Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
could not have said, "We have been deceived," — how so? "For ye have, he says, followed vanity; and vanity alone was the reason why ye have departed from me." 29 I wish I could proceed farther; but I have some business to which I was called even before the lecture.
PRAYER Grant, Almighty God, that as thou continuest at this day, both morning and evening, to invite us to thyself, and assiduously exhortest us to repent, and testifiest that thou art ready to be reconciled to us, provided we flee to thy mercy, — O grant, that we may not close our ears and reject this thy great kindness, but that remembering thy gratuitous election, the chief of all the favors thou hast been pleased to shew us, we may strive so to devote ourselves to thee, that thy name may be glorified through our whole life: and should it be that we at any time turn aside from thee, may we quickly return to the right way, and become submissive to thy holy admonitions, that it may thus appear that we have been so chosen by thee and called as to desire to continue in the hope of that salvation, to which thou invitest us, and which is prepared for us in heaven, through Christ our Lord. — Amen.
Lecture Fifth WE heard yesterday God's complaint, and his expostulation with his people. He said in short, that if they came before any judge there were reasons sufficient to condemn their ingratitude, and that they were without excuse, because they had gone after vanity and were become vain; or, in other words, that they had without a cause forsaken him, and were carried away only by their own intentions. It now follows — Jeremiah 2:6-7 6. Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
6. Et non dixerunt, (hoc est, non cogitarunt apud se,) Ubi est Jehova, qui eduxit nos e terra Egypti, et proficisci fecit nos per desertum in terra solitaria (vel, vasta) et squalida, in terra horribili et umbrae mortis; in terra per quam vir non transtit, et in qua non habitavit homo?
7. And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.
7. Et introduxi vos in terram fertilem, ad comedendos fructus ejus (vel, ad
29The literal rendering of this verse is as follows, — 5. Thus saith Jehovah, What have your fathers found in me? Oppression? For they have gone far from me, And have followed after vanity, And have become vain. The word {,{שולoppression, injustice, or tyranny, is so placed in the sentence that it cannot be construed with ``what.'' The word ``vanity'' means often an idol, and it is so considered here by the Targum, by Piscator, Grotius, Gataker, and others. It is often found in the plural, ``vanities,'' as it is here in the Septuagint; see Deuteronomy
32:21; 1 Kings 16:26; Psalm 31:6: but it is here the poetical singular. They ``became vain,'' that is, foolish, sottish, having no more sense or reason than their idols, as idolaters are represented in Psalm 115:8. Their senselessness is set forth in the next verse. An idol is especially called ``vanity,'' because it can do no good and avails nothing: deluded imagination alone gives it all its efficacy and power. Samuel gives a true account of idols, 1 Samuel 12:21. But as long as the devil deceives and deludes the world, idols and images will be in repute, though they are in themselves wholly useless and worthless, while yet they prove ruinous to the souls of men. --- Ed