John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 13:10

"This evil people, that refuse to hear my words, that walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing." — Jeremiah 13:10 (ASV)

The Prophet said, according to what we observed yesterday, that the people would be like the belt which he had hidden in a hole and found putrefied. But now the cause is expressed why God had resolved to treat them with so much severity. He then says that He would be an avenger, because the Jews had refused to obey His voice and preferred their own inventions in walking after the hardness, or the wickedness of their own heart.

Therefore, we see that the cause of this calamity was that the people had rejected the teaching of the prophets. This indeed was far more grievous than if they had fallen away through mistake or ignorance, as we often see that people go miserably astray when the teaching of the truth is taken away.

But when God shows the way, prescribes what is right, and by His servants exhorts His people, it is an inexcusable hardness if they repudiate such kindness. However, as this subject has been extensively treated elsewhere, I will only touch on it briefly now.

We see, then, that God threatens His people with extreme calamity because they would not bear to be taught by His prophets. Then He adds that they had walked after the wickedness of their own heart, and had walked after foreign gods. First, He complains that they had been so refractory as to prefer to obey their own impious inclinations rather than to be ruled by good and salutary counsels.

But it was necessary to specify their crime, for if the Prophet had only spoken of their hardness, they might have had their objections ready. However, when he said that they had walked after foreign gods, there was no longer any room for evasion.

The word 'to walk' refers to a way. This metaphor indeed relates to something else, for people do not usually take a course without going somewhere; we must, therefore, have some destination in view when we walk along any path.

Now, a contrast is to be understood here: the people despised the way God pointed out to them and preferred to follow their own errors. God was ready to guide the Jews by His own law; but they chose rather, as I have said, to abandon themselves to their own errors, as if intentionally.

He says that they had walked after alien gods, that they might serve them, and prostrate themselves before them;—for such is the meaning of the last verb. The Prophet, no doubt, repeats the same thing, for 'to serve' is not only to obey but also to worship.

And thus is refuted that folly of the Papists, who imagine that worship (duliam) is not inconsistent with true religion. For they say that service (latriam) is due only to God, but that worship may be given to angels, to statues, or to dead men, as though God, indeed, in condemning superstitions, did not use the word עבד obed, to serve.

It therefore follows that it is extremely ridiculous to devise two sorts of worship: one peculiar to God, and another common to angels as well as to humans and dead idols. We now understand the meaning of this verse: the Prophet draws this conclusion, that the Jews would become like a useless or a putrefied belt.