versia) quod gladio et fame et peste moriemini in loco ad quem appetitis ire, ad
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS
He reproves them not only for perfidy, but also for sacrilege, because they wickedly profaned the name of God. For it. was not to be endured that they should pretend a regard for religion, and testify that they would be obedient to God, and should at the same time cherish in their hearts that perverse intention which afterwards they discovered. And hence he not only relates that he had been sent, but that he had also been solicited to intercede for them. It was then a twofold sacrilege, for they had asked what would please God, and afterwards disregarded the prophecy, --- and then they offered a prayer, and when God gave them an answer by his servant., they counted it as nothing! We now perceive why Jeremiah so expressly mentioned these two things.
Pray for us to our God, and according to all which Jehovah our God shall say, relate thou to us: the people seemed to act with wonderful sincerity; they exhorted the
Prophet to dissemble nothing, to add nothing and to diminish nothing'. What better can be wished than that men should lay aside all ambiguity and all evasions, and not wish God's words to be corrupted? And this the Jews expressed in high terms,
Whatever Jehovah our God shall answer, declare thou to us Here they seemed to have more zeal than Jeremiah himself; for they enjoined a law, that he should add nothing and diminish nothing, but that he should be a faithful interpreter of God's will. They seemed then to be half-angels. They afterwards testified that they would do whatever God should command them.
He at length adds, And I have this day declared it to you Here he sets forth his own fidelity, not for the sake of boasting, but that their impiety might be reproved, who at length despised the oracle of God, which they had boasted that they would obey. Ye have not hearkened, he says, to the voice of Jehovah your God, and according to all the things on account of which he hath sent me to you. The Prophet again confirms the truth, that it was their own fault that the Jews did not follow what was right, and also what was for their good, for he had faithfully delivered to them what God had commanded. He now adds, ---
Jeremiah 42:22
22. Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go and to sojourn.
22. Et nunc sciendo scitote (hic {}תדעוimperative sumendum est sine controversia) quod gladio et fame et peste moriemini in loco ad quem appetitis ire, ad peregrinandum illic.
The Prophet at length concludes his discourse, after having mentioned the reasons why God would deal so severely with them, even because their perfidy, impiety, ingratitude, and obstinate contempt were unsufferable. After having then shewn that they had no reason to expostulate as though God were extremely rigid, he at length declares what end awaited them, even that they should die by the sword, famine, or pestilence, that is, that there would be no hope of safety to them, because if they escaped from the sword, they should be beset with famine, and if they evaded the famine, they should be destroyed by pestilence. It is a common mode of speaking with the Prophets, as it is well known, that when they intimate that the ungodly in vain hope for impunity, they represent God as having at his command all
JOHN CALVIN
kinds of punishment.
Ye shall then, he says, die in that place which ye seek for your sojourn, he again shews the object of the people, for they did not intend to dwell perpetually in Egypt, but only for a time, until there was liberty to return to their own country. In short, they wished to be restored, as it were, against God's will; and yet they ceased not falsely to put forward the name of God, as hypocrites, who mock God, always do.
Now follows, ---