Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
but so strive to consecrate ourselves to thy service, that thy name through his name may be continually glorified, until we shall at length be received into that eternal inheritance, where will appear to us openly, and face to face, that glory which we now see in the truth contained in thy gospel. --- Amen.
Lecture Twenty-Eighth
Jeremiah 7:12-14
12. But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
12. Nempe ite nunc (vel, agedum) in locum meum, qui erat in Silo, ubi habitare feci nomen meum initio, et videte quid fecerim illic propter malitiam populi mei Israel.
13. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;
13. Et nunc quia fecistis omnia opera haee (id est, quia imitati estis Israelitas) dicit
Jehovah, et loquutus sum ad vos mane surgens, et quum loquerer, non audistis, et inclamarem vos, non respondistis.
14. Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
14. Faciam igitur domui huic, in qua (super quam) invocatum est nomen meum, de qua vos fiditis (in qua vos confiditis, sequitur postea relativum) et loco, quem dedi vobis et patribus vestris, sicuti feci Silo.
The Prophet confirms by an example what he said yesterday, --- that the Jews deceived themselves in thinking that they were covered by the shadow of the Temple, while yet they disclosed themselves, and when the whole world were witness of their impious rebellion. He therefore mentions what had before happened. The Ark of the Covenant, as it is well known, had long rested in Shiloh. Now the Temple did not excel in dignity on its own account, but on account of the Ark of the Covenant and the altar. It was indeed splendidly adorned; but the holiness of the Temple was derived from the Ark of the Covenant, the altar, and the sacrifices. This Ark had been in Shiloh. 196 Hence Jeremiah shews how foolish were the Jews in being proud, because they had among them the Ark of the Covenant and the altar, for the first place, where sacrifices had been offered to God, was not preserved in safety. This is the import of the whole.
But he did not in vain say, Even go to Shiloh The {,}כיki, here, though commonly a causal particle, seems to be taken as explanatory. If yet it be viewed only as an affirmative, I do not object, ``Well, go to Shiloh.'' But the language in this case is ironical, ``Ye glory in the Temple; forsooth! go to Shiloh.'' And God calls it his place
--- my place, in order that the Jews might understand that it had nothing superior in itself. The Ark of the Covenant had indeed been removed into Mount Sion, and there
196This was in the tribe of Ephraim, between Bethel and Shechem, Judges 21:19, about twenty-five miles north of Jerusalem. The Ark had been there more than 300 years. It did not return there after it was brought forth in the war against the Philistines. The place afterwards declined, and its ruinous state became a proverb. See Joshua 18:1; Psalm 78:60; Jeremiah 26:6, 9. — Ed.