John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 2:13

"For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." — Jeremiah 2:13 (ASV)

If a reason is given here why the Prophet had commanded the heavens to be astonished and terrified, then we must understand the words as For two evils have my people done: but I rather think that the preceding verse is connected with the former verses. The Prophet had said, “Go to the farthest lands, and see whether any nation has changed its gods, even though they are mere inventions.” I think then the subject is closed with the exclamation in the preceding verse, when the Prophet says, Be astonished, you heavens.

It then follows, Surely, two evils have my people done, even these—they have forsaken me—and then, “they sought for themselves false gods.” When anyone forsakes an old friend and connects himself with a new one, it is a wicked and base conduct. But when there is no compensation, folly, frivolity, and madness are all united in it.

If I despise what I know to be beneficial to me, and embrace what I understand will be to my harm, does not such a choice prove madness? This then is what the Prophet now means, when he says that the people had sinned not only by departing from the true God, but also by going over, without any compensation, to idols, which could bestow no good on them.

He says that they had done two evils: the first was, they had forsaken God; and the other, they had fallen away to false and imaginary gods. But to further amplify their sin, he uses an analogy, and says that God is a fountain of living waters; and he compares idols to perforated or broken cisterns, which hold no water.

When someone leaves a living fountain and seeks a cistern, it is a proof of great folly, for cisterns are dry unless water comes from elsewhere. But a fountain has its own spring; and further, where there is a vein perpetually flowing and a perennial stream of waters, the water is more wholesome and much better.

The waters which rain brings into cisterns are never as wholesome as those which flow from their own natural source. And when the very containers for water are full of cracks, what must they be but empty? Therefore, God charges the people with madness, because He was forsaken—He who was a fountain, and a fountain of living waters—and further, because the people sought useless things when they pursued their idols.

For what is to be found in idols? Some likeness; for the superstitious think that they are not laboring in vain when they worship false gods, and they hope to gain some benefit. There are, then, some resemblances to what is true in false religions. Therefore, the Prophet compares false gods to wells, because they were made hollow, as if suitable to hold water; but there was not a drop of water in them, as they were broken cisterns.

We now understand what the Prophet meant: that we cannot possibly be free from guilt when we leave the only true God, as in Him is found for us a fullness of all blessings, and from Him we may draw what may fully satisfy us. When, therefore, we despise the bounty of God, which is sufficient to make us in every way happy, how great must be our ingratitude and wickedness?

Yet God remains ever like Himself. Since He has called Himself the fountain of living waters, we shall to this day find Him to be so, unless He is prevented by our wickedness and neglect. But the Prophet adds another crime: for when we fall away from God, our own delusions deceive us. Whatever may appear to us at first glance to be wells or fountains, yet when thirst comes, we shall not find a drop of water in all our inventions, they being nothing else but dry cavities.