John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 17:12

"A glorious throne, [set] on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary." — Jeremiah 17:12 (ASV)

Undoubtedly the Prophet refers to the unique favor which God granted to the Jews when He chose for Himself a dwelling place among them. It was an incomparable honor when God was pleased to dwell in the midst of that people. Hence, the Prophet exclaims that the throne of glory and of loftiness was the place of His sanctuary, which God had chosen in that land. But we must understand the Prophet's design; for the Holy Spirit sometimes commemorates God's blessings to raise the minds of men to confidence, or to rouse them to offer sacrifices of praise. Here then is a twofold purpose when Scripture sets God's blessings before us: first, that we may be fully persuaded that He will always be a Father to us, for He who begins is accustomed to bring His work to completion, according to what is said in Psalm 138:8,

The work of Your hands You will not forsake.

And then, Scripture sometimes encourages us to render thanks to God when it shows how bountifully He has dealt with us. But here is a reproof when the Prophet says that the glorious throne of God was among the Jews, as though God appeared there openly and in a visible form; for Judea, so to speak, was, as it were, a terrestrial heaven, because God had consecrated Mount Sion to Himself, that He might dwell there.

We now understand, then, why the Prophet here extols the dignity to which God had raised the Jews when He had commanded a temple to be built for Himself on Mount Sion. Some would have a particle of comparison understood: “As a throne of glory;” that is, as heaven itself in height, so is the place of our sanctuary. But we may take the words simply as they are.

We must at the same time repudiate the Rabbinical comment—that God, before the creation of the world, had built the temple, just as He had appointed the Messiah and other things. But these are foolish trifles. Yet this passage has afforded the Jews an occasion for inventing fables, for it is said from the beginning, מראשון merashun.

If the throne of God, that is, the sanctuary, [they say] was from the beginning, then it follows that it was created before heaven and earth. But this is disproved by this single consideration—that the Prophet is not speaking here of time but of the order of things. And this order is not according to the essence of things, but according to God's providence.

From the beginning, then, was the throne of God glorious in Judea, precisely because God, in His eternal counsel, had determined to choose the race of Abraham, and then to raise up in that nation the throne of David, and from there to extend salvation to the whole world. Predestination, therefore, is the antiquity of the throne of which the Prophet now speaks.

Hence, the most suitable view is this—that God had honored the Jews with a unique privilege because He had purposed to dwell among them no differently than in heaven, so that their condition became more excellent than all human glory.