John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 16

This is a new discourse, which still is not unlike many others, except in this particular, that the Prophet was not to marry a wife nor beget children in the land. But as to the general subject, he now repeats what he had often said before and confirmed in many places. But the prohibition to marry was full of meaning; it was to show that the people were wholly given up to destruction. The law of man’s creation, we know, was this:

“Increase and multiply.” (Genesis 1:22; Genesis 8:17; Genesis 9:1, 7)

As then mankind are perpetuated by marriage, here on the contrary God shows that that land was unworthy of this common and even general blessing enjoyed by the whole race of man. It is the same as if He had said, “They indeed still live, but a quick destruction awaits them, for I will deprive them of the universal favor which I have until now shown to all mankind.”

Marriage is the preservation of the human race: Take not to you a wife and beget no children. We therefore see that in the person of Jeremiah God intended to show the Jews that they deserved to be exterminated from the earth. This is the import of this prophecy.

It may however be asked, whether the Prophet was unmarried? But this has nothing to do with the subject, for he received this command in a vision. And though he might not have been unmarried, he might still have proclaimed this prophecy: that God had forbidden him to marry and to beget children.

At the same time, I think it was probable that the Prophet was not married. For as he walked naked and carried a yoke on his neck, so also his celibacy might have been intended to be, as it were, a living representation to produce an effect on the Jews.

But, as I have already said, we need not contend about this matter. Everyone then is at liberty to judge as he pleases; I only suggest what I deem most probable.

But the reason why God forbade his Prophet to marry follows: because they were all consigned to destruction. We therefore learn that celibacy is not here commended, as some foolish men have imagined from what is here said; but it is the same as though God had said, “There is no reason for anyone to set his mind on begetting an offspring, or to think that this would be to his advantage: whoever is wise will abstain from marriage, as he has death before his eyes, and is as it were near to his grave.” The destruction then of the whole people, and the desolation and solitude of the whole land, are the things which God in these words sets forth.

At the same time, they are not threatened with a common kind of death, for he says that they were to die by the deaths of sicknesses. He then denounces on them continual languor, which would cause them to pine away with the greatest pain: sudden death would have been more tolerable. Therefore David says, while complaining of the prosperity of the ungodly, that there

“were no bands in their death.” (Psalms 73:4)

And the same thing is found in the book of Job, that in a moment of time they descend to the grave; that is, that they flourish and prosper during life, and then die without any pain (Job 21:13). Therefore Julius Caesar, shortly before he was killed, called this kind a happy death (εὐθανασίαν), for he thought it a happy thing to expire suddenly. And this is what is implanted in men by nature. Therefore Jeremiah, in order to amplify God’s vengeance, says that they would die by the deaths of sicknesses; that is, that they would be worn out by daily pains, and pine away until they died.

He adds, They shall not be lamented nor buried. We have seen elsewhere, and we shall hereafter see (Jeremiah 22), that it is a proof of a curse when the dead are not buried, and when no one laments their death: for it is the common duty of humanity for relations and friends who survive, to mourn for the dead and to bury them.

But the Prophet seems to mean also something further. I do not indeed exclude this, that God would deprive them of the honor of burial and of mourning; but he seems also to intimate, that the destruction of men would be so great that there would be none to perform these offices of humanity.

For we lament the dead when leisure is allowed us; but when many are slain in war they are not individually lamented, and then their carcasses lie confused, and one grave is not sufficient for such a number. The Prophet therefore means, that so great would be the slaughter in Judea, that none would be buried, that none would be lamented.

The verb which he uses means properly to lament, which is more than to weep: and we have said elsewhere, that in those countries there were more ceremonies than with us; for all the orientals were much given to various gesticulations. Therefore they were not satisfied with tears, but they added lamentation, as though they were in despair.

But the Prophet speaks according to the customs of the age, without approving of this excess of grief. As they were accustomed not simply to bewail the dead, but also to show their grief by lamentation, he says, “Their offices shall now cease, for there will not be graves enough for so many thousands; and then if anyone wished to mourn, where would he begin?”

We also know that men’s hearts become hardened when many die in this way through pestilence or war. The import of the whole is that God’s wrath would not be moderate, for He would, in a manner, empty the land by driving them all away, so that there would be none remaining.

God did indeed preserve the elect, though as it were by a miracle; and He afterwards preserved them in exile as in a grave, when they were removed from their own country.

He then adds, That they would be as dung on the face of the land. He speaks reproachfully of their carcasses, as though he had said, “They shall be the putridity of the land.” As then they had by their faith contaminated the land during life, God declares that after death they would become fetid like dung.

Therefore we learn, as I have before said, that it was an evidence of God’s curse, when carcasses were left unburied; for as God has created us in His own image, so in death He would have some evidence of the dignity and excellence with which He has favored us beyond brute animals, still to remain.

We however know that temporal punishments happen even to the faithful, but they are turned to their good, for the Psalmist complains that the bodies of the godly were cast forth and became food to the birds of heaven (Psalms 79:2). Though this is true, yet these two things are by no means inconsistent: that it is a sign of God’s wrath when the dead are not buried, and that a temporal punishment does no harm to God’s elect; for all evils, as it is well known, turn out to them for good.

It is added, By the sword and by famine shall they be consumed; that is, some shall perish by the sword, and some by famine, according to what we have seen before:

“Those for the sword, to the sword;
those for the famine, to the famine.” (Jeremiah 15:2)

Then he mentions what we have already referred to, Their carcasses shall be for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven. 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 carcasses 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 shows 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 You anticipate us by Your word, so that we may not experience Your eternal severity—O grant, that we may become teachable, and be so displeased with our vices, that we may not provoke Your vengeance more and more, but hasten to seek reconciliation with You. And that relying on the Mediator whom You have given us, we may flee to Your mercy, until having been cleansed from all our filth, we shall at length be received into Your celestial kingdom, and there appear before You in that parity from which we are still very distant, and shall enjoy that glory which Your only-begotten Son has obtained for us by His own blood.—Amen.

As Jeremiah was forbidden at the beginning of the chapter to take a wife, because a dreadful devastation of the whole land was very near, so now God confirms what He had previously said: that the slaughter would be so great that no one would be found to perform the common office of lamenting the dead. At the same time, He now intimates something more grievous—that those who perished would be unworthy of any kind office. As He had said before, Their carcasses shall be cast to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven; so now in this place He intimates that their deaths would be so ignominious that they would be deprived of the honor of a grave and would be buried, as it is said in another place, like asses.

But when God forbids His prophet to mourn, we are not to understand that He refers to an excess of grief, as when God intends to moderate grief when He takes away from us our parents, our relatives, or our friends. For the subject here is not the private feeling of Jeremiah. God only declares that the land would be so desolate that hardly one would survive to mourn for the dead.

He says, Enter not into the house of mourning. Some render מרזה, merezach, a funeral feast; and it is probable, indeed, it may be gathered from the context, that such feasts were made when anyone died. And the same custom, we see, has been observed by other nations, but for a different purpose.

When the Romans celebrated a funeral feast, their object was to shake off grief and, in a manner, to convert the dead into gods. Hence Cicero condemns Vatinius because he came clothed in black to the feast of Q. Arius (Orat. pro L. Mur.), and elsewhere he says that Tuberonis was laughed at and everywhere repulsed because he covered the beds with goat’s skins when Q. Maximus made a feast at the death of his uncle Africanus.

These feasts among the Romans, then, were full of rejoicing. But among the Jews, it appears, when they lamented the dead who were their relatives, they invited children and widows so that there might be some relief to their sorrow.

However this may be, God intimates by this figurative language that the Jews, when they perished in great numbers, would be deprived of that common practice because they were unworthy of having any survivors to bewail them.

Neither go, He says, to lament, nor be moved on their account. And why? For I have taken away My peace from this people—that is, all prosperity, for under the term peace, the Jews included whatever was desirable.

God then says that He had taken away peace from them, and His peace, because He had pronounced that wicked nation accursed. He then adds that He had taken away His kindness and His mercies.

For the prophet might have raised an objection and said that this was not consistent with the nature of God, who testifies that He is ready to show mercy. But God meets this objection and intimates that there was now no place for kindness and mercy, for the impiety of the people had become past all hope.

He pursues the same subject: he says that all would die indiscriminately, the common people as well as the chief men, and that none would be exempt from destruction. For God would make a great slaughter, both of the lower orders and also of the higher, who excelled in wealth, in honor, and dignity: Die shall the great and the small.

It often happens in changes that the great are punished, and sometimes the common people perish while the nobles are spared. But God declares that the destruction would be such that their enemies would make no distinction between the common people and the higher ranks, and that if they escaped the hands of their enemies, the pestilence or the famine would prove their ruin.

He adds, They shall not bury them, nor beat their breast for them; and then, they shall not eat themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. This is not mentioned by the Prophet to commend what the people did, nor did he consider that in this respect they observed the command of the law, for God had forbidden them to imitate the corrupt customs of the heathens (Leviticus 21:1).

We have already said that the orientals were much given to external ceremonies, so that there was no moderation in their lamentations; therefore, God intended to correct this excess. But the Prophet here is not referring to the command that the Jews were to moderate their grief. What then?

He meant to show, as I have already reminded you, that the slaughters would be so great that they would cause hardness and insensibility, being so immense as to stun the feelings of men. When anyone dies, friends and neighbors meet and show respect to his memory. But when pestilence prevails, or when all perish by famine, the greater part become hardened and unmindful of themselves and others, and the offices of humanity are no longer observed.

God then shows that such would be the devastation of the land that the Jews, as though callous and hardened, would no longer lament for one another. In short, he shows that together with these dreadful slaughters, such insensibility and hardness would prevail among the Jews that no husband would think of his wife, and no father of his children, but that all of them would be so astonished by their own calamities as to become like wild beasts.

He says further, They shall not cut themselves nor pull off their hairs, as they used to do. These things are mentioned as they were commonly done; it cannot be concluded from this that they were approved by God, for God’s design was not to pronounce a judgment on their lamentation, on the tearing off of the hair, or on their incisions. It is indeed certain that these practices proceeded from the impetuous feelings of men and were tokens of impatience; but as I have said, God does not speak here of what was lawful, but of what men were accustomed to do.

Regarding the part where he says that God had taken away His kindness and His mercies, God does not mean that He had changed His nature. Rather, His purpose was to remove any opportunity for complaint from those who might protest. For we know that when God’s hand presses hard on people, intending to make them rightly deplore their miseries, they are nevertheless sufficiently ready to say that God visits them with too much severity.

He therefore shows that they were unworthy of kindness and mercies. At the same time, He reminded them that there was no reason for hypocrites to entertain any hope, because Scripture so often commends the kindness of God and His mercy. For since they accumulated sins upon sins, God could not do otherwise than take extreme measures with them.

With regard to the seventh verse, we may learn from it what I have already referred to: that the Jews held funeral feasts so that children and widows might receive some comfort in their sorrow. For the Prophet calls it the cup of consolations when friends kindly attended. They also had some ridiculous gesticulations, for no doubt laughter was often provoked by mourners among the Jews.

But we see that people vied with one another in lamenting for the dead, for it was deemed a shame not to show grief at the death of their friends. When tears did not flow, when the nearest relations did not howl for the dead, they were considered inhuman. Consequently, there was much dissimulation in their mourning, and it was foolishly regarded as a source of comfort to offer the cup of consolation. But as I have said before, the Prophet here did not point out what was right, but borrowed his words from what was commonly practiced.

Here the Prophet refers to other feasts, where great joy prevailed. The meaning, then, is that the people were consigned to destruction, so that it was best to stay as far away from them as possible. Therefore, Jeremiah is forbidden to go to them at all, so that he would not associate with them in either joy or sorrow. It was as if he had been told: ‘Have nothing more to do with this people. If they lament their dead, leave them, for they are unworthy of any kindness. And if they hold joyful feasts, stay far from them, for all interaction with them is accursed.’ So, we now understand why the Prophet spoke of grief, lamentation, and mourning, and then mentioned joy. He adds afterward.

This verse contains a reason for the preceding—that every connection with that people would be accursed. Yet he states one thing more expressly—that the time had come in which they were already deprived of all joy. For the ungodly, even when God most severely threatens them, strengthen themselves in their security; therefore, God intended to give them some warning, so that they might know beforehand that the most grievous calamities were near, by which every joy and gladness would be taken away.

He then says that the God of hosts and the God of Israel had spoken. At the same time, He deprived them of all hope, even though he called himself the God of Israel. Hypocrites were accustomed either to despise the power of God or to abuse His goodness. If God had not restrained them, they would have dismissed as nothing what the prophets threatened; and why was this?

This was because they belittled, as far as they could, the power of God. Therefore, God says that he is the God of hosts. But when, in their pride and haughtiness, they could not overthrow, so to speak, the power of God, they then resorted to another refuge: they promised themselves that he would deal leniently with them, and thus they deceived themselves.

So, on the other hand, God calls himself here the God of Israel, so that they might know that it was of no benefit to them that he had adopted the descendants of Abraham. For they were not the children of Abraham, but aliens, as they had departed from Abraham's piety and faith. This served as a preface.

Now when he says, הנני, enni, Behold me, he shows that the Jews had no reason to delay or to indulge in vain confidence, for vengeance had already come. Behold me, he says; he thus steps forward and testifies that he is already prepared to execute his judgment.

Behold me, he says, taking away from this place, before your eyes, and in your days, etc.; their destruction would happen in a short time and before their eyes.

I am taking away, he says, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. Here, by stating a part for the whole, he intimates that they would become like the dead rather than the living. For the continuance of the human race is preserved by marriage, as through offspring, humankind is, so to speak, born again, which would otherwise perish daily.

Since, then, no more time was left for marriages, it was a sign of final destruction. This is what the Prophet intimates when he says that God would cause the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride to cease, so that there would be no more congratulations.