3

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