Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
it is rather refined, I know not whether it be well --- founded. I therefore prefer to regard this as designating their hardness: They were like brass and iron, for they were inflexible. The Prophet then after having called them transgressors who had alienated themselves from God, and after having said, that they walked in their own depravity, now adds, that they were untamable, not capable of any improvements; and hence he compares them to brass and iron.
He at last adds, that they were all corrupters This, as I think, is to be referred to their habits: for thus are enemies called, who plunder everything, and commit all excesses. But they are corrupters here, who not only like thieves plunder the goods of all, but who are leaders to others in wickedness: so that all things were in confusion, as it is wont to be said, from the head to the feet. 186 He afterwards adds
Jeremiah 6:29
29. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
29. Exaruit (consumptum est) sufflatorium (vel, follis) ab igne; integrum plumbum, frustra conflavit conflator (vel, excoxit excoctor) quia (nam copula hic pro causali particula ponitur, quia) mali non sunt purgati (vel, et, tamen adversative, non sunt consumpti; uterque sensus non male quadrabit.)
He says, that the bellows was consumed by the fire and without any advantage.
The whole sentence is metaphorical. Interpreters refer it simply to what was taught; and hence they consider the mouth of the Prophet to be the bellows, by which the fire was kindled. So the meaning would be, --- that the Prophet was as it were burnt, through his incessant crying, like the bellows, which by being continually used is at length consumed, especially when the fire burns fiercely. They then suppose that the Prophet complains that his throat had dried up, like the bellows, which being burnt by the fire can no longer do its work. But what if we refer this to the punishments and judgments by which God had chastised his people, and yet without benefit? For so he complains in the first chapter of Isaiah, and in other places.
vain, ``he says, ``have I chastised thee:''
186This verse and the preceding have been amended, and for the most part conjecturally, by Blayney, and though with the approbation of Horsley, yet with no satisfactory reasons. That the Prophet was made as it were a fortress, appears from Jeremiah 1:18: and there is here an evident allusion to that, though his being made a watchtower, or a watchman occupying such a place, was for a different purpose. The two verses I thus render, — 27. A watchtower have I given thee among my people, A fortress, that thou mightest know and try their way; Then we are told what he had found them to be, — All of them are the apostates of apostates, Companions of the slanderer; Brass and iron are all of them, Corrupted are they. "The apostates of apostates," mean thorough, confirmed apostates, as "servant of servants" means the basest: "companions," etc., is literally, "Walkers with," etc. "All of them," clearly belong to "Brass and iron," as "they" follows "corrupted." The ancient versions are not satisfactory, and the Targum is paraphrastic; but they give the general meaning. "Prover" or "examiner" is what the versions give for "watchtower." "Fortress" is omitted in the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Targum, and is rendered "strong" by the Vulgate "The apostates" is left out by the Septuagint and the Arabic, and is rendered "princes" by the Vulgate, Syriac, and the Targum For "companions of the slanderer," the Septuagint and Arabic have "walking perversely — {σκολιῶς};'' the Syriac and Targum, ``walking with guile --- cum dolo;'' and the Vulgate, ``walking fraudulently --- fraudulenter.'' The word ,{`` }רכילslanderer'' is found in five other places, Leviticus 19:16; Proverbs 11:13; 20:19; Jeremiah 9:4; Ezekiel 22:9. In the first three passages it is rendered in our version ``a talebearer,`` but more correctly, a slanderbearer, or, as Parkhurst renders it, ``a trader in slander.''
It does not mean ``a sharper,`` as Blayney thinks. The passages in Proverbs are inconsistent with such an idea. There is no passage where it may not be rendered ``a slanderer,`` except Ezekiel 22:9; where it evidently means ``slander.'' --- Ed