Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations Volume 2 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
There is, however, nothing obscure when the Prophet says that there was no one to heal the evils of the people. 236
We must ever bear in mind his object, that is, that the people were too easily deceived, when they hoped to return shortly to their own country. But we may hence gather a general truth, --- that men never understand the favor of God until they are subdued by many and severe reproofs: for they always shun God's judgment, and then they become blind to their own sins, and foolishly flatter themselves. And, further, when they only in words confess that they have sinned, they think that they have done abundantly enough. They ought therefore to be urged to the practice and duty of repentance. It afterwards follows ---
Jeremiah 30:14
14. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.
14. Omnes amici tui obliti sunt tui, et non requirunt; quia plaga tibi (hoc est percussi to) castigtione crudelis (hominis, aut, saevi) propter multitudinem iniquitatum tuarum, invaluerunt scelera tua.
The Prophet again repeats, that nothing remained for Israel as coming from men, for no one offered to bring help. Some, indeed, explain the words as though the Prophet had said, that friends, as it is usually the case, concealed themselves through shame on seeing the condition of the people hopeless: for as long as friends can relieve the sick, they are ready at hand, and anxiously exert themselves, but when life is despaired of, they no longer appear. But the Prophet, I have no doubt, condemns here the Jews for the false confidence with which they had been long fascinated; for we know, that at one time they placed hope in the Egyptians; at another in the Assyrians; and thus it happened that they brought on themselves many calamities. And we have seen elsewhere, in many passages, that these confederacies are compared to impure lusts; for when the people sought at one time the friendship of the Egyptians, at another, that of the Assyrians, it was a kind of adultery. God had taken the Jews under his care and protection; but unbelief led them astray, so that. they sought to strengthen themselves by the aid of others.
Hence, everywhere in the Prophets the Egyptians and the Assyrians are compared to lovers. And this view will suit well here; for it was not enough to point out the miseries of the people, without making known the cause of them.
Then the Prophet refers to those false counsels which the Jews had adopted, when they thought themselves secure and safe while the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or the Chaldeans were favorable to them. For this reason he says, that all their friends had forgotten them, and also that they did not inquire for them, that is, that they
236According to Calvin, the verse reads thus, — No one undertakes thy cause; For a cure, medicines and healing thou hast not. This division is made by the Sept., though not by the other versions, nor the Targ. Venema adopts it. The word {,{מזורrendered above ``cure,'' means evidently a wound. It only occurs here, and Obadiah 7, and twice in Hosea 5:13, where it is rendered ``wound.'' It comes from ,{}זורin the sense of compressing or binding up; but the noun taken passively, signifies what is compressed or bound up, and that is a wound. Then the literal rendering would be --- None is pleading thy cause; As to the wound, medicatives, binding up, none to thee; or in other words, --- As to the wound, thou hast no medicatives, no binding up. The word {}רפאותmeans medicatives or medicaments, rather than medicines, as it designates here, and in most places, outward applications to wounds and bruises. The order, as in the foregoing verse, is reversed, the medicaments are put before the binding up. See Ezekiel 30:21. --- Ed.