quin potius (eadem est particula {}כי causalis, quae tamen hic phes aliquid exprimit,
JOHN CALVIN secure under the protection of thy hand, and that we may so experience thy power, that there may be to us a just reason for glorying in thee, and that our enemies may be confounded, in order that thy glory may shine forth more and more, and that the kingdom of thine only-begotten Son may also be thus promoted. --- Amen.
LECTURE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SIXTH
Jeremiah 51:4
4. Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets.
4. Et cadent vulnerati in terra ejus (in terra Casdin) et transfixi (vel, confossi) in compitis ejus.
HE proceeds with what we began yesterday to explain, --- that the time was nigh when God would take vengeance on the Babylonians. As, then, this could not be without great destruction in a city so very populous, and as it could not be overthrown except calamity extended itself through the whole country, hence, he says, that though Babylon should prepare great and powerful armies, it would yet be in vain, because they shall fall, he says, wounded everywhere in the land; and then he adds, and pierced through in her streets By these words he means, that the
Chaldeans would be slain not only in the open fields, but also in the midst of the city. he afterwards adds, ---
Jeremiah 51:5
5. For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the LORD of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.
5. Quoniam non viduatus est Israel, et Jehudah a Deo suo, a Jehova exercituum; quin potius (eadem est particula {}כיcausalis, quae tamen hic phes aliquid exprimit, ergo quin potius) terra ipsorum plena est peccato propter sanctum Israel.
The Prophet shows here the cause why God had resolved to treat the Babylonians with so much severity, even because he would be the avenger of his own people.
He also obviates a doubt which might have disturbed weak minds, for he seemed to have forsaken his people when he suffered them to be driven into exile. As this was a kind of repudiation, as we have seen elsewhere, the Prophet says now, that
Israel had not been wholly widowed, nor Judah, by his God; as though he had said, that the Jews and the Israelites were indeed, for a time, like widows, but this was not to be perpetual. For, as we have said, the divorce was temporary, when God so forsook his Temple and the city, that the miserable people was exposed to plunder.
As long, then, as the will of their enemies prevailed, God seemed to have forsaken his people. It is of this widowhood that the Prophet now speaks; but he yet testifies that Israel would not be wholly widowed by Jehovah his God.
He indeed alludes to that spiritual marriage, of which frequent mention is made; for God had, from the beginning, united the Church to himself, as it were, by a marriage-bond; and the people, as it is well known, had been so received into covenant, that there was contracted, as it were, a spiritual marriage. Then the
Prophet now says, that they were not widowed; in which he refers to the hope of deliverance; for it could not have been denied but that God had repudiated his people. But he shows that their chastisement would not be perpetual, because God