Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
sumed a certain form or shape! As then a madness, so great and so monstrous, prevailed among the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, what right knowledge or judgment could have been in them? The Jews then were very foolish in thinking that they were very clear --- sighted. ``They are,'' he says, ``brute animals; for it is wholly contrary to reason to suppose that a god can be made from a dead piece of wood. When, therefore, the Chaldeans and the Egyptians amaze and astonish you through the influence of a false opinion, derived from nothing, that they are alone wise, do ye not see that ye are doubly and trebly mad? for where is their wisdom, when they thus make gods from trunks of trees?''
We now then perceive the design of the Prophet: but as these circumstances have not been considered by interpreters, they have only elicited a frigid doctrine and gathered some general thoughts. But when any one rightly and carefully examines the design of the Prophet, he will find how important is what he teaches; and no one can otherwise rightly understand what Jeremiah means.
A tree then does one cut, etc.: he uses the singular number. 261 He then adds, the work of the hands of the artificer by the ax He shews that nature itself is changed through the false imagination of men; for as soon as it takes a new form, it seems to be no longer a tree. The tree, while it grows, when it produces fruit, is not worshipped as God; but when it is cut down, the dead and dry trunk is substituted in the place of God: for what reason? even because the ax has been applied. Some render it
hache, ou doloire, which is the same; for there is no ambiguity in the meaning: they cut down trees from the forests; and then after the tree was formed by the ax and worked by the hands of the artificer, what follows was done to it ---
Jeremiah 10:4-5
4. They deck it with silver and with gold; the fasten it with nails and with the hammers, that it move not.
4. Argento et auro pulchrificant (hoc est, exornant) illud; clavis et malleis fortificant (hoc est, bene defigunt;) et non movebitur (hoc est, ut non moveatur.)
5. They are upright as the palm-tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
5. Sicuti palma aequalis (hoc est, stat effigies illa aequalis tanquam palma, id est, assurgit in rectitudinem;) et non loquuntur; et tollendo tolluntur, quia non ambulabunt (hoc est, non possunt ambulare:) ne timeatis ab illis; quia non male faciunt, atque etiam bene facere non penes ipsos.
He goes on with the same subject, and borrows his words from the forty --- fourth
261This is not correct, the verb is plural, and there is no different reading. The Vulgate has led Calvin and our translators astray here. The other versions never changed the form of the sentence. The verse may be thus rendered, — 3. Verily, the customs of the nations are very vanity; For a tree from the forest they cut down, — The work of the hands of the worker with the ax! Then verbs in the plural number follow in the next verse, — 4. With silver and with gold they beautify, With nails and with hammers they fasten them, So that none may move them The verb for "move" is in Hiphil; it means in Kal to totter, "that none may cause them to totter." But the Septuagint have rendered the verb "cut down" as a passive participle, {,{כרות transposing the ;{}וand Venema takes this as the proper reading, --- ``For a tree from the forest is cut down.'' But this does not run well with the following verse. The nations or heathens, is the nominative to all the verbs. Venema renders the last line of the fourth verse, --- That nothing may make them to reel. He considers that {}לאmeans often ``nothing;'' but it means also sometimes, ``none,'' or no one. --- Ed
COMMENTARY ON JEREMIAH
chapter of Isaiah (Isaiah 44); for the passage is wholly similar. Jeremiah, being later, was induced to take the words from his predecessor, that his own nation might be more impressed, on finding that the same thing was said by two Prophets, and that thus they had two witnesses.
He then says that these wise men, who filled the Jews with wonder and astonishment, adorned their images, or statues, with silver and gold, and afterward fixed them with nails and with hammers, that they might not move Some refer the last word to the metal, ``that the pieces might not come off,'' as the verb sometimes means to depart. But the simpler meaning is, that the statues were fixed by nails and hammers, that they might not be moved. Then the Prophet adds by way of concession, They are indeed erect as the palm-trees; and thus there appears in them something remarkable: but they speak not; and then, being raised they are raised, that is, they cannot move themselves; for they cannot walk Then he says, Be not afraid of them; for they do no evil, nor is it in their power to do good
We now see what the Prophet meant to teach us, --- that the wisdom of the Chaldeans, and also of the Egyptians, was celebrated throughout the world, and also so blinded the Jews, or so enraptured, them, that they thought that nothing proceeded from them but what deserved to be known and esteemed. In order therefore to remove and demolish this false notion, he shews that they were beyond measure foolish; for what could have been more sottish than to think that the nature of a tree is changed as soon as it receives a new form? How? By the hand of the artificer.
Can it be in the power of man to make a god at his will? This is a folly which heathen authors have derided. Horace has this sentence: ---
the workman was uncertain whether to make a bench or Priapus, He chose rather to make a god.'' 262
That poet, as he dared not generally to condemn the madness which then prevailed, indirectly shewed how shameful it was to make a log of wood a god, because the workman had given it a form. The very richest worshipped a wooden god, while he despised the artificer! He who would not have condescended to give the workman a cup of water, yet prostrated himself befbre the god which the workman had made! This then is what our Prophet now says, ``Behold, with silver and gold do they adorn trunks of trees; they indeed stood up, for they are erect statues;'' and he compares them to palm-trees, because they stood high: and he says, ``but they speak not; they are raised up, for they have no life; hence fear them not:'' and then he adds, ``They cannot do evil, and it is not in their power to do good.''
The Prophet seems to speak improperly when he says that they were not gods, because they could do no evil; for it is wholly contrary to the nature of the only true
God to do evil: but the Prophet, according to what is common, uses the word for the infliction of punishment. God, then, is said to do evil, not because he does harm to any one, not because he does wrong to any mortals, but because he chastises them for their sins. And it is a way of speaking derived from the common judgment of man, for we call those things evils which are afflictions to us; for famine, diseases, poverty, 262Cum faber incertus scanmum faceretne Priapm, Maluit esse Demu." — Hor. Lib. 1, Sat. 8.