Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
polluted the Temple with their cruel murders. 191
He then passes to the first table of the law, If ye will not walk after foreign gods to your evil By stating a part for the whole, he condemns every kind of impiety: for what is it to walk after alien gods but to depart from the pure and legitimate worship of the true God and to corrupt it with superstitions? We see then what the Prophet means: he recalls the Jews to the duty of observing the law, that they might thereby give a veritable evidence of their repentance: ``Prove, ``he says, ``that you have repented from the heart.'' He shews how they were to prove this, even by observing the law of God. And, as I have said, he refers to the first Table by stating a part for the whole. As to the second Table, he mentions some particulars which were intended to shew that they violated justice and equity, and also that cruelty and perfidiousness, frauds and rapines, prevailed greatly among them.
Then follows the latter part, Then I will make you to dwell, 192 etc. God sets this clause in opposition to the false confidence of the people, as though he had said, ``Ye wish me to be propitious to you; but mock me not by offering sacrifices without sincerity of heart, without a devout feeling; be consistent; and think not that I am pacified by you, when ye come to the Temple with empty display, and pollute your sacrifices with impure hands. I therefore do not allow this state of things; but if ye come on the condition of returning into favor with me, then I will make you to dwell in this place and in the land which I gave to your fathers.'' The last part of the verse, from age to age, ought to be connected with the verb, ``I will make you to dwell, ``{,}שכנתיshekanti, ``I will make you to dwell from age to age, ``that is, As your fathers dwelt formerly in this land, so shall you remain quiet in the same, and there shall be to you a peaceable possession; but not in any other place. We must bear in mind the contrast which I noticed yesterday; for he indirectly denounces exile on the Jews, because they had contaminated the land by their vices, and gloried only in their sacrifices. It now follows ---
Jeremiah 7:8
8. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.
8. Ecce, vos fiduciam adjicitis ad verba mendacii (vel, fiduciam vobis ponitis super verbis mendacii,) quae profectu carent.
He again teaches what we observed yesterday, --- that the glorying of the Jews was foolish, while they boasted of the Temple and of their sacrifices to God. He calls their boastings the words of falsehood, as we have explained, because they wholly turned to a contrary end what God had instituted. It was his will that sacrifices should be offered to him in the Temple --- to what purpose? To preserve unity of faith among the whole people. And sacrifices, what was their design? To shew the people that they deserved eternal death, and also that they were to flee to God for mercy, there being no other expiation but the blood of Christ. But there was no repentance, they were not sorry for their sins; nay, as we shall presently see, they took liberty to indulge more in them on account of their ceremonies, which yet ought
191What is to be understood by innocent blood in not only murder, nor principally; but the offering of innocent infants to Moloch, referred to in the 31st verse of this chapter. — Ed.
192Calvin departs here from his former rendering in verse 3d. The words mean the same, "Then will I dwell with you." So the Vulgate. — Ed.