John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 16:20

"Shall a man make unto himself gods, which yet are no gods?" — Jeremiah 16:20 (ASV)

Some superficially explain this verse, as though the Prophet said that men are doubly foolish who form gods for themselves from wood, stone, gold, or silver, because these materials cannot change their nature. For whatever men may imagine, the stone remains a stone, and the wood remains wood. The meaning they then elicit from the Prophet’s words is this: that the things devised by the foolish imaginations of men are not gods.

But the Prophet reasons differently: “Can he who is not God make a god?” That is, “Can he who is created be the creator?” No one can give, according to the common proverb, what he does not have; and there is no divine power in man. We indeed see what our condition is; there is nothing more frail and perishable. Since man, then, is all vanity and has nothing solid in him, can he create a god for himself?

This is the Prophet’s argument: it is drawn from the absurd, so that men might finally acknowledge not only their presumption but also their monstrous madness. For when anyone is asked about his condition, he must necessarily confess that he is a creature and, as the ancients have said, an altogether ephemeral being whose life is like a shadow.

Since, then, men are constrained by the real state of things to make such a confession, how is it that they dare to form gods for themselves? God does not create a god; He creates men. He has created angels; He has created the heavens and the earth. Yet He does not exert His power to create a new god. Now, what is man? Nothing but vanity. And yet he will create a god, even though he himself is not God.

There is no doubt that the Prophet here, with renewed rigor, boldly attacks the Jews. For it seems evident that when this temptation assailed him—“What can this mean? What will ultimately happen when God rejects the race of Abraham whom He had chosen?”—he turned to God. But now, having recovered his confidence, he inveighs against the ungodly and says, can man create gods for himself while he himself is not a god?

The change in number should not be considered strange, for when there is an indefinite declaration, the number is often changed, both in Greek and Latin. If some particular person were intended, the Prophet would not have said, And they themselves are not gods; But as he speaks of mankind generally and indefinitely, the sentence reads better when he says, “Shall man make a god? and they”—that is, men—“are not gods.” I have added this remark because it is probable that those who consider idols to be intended in the last clause have been led astray by this change in number.