John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 15:13

"Thy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders." — Jeremiah 15:13 (ASV)

But, there is a difference among interpreters as to the word גבול gebul. I indeed allow that it means a border; but Jeremiah, as I think, when he intended to state things that are different, used different forms of speech; but as the construction is the same, I do not see how the word can mean the borders of the land. I therefore think that it is to be taken here metaphorically for counsels, as if he had said, “On account of all your wicked deeds and on account of all your ends, that is, of all your counsels, I will make your wealth and your treasures a plunder.” For true is that saying of the heathen poet,

There is something where you go and to which you level your bow.

When we undertake any business, we have some end in view. Then the Prophet calls their adulteries, frauds, rapine, violence and murders, wicked deeds; but he calls their counsels, borders, such counsels as they craftily devised, by which they manifested their depravity and baseness.

Then, in the first place, he declares that God would be a just avenger against their wicked deeds and against all the ends which the Jews had proposed to themselves; and at the same time he points out and mentions the kind of punishment they were to have—that the Lord would give as plunder all their wealth and treasures, and that without exchanging; some read, “without price,” and consider the meaning to be that the Jews would be so worthless that no one would buy them: but this is too refined.

I do not doubt that the Prophet intimates that whatever the Jews possessed would become a prey to their enemies, so that it would be taken away from them without any price or bartering; as if he had said, “Your enemies will freely plunder all that you have without any permission from you, and will regard as their own, even by the right of victory, whatever you think you have so laid up as never to be taken away.” He afterward adds—