(vel, commotionem) facta est (hoc est, Reddita fuit instabilis;) omnes qui honore eam
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS
Jews in a similar way by saying,
the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths.'' (Leviticus 26:43.)
For when the Jews had the opportunity and leisure (when no enemies molested them) to observe the worship of God, they contemptuously profaned the Sabbaths.
As, then, God's worship had been so disgracefully neglected by them, God said,
land itself shall in your stead keep the Sabbath;'' how? it shall not be ploughed, it shall not bring forth fruit. (Leviticus 26:34, 35.) That cessation was called by
God Sabbath, but not without a taunt; for he cuttingly reproved the Jews for having violated the Sabbaths, as was also done by Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 17:22, 27.) 489
It then appears to me probable that taunts were cast by enemies against the
Jews, that they might now have a long and a continual Sabbath, while the city was deserted and no one dwelt there. For it would have been cold and unmeaning to say that the enemies laughed at the cessation of it. The Prophet would have no doubt used a different word, if his purpose had been to point out the blasphemy of enemies as to God's worship. The enemies then saw and laughed at her cessation; but this cessation they called by way of reproach Sabbatharian. It follows, ---
Lamentations 1:8
8. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
8. Peccatum peccavit Jerusalem (hoc est, scelerate egit;) proterea in migrationem
(vel, commotionem) facta est (hoc est, Reddita fuit instabilis;) omnes qui honore eam persequebantur, spreverunt eam, quia viderunt turpitudinem (vel, foeditatem) ejus; etiam ipsa gemens, et conversa est retrorsum.
Here the Prophet expresses more clearly and strongly what he had briefly referred to, even that all the evil which the Jews suffered proceeded from God's vengeance, and that they were worthy of such a punishment, because they had not lightly offended, but had heaped up for themselves a dreadful judgment, since they had in all manner of ways abandoned themselves to impiety. This is the substance of what is said. We hence learn that the Prophet did not compose this song to lament the calamity of his own country as heathens were wont to do. An example of a heathen lamentation we have in Virgil: ---
is the great day and the unavoidable time
Of Dardania: we Trojans have been; Ilium has been,
And the great glory of the Teuerians: cruel Jupiter has to Argos
Transferred all things: the Danai rule in the burnt city.'' 490
489There are in this verse four lines, while there are only three in all the rest; but there is no ground for supposing an interpolation, as some have thought; for it is found in every Hebrew copy and in the versions, and the Targum. As to the last word, it is rendered by the Sept., "habitation," or according to the Alexandrian copy, "emigration;" by the Vulg. "sabbaths;" and by the Syr. "sorrow." The word is nowhere found to signify the Sabbath. It is either from {,{שבהto lead captive, as Parkhurst thinks, and means captivity, emigration; or from ,{}שבתto cease, to come to an end, according to Blayney and Henderson, and may be rendered ``discontinuance,'' i.e., as a nation or a state, or ``ruin.'' But the former meaning agreeing with the Sept. is to be preferred, --- When fall did her people, and she had no helper, See her did oppressors, they laughed at her captivity. --- Ed
490"Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniae: fuimus Troes; fuit Ilium et ingens Gloria Teucrorum: ferus omnia Jupiter Argos Transtulit: incensa Danai dominantur in urbe." Virg. AEn. 2.
JOHN CALVIN
He also repeats the same sentiment in other words: ---
country! O Ilium, the house of the gods! and the famous for war,
The camp of the Dardanidans! cruel Jupiter has to Argos
Transferred all things.'' 491
He thus mourns the destruction of Troy; but he complains of the cruelty of God, and calls Him cruel Jupiter, because he was himself enraged, and yet the speaker was Pantheus the priest of Apollo. We hence see how the unbelieving, when they lament their own calamities, vomit forth blasphemies against. God, for they are exasperated by sorrow. Very different is the complaint of the Prophet from that of the ungodly; for when he deplores the miseries of his people, he at the same time adds that God is a righteous avenger. He does not then accuse God of cruelty or of too much rigor, but reminds the people to humble themselves before God and to confess that they justly deserved all their evils.
The unbelieving do indeed sometimes mingle some words, by which they seem to give glory to God; but they are evanescent, for they soon return to their perverseness. They are sometimes moderate, ``If thou art turned by any entreaties.'' In that case they expostulate with God:, as though he were deaf to the prayers of his servants. At length they break out into open blasphemies, ---
it seemed good to the gods to subvert the affairs of Asia
And the undeserved nation of Priam.'' 492 ---
They regarded the nation which had been cut off unworthy of such a punishment; they called it an undeserved nation. Now, then, we perceive what is the difference between the unbelieving and the children of God. For it is common to all to mourn in adversities; but the end of the mourning of the unbelieving is perverseness, which at length breaks out into rage, when they feel their evils, and they do not in the meantime humble themselves before God. But the faithful do not harden themselves in their mourning, but reflect on themselves and examine their own life, and of their own accord prostrate themselves before God, and willingly submit to the sentence of condemnation, and confess that God is just.
We hence now see how the calamity of the Church ought to be lamented by us, even that we are to return to this principle, that God is a just avenger, and does not punish common offenses only, but the greatest sins, and that when he reduces us to extremities, lie does so on account of the greatness of our sins, as also Daniel confessed. For it was not in few words that he declared that the people were worthy of exile and of the punishment which they suffered; but he accumulated words,
We have sinned, we have acted impiously, we have done wickedly, we have been transgressors.'' (Daniel 9:5.)
Nor was the Prophet satisfied without this enumeration, for he saw how great the impiety of the people had been, and how mad had been their obstinacy, not for a few years, but for that long time, during which they had been warned by the prophets, and yet they repented not, but always became worse and worse. Such, then, is the
491"O patria! O divum domus Ilium! Et inclyta bello Moenia Dardanidum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos Transtulit." — AEn 2.
492"Postquam res Asiae, Priamique everterre gentem Immeritam visum Superis." — Virg. AEn. 3.