Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
but the people with their pollutions had defiled the temple. God then shews that there was a just cause why he had departed, according to what is set forth more fully in the tenth chapter of Ezekiel: God shews to his servant in that vision that he had left the temple, and for this reason, --- because his holiness could not be blended with ungodly and filthy profanations. He first mentions carvings generally, and then he adds, the vanities of the foreigner: and here he amplifies the sin of the people, because they borrowed here and there from foreigners such superstitions as were unknown to their fathers, as though they wished to banish God from the temple, and from the whole land. 232 It follows ---
Jeremiah 8:20
20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
20. Transiit messis, finita est aestas, et nos non sumus servati.
The Prophet shews now in the name of the people what was the hindrance. At the time Jeremiah spoke, the Jews confidently boasted that God was their defender; and they did not think that the Chaldeans were preparing for an expedition. But as they were inflated with false confidence, the Prophet here recites what they would presently say, Passed has the harvest, ended has the summer, and we have not been saved; that is, ``We thought that the associates, with whom we have made alliances, would at length come to our aid; and we have in this respect been deceived.'' In saying, that the harvest had passed, some think that they expected help from the Egyptians after they had gathered their corn into barns; for there is then more leisure, and then also there are provisions for the army. But the Prophet seems to include the whole time suitable for carrying on war; as though he had said, ``What will become of us at last? for if the Egyptians intended to bring help, they would have done so at the suitable time of the year; but passed has the harvest, and the summer has ended: will they come now, when the severity of winter constrains them to keep at home?.''
It is the same as though they had said, ``There is no hope of aid either from the Egyptians or from other confederates, for the seasonable time is gone by.'' There was nothing less credible to the Jews at that time; for as it; has elsewhere appeared, they doubted not but that the Egyptians would bring them aid, and supply them with help instead of God: but the Prophet intimates, that whatever the Egyptians might have promised would be in vain, and wholly useless, that the people would at length find out by experience that their promises were mere trumperies, yea, impostures
232The meaning of this verse is viewed by some differently. Their exile is considered as referred to at the beginning of the verse, "from a distant land," — or literally, "from the land of the remote ones." All the versions render the preposition "from," and not "because of," as in our version. The Prophet contemplates them as in banishment, and relates what they would say, and what answer God had for them: and they seem to have been thus contemplated to the end of the chapter, — 19. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people From the land of the remote ones, — "Was not Jehovah in Sion? Was not her king within her?" "Why! they provoked me with their carved images, With the vanities of the foreigner." Then follows the continuation of the cry in exile, — 20. "Passed has the harvest, Ended has the summer, And we have not been saved!" The "King," in verse 19, is "Jehovah" in the former line. "The vanities of the foreigner" were idols: they were vanities, because they could do nothing, neither good nor evil. What made them gods were the imaginations of the infatuated and superstitious. The gods of many now are nothing better. Every notion of God is false but what is consistent with his word. The Socinian god is not the true God; it is the fiction of a perverted mind. Nor is the god of the thorough Papists anything better, nor the god of the Pharisee. — Ed.