John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 10:8

"But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols! it is but a stock." — Jeremiah 10:8 (ASV)

The Prophet shows here, in one sentence, that the wisest in the whole world could be proved guilty of the greatest madness, or of a twofold folly, because they willingly worshipped the trunks of trees and stones; for under one kind he includes the other. He says there is no one, however intelligent, who does not approve of the superstitions of the people, who does not bend the knee before wood or stone.

Indeed, there have been a few in the world who ridiculed such sottishness, but no one dared openly to condemn it, and no one introduced anything better. Even the Platonists hold that the Greeks did not without reason invent gods like men, and they say that there was not as much judgment among the barbarians to form such ideas of the gods as were suitable to their nature.

However this may have been, it is evident that the grossest superstitions of the nations were always approved by all their wise men.

The Prophet then shows that there was no need of a long discussion to discover the vanity of the wise. In one, in one thing, he says—and there is emphasis in this word—when he says, In one thing they are foolish and fatuous. For a contrast is to be understood, as if he had said, “I will not here gather many accusations against them to expose their folly; one thing is sufficient. This one sentence is enough to condemn them—that wood is the teaching of vanities.”

We have stated what the Prophet means: that all the wise who, along with the common people, worshipped gods made of wood and stone were very foolish. But we must notice the meaning of the expression, The teaching of vanities is the wood. It is, as we have said, an instance of a part being put for the whole, for under “wood” Jeremiah includes statues of stone and others made of different materials; it is as if he had said, “Every form or effigy representing a god is the teaching of vanities.”

He takes this as granted. Yet, as we have recently stated, there had been a great and fierce debate among the wise men on this subject. But the Prophet did not deign to contend or seriously dispute with them, for the thing itself was clear enough: that nothing can be more absurd than to worship the trunk of a tree or a stone.

Now we can draw a general truth from this passage: that when men seek to represent God under any visible form, they yield to the delusions and deceptions of Satan.

That sentence of Gregory to Serenus, the Bishop of Marseilles, is well known. When that good man tore down the images which he saw led to ungodly worship and cleansed the churches of Marseilles from such pollutions, Gregory, though a pious man, yet wrote very foolishly.

He wrote that Serenus acted rightly and wisely in forbidding images to be worshipped, but that he nevertheless acted inconsiderately by emptying the churches of them; for, Gregory said, “they are the books of the simple.” This is the conclusion of his letter.

And it is always on the lips of Papists that images are the books of the simple. At the same time, I wish they would retain this truth acknowledged by Gregory: that they ought not to be worshipped. They worship and adore them, as is well known, in the place of God.

But as I have already said, that answer of Gregory was puerile and foolish, for we hear what the Prophet says: that in wood and stone and in every outward representation there is vanity, as Habakkuk also, in Habakkuk 2, where he speaks of idols, calls an idol the teacher of vanity.

Every statue, every image by which foolish men seek to represent God, is a teacher of falsehood. So our Prophet says that the teaching of vanities is found in all statues, because God is thus misrepresented. For what can be in wood or stone that is like the infinite power of God, or his incomprehensible essence and majesty?

Men, therefore, offer a serious affront to God when they thus deform him, as Paul also says in Romans 1:25, that the truth was thus changed into falsehood—that is, when he is supposed to have anything similar to what external and dead figures possess.

The same Paul further reasons in Acts 17:29, when he says, Do ye think that God is like to wood or stone, to silver or gold?

And Paul’s argument was suitable at that time, for he was dealing with heathens. He did not refer to the law, though he might have quoted a passage in Deuteronomy where God reminded the people that he so appeared to them that they saw no likeness.

He might also have referred to the testimonies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other Prophets. But as he addressed heathens, even the Athenians, he says, “One of your poets has said that we are the offspring of God.”

If we are then, Paul says, the offspring of God, do you not draw God down from his celestial throne when you seek to depict him according to your fancies and suppose that he lies hidden in wood or stone, in silver and gold?

For some life at least appears in men; they are endowed with mind and intelligence, and so far they bear some likeness to God. But dead wood and stone, which are devoid of sense—and also gold and silver, which are metals without reason and have no life—what likeness, Paul asks, can these have to God?

This subject might be discussed more fully, but I am merely explaining what the Prophet means, and also showing the meaning of his doctrine and how it may be applied for general instruction.