Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
those for the famine, to the famine.'' (Jeremiah 15:2)
Then he mentions what we have already referred to, Their carcases shall be for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven 413 He here intimates, that it would be a manifest sign of his vengeance, when the Jews pined away in their miseries, when the sword consumed some of them, and famine destroyed others, and not only so, but when another curse after death followed them, for the Lord would inflict judgment on their carcases by not allowing them to be buried. How this is to be understood I have already stated; for God's judgments as to the reprobate are evident; but when the godly and the righteous fall under similar punishment, God turns to good what seems in itself to be the sign of a curse. Though famine is a sign of a curse, and also the sword, yet we know that many of God's children perish by famine and by the sword. But in temporal punishments this modification is ever to be remembered, --- that God shews himself to be a righteous Judge as to the ungodly and wicked; --- and that while he humbles his own people, he is not yet angry with them, but consults their benefit, so that what is in itself adverse to them is turned to their advantage.
PRAYER
Grant, Almighty God, that as thou anticipatest us by thy word, so that we may not experience thy eternal severity, --- O grant, that we may become teachable, and be so displeased with our vices, that we may not provoke more and more thy vengeance, but hasten to seek reconciliation with thee, and that relying on the Mediator whom thou hast given us, we may flee to thy mercy, until having been cleansed from all our filth, we shall at length be received into thy celestial kingdom, and there appear before thee in that parity from which we are as yet very distant, and shall enjoy that glory which thine only-begotten Son has obtained for us by his own blood. --- Amen.
Lecture Sixty-Third
Jeremiah 16:5
5. For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies.
5. Quia sic dicit Jehova, Ne ingrediaris domum luctus, et ne eas ad plangendum, et ne movearis propter illos; quia abstuli pacem meam a populo hoc, dicit Jehova, clementiam et miserationes.
As Jeremiah was forbidden at the beginning of the chapter to take a wife, for a dreadful devastation of the whole land was very nigh; so now God confirms what he had previously said, that so great would be the slaughter, that none would be found to perform the common office of lamenting the dead: at the same time he intimates now something more grievous, --- that they who perished would be unworthy of any kind office. As he had said before, ``Their carcases shall be cast to the ``beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven;'' so now in this place he intimates, that their 413I would render the fourth verse thus, — By deaths of wastings shall they die; They shall not be lamented, nor buried; As dung on the face of the ground shall they be: Yea, by the sword and by the famine shall they be consumed, And their carcase shall be for meat To the bird of heaven and to the beast of the earth. The latter part is a fuller explanation of what was to take place. "As dung," so the Syriac; they were scattered like dung. They were to be cast here and there, to be devoured by rapacious birds and beasts. — Ed.