John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 2:33

"How trimmest thou thy way to seek love! therefore even the wicked women hast thou taught thy ways." — Jeremiah 2:33 (ASV)

This verse is explained differently, but the Prophet simply means that the Jews were like lascivious women. These women not only despise their husbands at home but also wander everywhere, paint their faces, and seek for themselves all the charms of wantonness. He says that the Jews had acted in this way; therefore, he says that they made beautiful their ways.

The Hebrew verb has a wide meaning: it means to prepare or to conciliate favor. But its meaning here is as if the Prophet had said, “Why do you disguise and paint yourself like prostitutes, who use many artifices to allure young men and to inflame their lusts? Why then do you undertake so much labor to gain a prostitute's wages?” We will later see why he says this, for he rebukes them for turning to the Assyrians and the Egyptians.

It was a common practice for the Prophets to compare the people to lovers. For the Jews, while they should have been firmly attached to God (like a chaste woman, who does not turn her eyes here and there, nor wander about, but is devoted to her husband alone), sought safety first from the Assyrians, then from the Egyptians. This sinful disposition is what the Prophet here condemns. Therefore, he speaks of them metaphorically as an adulterous woman, who despises her husband, pursues anyone she can find, seeks wanton and foolish young men in all places, and offers herself to satisfy anyone's desires. We now understand what the Prophet means.

The words must be noted: he says, Why do you beautify your ways? He refers here to the care a wanton woman takes to adorn her person, as if he had said, “Why do you prepare yourself in this way? And why do you seek for yourself what is splendid and elegant, so that your appearance may deceive the eyes of the simple?”

For the Jews could have remained safe and secure under God’s protection, and could have done so without any calamity.

As a husband is content with the beauty of his wife and seeks no artificial and refined elegancies, so God required nothing from that people except fidelity, like a husband who requires chastity in his wife. The meaning, therefore, is this: “As a wife truly attached to her husband has no need to go to great effort, for she knows that her own native beauty pleases him, nor does she labor much to win her husband’s heart, for her chastity is her best commendation. So you could have lived without any trouble by only serving Me and keeping My law.

But now, what is your chastity? You are like wanton women, who labor to win the hearts of adulterers. For as they burn with lust, there is no end or limit to their attempts to seek embellishments. And they torment themselves merely to attract adulterers to themselves. Such, therefore, are you (says God), for you spend much care and labor in seeking for yourselves foreign lovers.”

He later adds, Therefore you have also taught lewdnesses. He alludes to the words he had previously used, You have made fine (or fair) your ways: and now he says, you have also taught wickednesses by your ways. He declares that the Jews were worse than the Assyrians and the Egyptians, just as a lascivious woman is far worse than all the adulterers whom she captivates as her lovers.

For when a young man is not deceived, and the devil does not stoke the flames, he may continue chaste and pure. But when an impudent and wanton woman entices him, it is all over for him.

The Prophet, therefore, says that the Assyrians and the Egyptians were innocent when compared with his own nation. How so? “Because they have been led away,” he says, “by your allurements, like young men who are destroyed by the deceptive adornments of prostitutes. For it is the same as if they had fallen into snares. The evil, therefore, has proceeded from you, and the fault lies with you.”

We now understand the Prophet’s meaning: for he condemns the Jews because they provided an opportunity for evil to both the Assyrians and the Egyptians, while they voluntarily sought their favor.