Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
not delighted in it; for {}חפףmeans to take delight in a thing. The Prophet now more clearly shews, that the fault was in the Jews themselves, because they had despised God. Whence then was the impotence of which he had spoken? Even from their licentiousness, because they deemed God and his prophets as nothing.
Since, then, their minds were thus hardened so as impiously to despise the truth, it followed that they could not hear and attend, inasmuch as they were deprived of all right knowledge. Whence was this? Even because they had closed their eyes and deafened their ears, and given themselves up altogether to the Devil, so that he led them into every kind of madness. In short, he shews at the end of the verse what was the beginning of all their evils, even because the word of God did not please them, that is, because they had cast aside every care for true religion, because they were not pleased when the prophets came and offered to them the favor of God. As then the truth had become unsavory to them, so that they rejected it, when it ought to have been especially delightful to them, so it happened that they became wholly stupid and void of all judgment and reason; and hence also came the uncircumcision of the ears of which mention has been made. 171 It follows ---
Jeremiah 6:11
11. Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.
11. Ergo indignatione (vel, ira) Jehovae repletus sum (copula hic ponitur vice illativae particulae, nisi adversative resolvere libeat, atqui, vel, ego autem) et laboravi continendo, ad effundendum super parvulum in compitis (hoc est, in publico, foris,) et super consilium juvenum ({}בחוריםsunt proprie electi, nam {}בחרest eligere; sed ita vocantur juvenes, qui sunt in flore aetatis) similiter: quoniam etiam vir cum uxore capientur, senex cum pleno dierum.
The prophet here rises higher; for it was not enough simply to set forth the truth to refractory men, but it was necessary to stimulate them even sharply, and sometimes to wound them, for they could not otherwise be roused, so great was their hardness. Hence the Prophet proceeds in the same strain with what we observed yesterday; and he declares that he was full of the indignation of God. This may be taken passively and actively, --- that the Prophet was indignant with holy zeal, because he undertook the cause of God, --- or, that he dreaded the judgment, which the Jews nevertheless in no way heeded. But he speaks here no doubt according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as though he said, that he did not announce what his own mind suggested, but what was dictated by the Spirit of God. This indignation is, in short, to be applied to what was taught, as though he had said, ``If I address you with great vehemence, think not that as a man I forget moderation, being influ-
171This is a remarkable verse, and shews, as Calvin explains, the degraded and corrupt state of the nation in a very striking manner, — To whom shall I speak, And protest, so that they will hear? Behold, uncircumcised is their ear, So that they cannot hearken; Behold, the word of Jehovah Has become to them a reproach, They delight not in it. "A reproach" is to be the subject of reproach: the word of God by his prophets was despised and treated with contempt. This was the visible and palpable effect, but the cause was, that they had no delight in it or love for it.