Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
COMMENTARY ON JEREMIAH
also is to be noticed, For there is no spirit in them God, so to speak, is the life of all things living; now, to call a dead thing an image of God, a thing in which there is no mind nor life, is it not to turn light into darkness? This reason, then, ought to be remembered by us; and it is a sufficient refutation of all such errors, when the Prophet says, that there is no spirit in idols, that is, in wood, stone, gold, and silver, and that they are therefore a He; for God will not have himself to be compared to dead things, without mind and life. He then adds ---
Jeremiah 10:15
15. They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
15. Vanitas sunt, opus illusionum; in tempore visitationis ipsorum peribunt.
He confirms the same thing. What he called before falsehood, {,}שקרshikor, he calls now vanity, {}הבלebel. They are vanity, he says. He had said that they were falsehood, which means, that men were grossly deceived when they sought the presence of God in dead things, now he says, that they were vanity, and also the work of illusions; but some render the last word ``mockeries,'' taking it in a passive sense; and hence the Chaldee interpreter renders it, ``a thing worthy of ridicule and laughter.'' 271 But I prefer to take it for imposture or deception. Jacob said to his mother, ``I shall be found in the eyes of my father a deceiver;'' but some render the word there ``a mocker.'' But Jacob, on the contrary, meant that he should be found out as one of no credit, or acting in guile, as though he had said, ``I shall be an impostor, and rny father will flnd out the fraud.'' So also in this place, he calls idols the work of deceptions, by which men infatuated themselves. He does not then teach us here that idols deserved to be ridiculed, but he refers to the madness of those who imagined that they were gods, for he had before called them vanity and falsehood; and there is no doubt but that in these various ways he repeats and confirms the same thing.
He afterwards adds, In the time of their visitation they shall perish The pronoun
may be applied to idols or to the Chaldeans: when the time of visitation shall come; that is, when God shall punish the enemies of his Church, then their idols shall perish: or, when the time shall come for God to visit the idols, they shall perish. Either sense may be admitted; and indeed as to the subject in hand, there is no difference.
The Israelites might have objected and said, ``How is it then that false gods, whom men have devised for themselves, are worshipped, and are in great esteem and highly regarded? How does God suffer and overlook this?'' The Israelites might have raised an objection of this kind. Therefore the Prophet answers them, They shall perish; but it shall be at the time of visitation 272 It is an exhortation to patience, that 271So, substantially, is the version of the Sept., Vulg., Syr., and Arab., — "ridiculous — worthy of laughter — foolish — ludicrous." But the word means no such thing. The verb {{תעה means to wander, to err, to go astray; in Niphal, to be led astray, to be deceived; and Hiphil, to lead astray, to seduce, to deceive; and it is a Hiphil participle in Genesis 27:12. It is here a reduplicate noun; and Blayney takes it as referring to persons, and not as an abstract noun --- those who greatly err; and this is the best view, as the Prophet has been throughout describing the idol-makers --- Vanity are they (i.e., the idols,) The work of the grossly deluded: At the time of their visitation they shall perish; that is, the grossly deluded. He had before threatened ruin to idols; but he now threatens their makers. --- Ed.
272Scott quotes a sermon of Mede, in which he says, "Ye have heard the state of the times, wherein this prophecy is commanded; now let us consider the event. We have heard of the