Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
otherwise God's rigor would have consumed them all, from the least to the greatest, according to what is also said by Isaiah, ``I have tried thee, but not as gold and silver, for thou wouldest have been consumed.'' (Isaiah 48:10)
God then so deals with miserable sinners, that he regards what they can bear, and not what they deserve. This is simply what the Prophet means. 285
But we may hence learn, that there is no one who can bear the strict rigour of God; and that therefore our only asylum is his mercy; not that he may pardon us altogether: for it is good for us to be chastised by his hand; but that he may chastise us only according to his paternal kindness. It follows ---
Jeremiah 10:25
25. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.
25. Effunde iram tuam super gentes, quae te non noverunt, et super cognationes (vel, familias) quae nomen tuum non invocaverunt; quia comederunt Jacob, comederunt inquam ipsum, et consumpserunt eum, et tabernacula ejus vastarunt.
The Prophet confirms his prayer by this reason --- that God had sufficient ground for executing his vengeance on the wicked and ungodly heathens who were alienated from him; and there is no doubt but that he had respect to the promise to which we have referred; for the Prophet knew that what had been said once to David was promised to the whole Church throughout all ages. Hence He reminds God, as it were, of the difference which he had made between domestics and foreigners; as though he had said, ``O Lord, though it is right and also useful for our salvation to be chastised by thy hand, yet thou dost not indiscriminately visit with vengeance the sins of men; for thou hast promised paternally to chastise thy children: but as to aliens, thou art their judge, so that they may be wholly destroyed. Now then, O Lord, shew that this has not been said in vain; and as thou hast been pleased to adopt us as thy peculiar people, forgive us according to thy paternal kindness.'' Hence we see that the Prophet did not inconsiderately pour forth his prayer into the air, but had a regard to God's promise, and referred to that difference which God himself was pleased to make between his Church and unbelievers.
He then says, Pour forth thy wrath on the nations who know not thee: and he exaggerates what he says by adding, that Jacob had been devoured by these heathen nations as by wild beasts; as though he had said, ``We have indeed sinned, O
Lord; but (lost thou shew thyself to be the Judge of the world for our destruction, and yet sparest the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans, who have so cruelly
285The Septuagint and Arabic render this verse as though spoken by the people, "chastise us," etc., and the last clause, "lest thou make us few." The Targum has, "chastise them," and, "lest they be diminished." These are interpretations and not versions. The Vulgate and the Syriac render the Hebrew literally, "chastise me," and the last clause, "lest thou reduce me to nothing," or, according to the Syriac, "to a small number," which is literally the original; and this verb clearly shews that this verse was spoken, as Calvin observes, in the name of the people: but diminution, and not destruction, is meant, as the verb has never the latter meaning. Hence our version is wrong, and also Blayney's, "lest thou crush me to atoms." Diminution, and not annihilation, is what the word means; and this diminution was one of the judgments that would come upon them in case of disobedience, as mentioned by Moses, Leviticus 26:22. — Ed.