John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 15:7

"And I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved [them] of children, I have destroyed my people; they returned not from their ways." — Jeremiah 15:7 (ASV)

He confirms here the same truth. The verb which I have rendered in the future may be rendered in the past tense, but I still think it is a prediction of what was to come. But as to what follows, I have bereaved, I have destroyed, it must, I have no doubt, be referred to the past.

He then says, I will fan or scatter them, for the verb זרה (zare), means to scatter, but as with a fan follows (the word is derived from the same root), I wish to retain the repetition. Then it is, I will fan them with a fan through all the gates of the earth. Many interpret this as “through the cities,” which I do not approve, as it seems a lifeless explanation.

On the contrary, the Prophet means by “the gates of the earth” all countries, because the Jews thought that they would always be safe and quiet in their own cities. By taking a part for the whole, gates do indeed, as it appears elsewhere, signify cities. But as the Jews trusted in their own defences and thought that they could never be drawn out from these quiet nests, the word “gates” is strikingly used to signify any kind of exit.

God says, I will fan you, but where? Through all gates of the earth, or through all countries and all deserts; wherever there is a region open for you, you must pass through it. You are accustomed to pass in and out through your gates, and you have your quiet homes there, but in the future you will have other cities, other gates—indeed, all countries and all deserts, all ways, and, in short, every sort of passage.

Then follows, I have bereaved, I have destroyed my people; they have not returned from their own ways. Here, no doubt, he condemns the Jews for their insensibility, because they had not repented after being warned by grievous judgments, which God had executed partly on them and partly on their kinsmen. For the kingdom of Israel had been cut off: when they saw the ten tribes driven into exile, should they not have been terrified by such an example? Hence also another Prophet says,

“There is no one who mourns for the bruising of Joseph” (Amos 6:6).

God had set before their eyes a sad and dreadful spectacle; they should then have acknowledged, in the destruction of Israel, what they themselves deserved, and should have turned to God.

It is then this extreme hardness for which God upbraids them. For though he had bereaved his people, the ten tribes, and destroyed them, and though the kingdom of Judah had also been greatly afflicted, yet they did not return from their own ways.

Thus it became all the more evident that they deserved the severest judgments, as they had become completely irreclaimable. He then adds—