Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
There were several circumstances worthy of notice, with regard to The Jews, during the ministry of Jeremiah:
1. The means which God employed to lead them to repentance, and to a reformation of their conduct, both as to religion and morals: he gave them a pious and a reforming king in Josiah; the Book of the Law was providentially discovered and widely made known; a reformation was carried on according to its requirements, while idolatrous practices were in a great measure put an end to; the people had also before their eyes the awful judgment of God on their brethren, The Israelites, in banishing them from their country; and the powerful preaching of Jeremiah sounded in their ears.
2. The manifest evidences of God's displeasure: their good king, Josiah, was suddenly taken from them, no doubt as a judgment for their ingratitude; his successor, Suallum, was, after three months' reign, taken prisoner by the Egyptians, and the country was put under tribute; the country was visited with grievous famine, as recorded in chap. 14.; and Jeremiah, by God's command, denounced on them the punishment of an entire extinction as a nation.
3. The extremely corrupted state of the people: they were both most idolatrous and most immoral, unfaithful to God and to man in a degree hardly credible. During Josiah's reign they pretended to cast away their gross superstitions, but after his death they returned to them, as it were, with increased avidity; and with these superstitions was combined the prostration of every moral principle, and of every natural feeling. Superstition ever destroys morality, and enfeebles all the social and natural sympathies of men. What a picture of the effects of superstition is given by Jeremiah in chapter 9!
4. Notwithstanding this extremely degenerated state of things, The Jews harbored the conviction that their ruin, as denounced by Jeremiah, was impossible. While practically denying God, they yet rested their confidence on his promises respecting the perpetuity of David's kingdom, and on their outward privileges; taking as unconditional what was conditional, and regarding the mere possession of divine institutions as a sufficient security. And in this vain confidence they were encouraged and confirmed by false Prophets and corrupt Priests, in opposition to God's messages by his Prophet Jeremiah, and to the plain declarations of that Law, the authority of which they still ostensibly acknowledged!
These things have been recorded for our instruction. Some of Jeremiah's Prophecies were fulfilled in the days of many of those who heard them; such as those which refer to the Captivity of the people, and to the destruction of the neighboring nations by the king of Babylon. Other prophecies extend farther, to times more remote, to the destruction of Babylon, to the restoration of the Jews after the term of seventy years, and to the destinies of various nations. There are also Prophecies respecting The Messiah, as The Lord Our Righteousness, The Evangelical Covenant,