John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 2:19

"Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter, that thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts." — Jeremiah 2:19 (ASV)

Here again, the Prophet confirms what I have previously stated—that the people would eventually find, willingly or unwillingly, what it was to depart from God. It is as though he had said, “Since you have not until now learned by so many evidences that your treachery is the cause of all your evils, God will heap evils on evils, that you may eventually know, even against your will, that you receive a reward due to your wickedness.” This is the sum of the whole.

But he says first, your wickedness shall chastise you, as though he had said that even if God did not ascend his tribunal, nor put out his hand to punish the people, yet judgment would be evident in their very sins. And this is much more powerful, and has greater weight in it, than if the Prophet had only said that God would inflict on the people a just punishment. Your wickedness, he says, shall chastise you; and a similar way of speaking is adopted by Isaiah.

“Stand;” he says, “against you shall your wickedness,” (Isaiah 3:9; Isaiah 59:12).

It is as though God had said, “If I were even to be silent and not to take upon myself the office of a judge, and if there were no other accuser, and no one to plead the cause, yet your wickedness will stand against you and fill you with shame.” To the same purpose is what is said here: your wickedness shall chastise you.

But we must consider the reason why the Prophet said this. There were then, we know, complaints in the mouths of many—that God was too rigid and severe. Since then they thus continually clamored against God, the Prophet repels such slanders and says that their wickedness was sufficient to account for the vengeance executed upon them. He says the same of their turnings aside; but what he had said generally before, he now expresses more particularly—that the people had withdrawn themselves from the worship of God and obedience to him. He therefore points out here the kind of wickedness of which they were guilty, as though he had said that there was no need of an accuser, of witnesses, or of a judge, but that the defections of the people alone would be sufficient to punish them.

He afterwards adds, “You shall know and see how wicked and bitter it is to forsake Jehovah your God.” These words are difficult in their construction, but we have already explained the meaning. “Your forsaking,” or your defection, means “that you have forsaken your God.” “And my fear was not on, or, in you.”

Here, again, the Prophet points out, as if with a finger, the sins of the people. He had previously spoken of their turnings aside, but he now mentions their defection—that the people had plainly and openly departed from the true God.

They, indeed, always continued some kind of worship in the Temple. But as the whole of religion was corrupted by many superstitions, and as there was no fidelity, no sincerity, and as they mingled the worship of idols with that of the true God, they had grievously departed from God, who is jealous of his honor, according to what is in the law, and allows no rivals (Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:14). We now then perceive the meaning of the Prophet.

He says, “You shall know that it is an evil and a bitter thing, etc.” This must be applied to punishment. He repeats what he had said before—that the evils which the people then suffered did not happen by chance, and that as they were overwhelmed with many bitter sorrows, the cause was not to be sought far away; for their bitterness, and whatever calamities they endured, flowed from their impiety. You shall then know by the reward itself; even experience will convince you what it is to depart from God. And he says, “from Jehovah your God,” or, to forsake Jehovah your God. For, if God had not made known his grace to the Israelites, their perverseness would not have been so detestable; but since they had found God to be a Father to them, and since he had so bountifully treated them, having been pleased to enter into a covenant with them, their wickedness was inexcusable.

And afterwards the person is changed: “And my fear was not in you.” Here at last the Prophet intimates that they were destitute of all sense of religion; for by the fear of God is meant reverence for his name. Men often fall, we know, through mistake, and are deceived by the craft of Satan; and when made thus miserable they are to be pitied.

But the Prophet shows here that the people were wholly undeserving of pardon. How so? Because there was no fear of God in them.

“You cannot,” he says, “object and say that you have been deceived, or make any pretext by which you may cover your wickedness: it is evident that you have acted shamelessly and basely in forsaking your God, for there was no fear of God in you.”

He adds at last, “says Jehovah of hosts:” by which words the Prophet gives more authority to what he had announced. For what he had said must have been very bitter to the people, and many of them, no doubt, according to their usual manner, shook their heads, for we know how insolent most of them were.

Hence the Prophet here openly declares that he was not the author of what he had said, but only the proclaimer; that it proceeded from God, and that he had spoken nothing but what God himself had commanded.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as you have until now shown to us so many favors,
since the time you have been pleased to adopt us as your people—
O grant, that we may not forget so great a kindness,
nor be led away by the allurements of Satan,
nor seek for ourselves inventions, which may eventually turn to our ruin;
but that we may continue fixed in our obedience to you,
and daily call on you,
and drink of the fullness of your bounty,
and at the same time strive to serve you from the heart,
and to glorify your name,
and thus to prove that we are wholly devoted to you,
according to the great obligations under which you have laid us,
when it had pleased you to adopt us in your only-begotten Son.—Amen.